Boston Globe: Ex-guardsmen say jab at Bush tars them

Maybe this issue isn't having quite the effect Terry McAuliffe intended:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/02/23/ex_guardsmen_say_jab_at_bush_tars_them/

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Ex-guardsmen say jab at Bush tars them

By By Bryan Bender Globe Staff, 2/23/2004

WASHINGTON -- Stephen Eckhardt was in the National Guard in 1968 when he was sent to Vietnam to run supplies into sniper-filled combat zones. Now he believes that service is being unfairly maligned.

Attacks by Democratic Party leaders on President Bush for his Vietnam-era service in the Air National Guard and questions of whether he fulfilled his requirements have angered former Guard members, like Eckhardt, who say some of the political jabs imply that anyone who served in the Guard was trying to avoid combat.

"I wanted to spit glass," Eckhardt said last week in an interview from his office in Miami, where he is a corporate executive recruiter. "It makes me feel my service was less than honorable and that I was just a draft dodger. I really got upset because I felt, for political purposes, a lot of people who joined the National Guard and fulfilled their duties were being portrayed as a bunch of privileged folks who got in to avoid service."

Enough Guard veterans share Eckhardt's views that Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, quietly sent a message earlier this month to the National Guard Association of the United States, recognizing the service of guardsmen. "There are many members of the National Guard who served as I did in Vietnam, and I honor their service," Kerry said in a statement sent to the association after the group told campaign aides of its members' anger. "Many of them died and their names are on the Vietnam memorial alongside some of those in my Swift Boat."

Guardsmen have made numerous phone calls and sent multiple e-mails to their association expressing concern that Democrats' criticism of Bush's service unfairly gives the impression that others who served in the National Guard did not do their part. Interviews with Guard veterans indicate a strong degree of concern that the criticism of Bush's service represents criticism of the Guard itself.

Kerry, whose supporters have contrasted his much-decorated service in Vietnam with Bush's infrequent training periods in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guards, said in the statement to the association on Feb. 13 that he "will always honor anyone who serves in the National Guard and carries out his or her service commitment."

Recent comments by Kerry and others, however, may give the impression that Guard service was an easy way out of the jungles of Southeast Asia, according to Guard officials and veterans. One controversial comment came from Kerry during an interview with FOX News Channel on Feb. 4.

"I've never made any judgments about any choice somebody made about avoiding the draft, about going to Canada, going to jail, being a conscientious objector, going into the National Guard," Kerry said. "Those are choices people make."

By lumping Guard service with individuals who avoided doing any service at all was "in effect, a slap in the face," said John Goheen, who retired from the National Guard in 2001 after 20 years and now works for the association. "Words can hurt a lot. They were intended for one individual, but the collateral damage has resulted in an awful lot of hurt feelings."

Kerry's standard answer on the campaign trail when asked about Bush's service record and Vietnam is that he respects Bush's service in the National Guard as well as all guardsmen who served, but he also notes that many young men -- at that time -- joined the National Guard expressly to avoid fighting in Southeast Asia.

Another stinging comment came earlier this month from Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He said, "George Bush never served in our military in our country." And a cartoon in The Miami Herald last week also touched a nerve. It depicted Kerry dodging bullets in Vietnam while Bush sat on the hood of a car at his Guard base stateside sipping a cold drink.

Some guardsmen fault the president for allegedly not fulfilling his duty and getting out of trouble when they believe they would not have been granted such an opportunity. Bush received permission to fulfill some of his Guard obligation with a different unit than the one he joined. But there are no records of his service for some time periods. Later, he requested and obtained an early release from his service to attend Harvard Business School.

In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" on Feb. 8, Bush warned that Democrats' attacks on him would backfire: "I wouldn't denigrate service to the Guard."

Statistics indicate that thousands of guardsmen served in Vietnam, while others were called to duty for other dangerous missions at the time. But there was not a wholesale call-up similar to the ones for the 1991 Gulf War and the current fighting in Iraq, and Guard enlistment was, for some, an alternative to the draft.

In all, Army figures indicate that between 20,000 and 25,000 members of the part-time National Guard and Army Reserve served in the early years of the Vietnam War -- before President Lyndon B. Johnson decided that the reserves would not be utilized in large numbers. That was less than 3 percent of all who served in Vietnam, but retired Major General Richard C. Alexander, president of the National Guard Association, said: "The Guard during Vietnam was not all that different than it is today or any time in our 367-year history. Citizens joined and served their country. Some were sent to war. Some of those never came home. Anything else is just a misrepresentation of history guardsmen know to be true."

Retired Colonel Mike Doubler, author of "Civilian in Peace, Soldier in War," a history of the National Guard, said that at the height of the Vietnam War, the Army National Guard comprised about 400,000 soldiers.

"There was a cadre of guardsmen that had always been in the Guard and were going to stay in the Guard. They were disappointed that it wasn't mobilized for the conflict," he said. "It's incorrect to say that everyone in the Guard was avoiding military service. A large pool was already there, and that point has been lost."

Eckhardt, now 57, joined the Illinois National Guard in 1968, the same year that Bush got a slot in the Texas Air National Guard. That year, nearly 9,000 members of the Army and Air National Guard were sent to Vietnam. Of those, 94 were killed in action and three went missing in action, according to official Army statistics.

Eckhardt's unit helped quell riots after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. He then served his Vietnam tour. A comrade was killed when the truck the soldier was driving was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. "I didn't use any influence to get into the Guard," Eckhardt said. "I went and came home."

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.

 

thanks for clearing that up.

 

rim, why won't Kerry release his military records? from the times of london:

 

remember when Kerry told Judy Woodruf of CNN that he hadn't "accused american troops of war crimes?" well, today's nypost has some additional info. Why does John Kerry hate the National Guard?

