While I am personally tired of the continued brou-ha-ha made over Sen. John Kerry’s Vietnam War record, I feel compelled to respond to the letter by Charles Wikman (“Military service: Media believes Kerry over vets,” Sept. 13) in which Kerry is again castigated for being a decorated Vietnam War vet.
Whether or not the details of the March 1 swift boat patrol are perfectly known, it is known that John Kerry actually went to Vietnam where he was exposed to hostile fire, was actually wounded and received multiple Purple Heart medals. While John Kerry risked his life in support of his country, George Bush was sitting it out in comfort, supposedly attending National Guard meetings in Texas.
As a Vietnam War veteran, these points are far more important to me than whether one report of a chaotic encounter on a river is 100 percent accurate. From personal experience, I know how precarious field reporting could be. As an Army lieutenant, I acted as a convoy commander in a truck company operating out of DaNang, where we often had anywhere from 40 to 50 vehicles on the road at any one time. Since spacing was crucial to convoy safety it was often difficult to see from one end of the convoy to the other, and part of the convoy could be taking small arms fire while the rest were out of harm’s way. We had to rely on the words of people who were in the kill zone to find out what happened. How good were those hand-written reports? Who knows?
I saw lots of my college classmates avoid Vietnam duty by joining Army Reserve or National Guard units. While a legitimate choice, I would much rather associate with a person who risked his own life than one who only risks the lives of others. And, I think it’s time to leave this non-issue for the real thing.
John A. Dragavon
Snohomish
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