Kerry served U.S., turned against it

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, February 12, 2004

I admire John Kerry for his military service in Vietnam. I deplore his actions following his return to the United States. John Kerry returned home to become a high profile anti-war activist. Of all returning veterans, Lt. John Kerry should have known better.

I, too, was a young lieutenant in Vietnam. I had the responsibility of leading men in combat. Regularly, we seized U.S. news articles about the anti-war movement in the United States from the bodies of dead Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army. The enemy used this kind of reporting to reinforce its cause in the minds of their field forces fighting the U.S. and South Vietnamese. Compounding the use of our own press against us, finding it on the bodies of our enemy was tremendously demoralizing for our own fighting men.

No greater disservice can be given to the American military than not to support them when our nation has sent them to war. John Kerry served his nation honorably in Vietnam, then turned against the very troops he led in combat. I could never vote for Sen. Kerry for president of the United States.

Everett