Vets’ Feelings Mixed Over Kerry’s Service

– There are veterans supporting John Kerry at most campaign events. ...

"I feel good about the fact that he was a vet; I feel good about his loyalty," says Roland McAlpin, a Army veteran of the Vietnam War.

... And there are others backing attack ads against him on TV, or accusing him of being a fake.

"It wouldn’t hurt if he were to come clean, if he were to fess up," says Gordy Evans, a former Marine in Vietnam.

According to recent polls, the nearly 27-million-member-strong veterans constituency is as divided - or slightly in favor of President Bush - as the rest of Americans.

The only thing the vets can agree on during this contentious debate over war records and military service nearly 40 years ago is it’s always good to have a president who’s also a veteran.

"The presidents that I fought under were much less likely to go to war if they’d been shot at when they were young," says Pete McCloskey, a former eight-term Republican congressman.

Personal Beliefs

Everything else about candidate Kerry’s war record has divided Vietnam veterans as deeply as the war itself, mostly according to their own personal politics.

Some are angry about Kerry’s very public protests, and testimony before Congress, after the war.

"As a veteran, my issue with Kerry is the fact is that he came back in ’71 and lied to Congress," says Tom Callinan, a former Marine and Vietnam veteran. "He represented that all of us were baby-killers and burned down villages. And it was just the opposite."

Evans, a Marine reconnaissance pilot and forward air controller in Vietnam, still believes Kerry’s statements about American atrocities and war policy were treasonous.

"His photo hangs in a Hanoi museum in a war crimes room," Evans says, "and he’s listed as a foreign hero."

"The issue of character and trustworthiness are so vitally important for somebody who is a commander-in-chief," Evans adds, reflecting on how he’ll vote. "I’m not even going to address the domestic issues or other political things."

Sean Kilcoyne, another former Marine veteran of Vietnam, has a completely different take on Kerry’s actions.

"My reaction is that he was his most heroic when he testified before Congress, because he broke the rule which has allowed this society to continue to make war," Kilcoyne says. "It’s very, very ugly, what he portrayed. But he told the truth and crossed the Rubicon, if you will.

"Since we’re putting the majority of our efforts into thinking about war, waging war, I think we should probably have someone that was in a war, at the head of a country right now," he adds.

Partisan Split

A sampling of veterans at the Swords to Ploughshares Veterans Support Center in San Francisco and at a local airport suggested that as long as veterans continue to view Lt. J. G. Kerry’s war record through the prism of their own politics past and present, the debate is unlikely to change many hearts and minds, let alone votes in November.

"The Democrats that love Kerry, no matter what you say, they’re going to stick by him," Callinan says. "And those Republicans that love Bush and want him re-elected will take that side."

Elmer Smith, yet another veteran, thinks nothing about this veteran issue is going to change a Democrat or a Republican from voting the way he’s voted in the past.

"Past three elections, I voted for Democrat, and I will vote Democrat this time," Smith says.

McCloskey, the former congressman, has first-hand experience with the politics of war records. He challenged Richard Nixon for the Republican presidential nomination in ’72, and is a highly-decorated Marine veteran in Korea, where he earned the Navy Cross, a silver star, and two purple hearts.

"It wasn’t important in ’96: You had this marvelous war veteran, Bob Dole, one of the finest men I’ve ever known in politics, running against the guy who had dodged combat in his youth," McClosky says. "And in 1972, you had George McGovern, who had a silver star, who’s a real war hero, a quiet, modest man, never made much of his war hero, against Nixon who never heard a shot fired in anger."

McCloskey is surprised Kerry’s war record has become such an issue.

"If you’re a veteran, you can have great reasons to hate George Bush, who dodged combat, or to hate John Kerry, for some reason that he said the war was wrong at a time when people were fighting and dying," McCloskey says. "My guess is that this whole political campaign won’t change the minds more than 5 percent of the veterans."

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