Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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War Heroes

Rich Galen

Friday July 30, 2004

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From Boston, Massachusetts
The Democratic National Convention

I have no beef with Senator John Kerry's war record. In fact, I suspect I have less of a beef with his war record than HE did, until recently when Kerry decided his war record was a good thing.

This whole war record business is new to the Democrats. The notion of needing to have been in combat before you can be President has not been in the forefront of their thinking since about 1960.

That year, an extremely wealthy Democratic Senator from Massachusetts with the initials JFK - John Fitzgerald Kennedy - ran on his having been in the Navy during a war, having commanding a small boat, and having rescued one of his crewmembers.

Does any of this seem eerily parallel to John Forbes Kerry's story?

Here's the list of Democratic nominees since Kennedy and their military records:

1964 - Lyndon Johnson. Served a brief stint with the Navy in the Pacific before President Roosevelt ordered all sitting Members of Congress to return to Washington
1968 - Hubert Humphrey. Missed World War II altogether.
1972 - George McGovern. Flew B-24 Liberators out of Italy during World War II, about which, Stephen Ambrose wrote an entire book.
1976 - Jimmy Carter. Used his degree in nuclear engineering to demonstrate an understanding of cold war issues. The fact that the degree was from the Naval Academy was more-or-less secondary. Nonetheless, had seven years of military service.
1984 - Walter Mondale. Drafted in 1951 and served the minimum two years, rising to the rank of Corporal.
1988 - Michael Dukakis. Also a draftee who served two years in the US Army but not, as we learned, as a tank driver.
1992 - Bill Clinton. Hahahahahahahaha.
2000 - Al Gore. Served for six months in Vietnam as a reporter for Stars & Stripes.
2004 - John Kerry. Need we say more?

As we listen to the delegates' raucous applause and watch their celebratory high-fives every time someone mentions Senator Kerry's service record, we can't help but wonder where that rapture was in 1992 when George H.W. Bush - who, as a pilot, was shot down in the Pacific and was rescued by a passing submarine - was running against Bill Clinton.

Or in 1996 when that very same Bill Clinton, ran against Bob Dole who had been so seriously wounded with the 10th Mountain Division in World War II that his very life was in doubt.

If anything, I seem to remember the Democrats continuing to celebrate Bill Clinton's cleverness in staying out of the draft. Forget about National Guard service, Clinton had stopped just short of taking out Canadian citizenship.

The scent of hypocrisy is strong in the air, here. Elizabeth Edwards, in her speech introducing her husband, reached new heights in political hyperbole by attempting to make the point that John's public service as a Santa Claus should count at least as much as six years in the Air National Guard flying fighter jets.

I am putting aside the fact that Kerry, upon his return to the US from Vietnam, threw away his medals (or the ribbons representing the medals) as a protest to the war. I can't - and have no desire - to look into his soul to see if the protest was politically motivated, but having been in Vietnam he had the standing to speak out against it and I will stipulate that it was a heartfelt protest.

Many of the delegates attending this convention - perhaps most of the delegates attending this convention - were not just anti-war; they were anti-military. They, or their allies, were the people calling returning Vietnam veterans "baby killers" and causing base commanders to order active duty personnel to wear civilian clothing while off base to avoid confrontations.

They, too, might have held these views as a matter of conscience. If so, it would be nice to see some of that conscience demonstrated here in Boston.

My political antennae are telling me that conscience has nothing to do with it. Political expediency, however, does.

On the Secret Decoder Ring Page today: A Mullfoto showing how hard I've worked here, a photo of a Swift Boat, and yet another dandy Catchy Caption of the Day.

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