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/18679.htm
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Kerry was present at [VVAW's New York] offices in September 1970, when the group decided to write then-Mayor John V. Lindsay and demand that the city refuse to welcome another organization, one dedicated to representing other American servicemen.

The group John Kerry and his associates were protesting was The National Guard Association, which had its 1970 convention in New York at the Americana Hotel (now the New York Sheraton) from Sept. 13 to Sept. 17. Kerry's group set up a picket line in front of the Americana, and staged a protest rally against the Guard on Sept. 17, 1970 at 5:30 pm.

Why would they do such a thing? Here's the sort of rhetoric Kerry and Co. used to gather anti-war forces in a mimeographed flyer:

"The National Guard Uses Your Tax Dollar:
"To support the military-industrial complex
"To honor war criminals--Westmoreland, Laird, Nixon, etc.
"To applaud campus murders by National Guard units
"To encourage armed attacks on minority communities"

The decision to stage this defamatory protest against the National Guard--which then comprised 409,412 Army Guard and 89,847 Air Guard personnel--was made in John Kerry's presence and with his full knowledge. Executive-committee minutes for Vietnam Veterans Against the War note that among the six "members attending" a meeting to plan the protest was "John Kerry-NE Rep."

Now, Kerry and others will tell you that Vietnam Veterans Against the War was a group dedicated to advancing the interests of American servicemen--protecting them, bringing them home, helping them. The group's protest against the National Guard Association demonstrates that this claim is revisionist history with a vengeance.

 

not talking about diaries or personal recollections, which, as we've seen in the case of the "atrocities" allegations can be highly suspect. this refers to official records. where are kerry's?

 

ok, this comes from a military chat room, and isn't "news," nor can the guy's bonifides be verified, but still, it's interesting reading. and when you blast the source, please be sure to note the caveats i posted this with:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12272

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A Vet Questions John Kerry's Military Service
By FrontPage Magazine
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 20, 2004

The following was sent to a Marine_chat net_by a retired Marine Master Sergeant who was__in S-2, 3rd Bn, 1st Marines, Korea in 1954. It calls into serious question_John Kerry's_military actions in Vietnam. We present it to give our readers another perspective to the media's one-sided "war hero" adulation, and to open his actions to the light of public discourse. -- The Editors.

I was in the Delta shortly after_John Kerry_left. I know that area well._I_know the operations he was involved in well. I know the tactics and the_doctrine used, and I know the equipment._Although I was attached to CTF-116__(PBRs) I spent a fair amount of_time with CTF-115 (swift boats), Kerry's_command.

Here are my problems and suspicions:

_(1) Kerry was in-country less than four months and collected a Bronze Star,_a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts. I never heard of anybody with any_outfit I worked with (including SEAL One, the Sea Wolves, Riverines and_the_River Patrol Force) collecting that much hardware_that fast, and for such_pedestrian actions. The Swifts did a commendable job, but that duty wasn't_the worst you could draw._They operated only along the coast and in the_major rivers (Bassac and Mekong)._The rough stuff in the hot areas was_mainly handled by the smaller, faster PBRs.
_
(2)_ He collected three Purple Hearts but has_no limp._All his injuries were so minor that he lost no_time from duty. Amazing luck._Or he was putting himself in for_medals every time he bumped his head on the wheel house hatch?_Combat on,_the boats were almost always at close range._You didn't have minor wounds, at least not often._Not three times in a row._Then he used the three_Purple Hearts to request a trip home eight months before the end of his_tour._Fishy.

(3)_ The details of the event for which he was given the Silver Star_make no sense at all._Supposedly, a B-40 was fired at the boat and_missed._Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand, the bow gunner_knocks him down with the twin .50, Kerry beaches the boat, jumps off,_ shoots_Charlie, and retreives the launcher._If true, he did everything wrong.___
____ (a) Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put your_stern_to the action and go balls to the wall._A B-40 has the ballistic_integrity_of a frisbie after about 25 yards, so you put 50 yards or so between you_and_the beach and begin raking it with your .50's.
____ (b)_ Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a .50 caliber_round_and get up?_The guy was dead or dying._The rocket launcher was empty._There was no reason to go after him (except if you knew he was no danger_to_you just flopping around in the dust during his last few seconds on_earth,_and you wanted some derring-do in your after-action report). And we didn't_shoot wounded people._We had rules against that, too.
____ (c)_ Kerry got off the boat._This was a major breach of standing__procedures._Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat in a hot area._EVER!_The reason was simple: If you had somebody on the beach, your boat was_defenseless. It coudn't run and it couldn' t return fire. It was stupid_ and_it put his crew in danger._He should have been relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any boat crewman ever leaving a boat during or after a__firefight.

Something is fishy.

Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial for_carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by running__across the bow of a Japanese destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to_get good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots_of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early and_requests_separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for_Congress._In that election, he_finds out war heroes don't sell well in Massachsetts in 1970, so_he reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the_cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to_invite him to address Congress and has Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the_heavy lifting._A few years later_he winds up in the Senate himself, where he votes_against every major defense bill and_says the CIA is irrelevant after the_Berlin Wall_came down. He votes against_the Gulf War (a big political mistake since that turned out_well), then decides not to make the same mistake_twice so votes for invading Iraq --_but that didn't fare as well with the Democrats, so_he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to_allow him to go to war.

I'm real glad you or I never had this guy covering out flanks in_Vietnam._I sure don't want him as Commander-in-Chief._I hope that_somebody from CTF-115 shows up with some facts challenging Kerry's Vietnam_record._I know in my gut it's wildy inflated.

 

quoth snopes: "Our media should be demanding that Senator Kerry open his service records in the same way they demanded that of President Bush regarding his NG service."

where are the records john? why doesn't the media, and libs on this board, demand the same of kerry that they have of Bush?