Thanks for a very moving tribute to your father.

My sentiments are similar to many of the early commenters’. I was born in 1963, on the cusp of the baby-boom generation. My parents were old-school, sane liberals who supported civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and our right to a secular public education. They both opposed Vietnam.

I didn’t have a perfect relationship with my parents, but we almost never disagreed about politics. Dad didn’t live to see 9/11, but Mom – who had become increasingly disenchanted with the Democrats under Clinton – came around to the same views you and I share about Iraq and Afghanistan. She died around the time of the liberation of Baghdad, but if she were alive today I’m sure she would break with tradition and vote Republican in the upcoming election.

Vietnam? The whole thing was over by the time I got to high school, so I was too young to form an independent opinion on it. Today, I don’t know. I do know that my parents were intelligent people of good conscience and judgment, and I am certain they made the best decision they could on the information that was available to them. But knowing what I now know of the Left, I must question how much of that information was distorted or simply false.

Among his personal papers, my father left behind a very moving poem he composed during the Vietnam era, describing his feelings at hearing an unnamed “young man” telling of atrocities committed by American troops in Vietnam. I have little doubt that that young man was John Kerry.

The converse isn’t necessarily the case, of course…

Regards,

Ric Locke

Yisgadal v’yiskadash sh’mei rabbaw

B’allmaw dee v’raw chir’usei

v’uv’chayei d’chol beis yisroel,

yamlich malchusei,b’chayeichon, uv’yomeichon,

ba’agawlaw u’vizman kawriv, v’imru: Amein.

Amein. Y’hei sh’mei rabbaw m’vawrach l’allam u’l'allmei allmayaw

Y’hei sh’mei rabbaw m’vawrach l’allam u’l'allmei allmayaw.

Yis’bawrach, v’yishtabach, v’yispaw’ar, v’yisromam, v’yis’nasei,

v’yis’hadar, v’yis’aleh, v’yis’halawl sh’mei d’kudshaw b’rich hu

b’rich hu

L’aylaw min kol birchawsaw v’shirawsaw,

tush’b'chawsaw v’nechemawsaw, da’ami’rawn b’all’maw, v’imru: Amein

Amein

Oseh shawlom bim’ro’mawv, hu ya’aseh shawlom,

awleinu v’al kol yisroel v’imru: Amein

Amein

Kerry’s motives are, I think, fairly easy to divine.

His draft board was after him and refused his request to spend a year in France. He joined the Navy, one of the safest services in that war, unless you were an aviator. His first cruise gave him Vietnam credentials (Vietnam Service Ribbon) but no combat and no in-country ribbon (a Green and White thing which I have lost). He heard about the SWIFT boats and operation market time – which was coastal patrol ( we lost a couple of P-3s during that – one to a Mig that snuck out, and one to a wing fire from AAA ). Market time was a combat assignment, one of the few where a JG could command his own vessel, and was pretty safe. It looked like a great deal to Kerry, so he signed up. He returned to Cam Rahn Bay in Dec 1968 and was ready to start Market Time when Adm. Elmo Zumwalt decided to use the Swift boats in aggressive riverine patrol – much more hazardous. By then, it was too late for Kerry to get out of this, so he did the next best thing: he needed 3 purple hearts to get out. He got one on a boston whaler at Cam Rahn, with no enemy around. It was bogus and not awarded until later. When he got into the river world, he ended up in some hot areas, and got a second purple heart from a mine explosion – another slight wound. The third purple heart was also self inflicted (per today’s word from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth). At that point he left.

It is my understanding that he was in Vietnam a little over four months but on a Swift boat a little over one month.

The hardest thing was dealing with the image change and dealing with no longer being one of the cool liberals. Peer pressure is the biggest glue of the left.

The joke of this election is that the post-Viet Nam era ended on 9/11/01. Half the country hasn’t gotten it yet. The post-Viet Nam days where American power was seen as bad and not to be trusted are over. We can’t indulge in the adolescent self-indulgences of hyrper-criticism. In order to survive we have to know that we are good and worth defending.

And we are. The Michael Moores are having their last hurrah as they fade into oblivion. This election has the opportunity for the country to make a choice – for American goodness, strength, and noble mission. Kerry doesn’t have a mission other than have people like us (peer pressure).

Bush has a mission to defend Western Civilization by spreading freedom around the world. I am glad to support Bush in America’s eventual triumph.

Beautiful post. May your father’s memory be for a blessing.