The Democrat's stellar war record invites criticism, though, from those who say he's been an antidefense-spending senator.

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, August 1, 2004

BY SCOTT MacKAY
Journal Staff Writer

BOSTON -- John Kerry's Vietnam War swift boat is the lingering symbol of the Democratic National Convention.

Black men and white men, southerners and northerners, served together on the boat under Kerry's command. Men named McDevitt and Medeiros and Sandusky and Zaladonis and Short helped each other out. Yalie and yahoo coopered for a common cause: upholding the ideal of freedom.

Each man was doing his duty when his country called.

Kerry's subtext is that this is what American life should be like: people putting aside their petty prejudices and greed and doing their best for the nation, a 21-Century television-driven permutation of John Kennedy's, "Ask not your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Much has been said and written about Kerry and Vietnam. Some have cited his service as evidence of patriotism, others see the warrior-turned-war-critic as a calculating opportunist.

In the media-drenched politics of the 2004 presidential campaign, Kerry didn't so much tell American voters about his war experiences as show them though the vivid images of his Navy swift-boat crewmates on the stage at the FleetCenter last Thursday night.

Meet, for example, Fred Short. He grew up in North Little Rock, Arkansas in the nurturing blush of post-World War II patriotism: Sousa marches and picnics on national holidays punctuated by the snappy march of soldiers.

His education ended with high school, after which he volunteered for the U.S. Navy. After serving in Vietnam, Short went back home.

"I put my uniform in my closet," Short recalled in an interview last week. "We weren't given the ticker-tape parades when we came home, we were reviled. I just wanted to get on with my life . . . to blend in."

Short recalls that he was angry; neither pleased with the growing antiwar movement or the nation's refusal to honor the service of Vietnam vets.

If the iconic movie of the World War II generation was White Christmas, for the Vietnam vet there was Rambo. "The stereotype was that were were all wackos," says Short, who still lives near Little Rock and is a computer programmer.

Kerry was raised the scion of pedigreed New England, a graduate of Yale University. He ended up as Short's commander on a navy swift boat in Vietnam.

His tour on swift boats in life-or-death battles against the Viet Cong define Kerry's coming of age. His very public -- and precociously eloquent -- opposition to the war once he came home spawned his political career.

Kerry is walking a tightrope in his campaign as he seeks to legitimatize Vietnam service as the first Vietnam vet to win a presidential nomination. He also wants to reassure protestors that he would never send soliders into battle frivolously and as president would strive to be a peacemaker.

Without his Vietnam service, Kerry is just another bright, ambitious northeastern liberal senator who sees himself in the White House. This is not an endangered species in Washington.

Kerry is not an Eisenhower or even a Wesley Clark; he was not a career military man or distinguished general. Kerry was in combat just four months out of almost 35 years in public life.

But Democrats are using his stint as a sword against the usual Republican attacks: that Democrats are soft on military issues and international terrorism or so in thrall to the party's peacenik wing as to eschew legitimate use of American power.

The contrast with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney is stark; Mr. Bush avoided Vietnam service by enlisting in the Texas National Guard and serving some of his time in the Alabama National Guard. Cheney received a series of educational and other deferments that kept him from being drafted.

Hard feelings linger from Vietnam. Many veterans -- even some of his crewmates -- were angered by Kerry's antiwar activism and his tossing some battle commendations over a fence at an antiwar demonstration. But Kerry's Vietnam vet supporters now bring the criticism down to a campaign contrast.

"What Vietnam medals did George Bush throw away, the answer is none; he doesn't have any," said John Hurley, a Vietnam Vet and longtime Kerry supporter. "How much time did George Bush spend in Vietnam? The answer is none."

"They are only bringing this stuff up because John Kerry is a threat to George Bush's presidency," says Hurley.

In his nomination acceptance, Kerry tried to reconcile the warrior and war protester. There were themes for both the veterans who served and the antiwar left that questioned the Vietnam War and is against President Bush's committment of U.S. troops to Iraq.

"I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war," Kerry told cheering delegates in his acceptance speech.

"In these dangerous days, there is a right way and a wrong way to be strong," Kerry said. "Strength is more than tough words."

"We need to make America once again a beacon in the world," said Kerry. "We need to be looked up to not just feared."

Republicans will continue to hammer away at Kerry's record in the Senate, to show the contradictions in his career between his military service and opposition to defense systems military leaders believe are necesssary, says Marc Genest, a University of Rhoded Island political science professor who has also been a visiting professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

"To be voting against the defense budget ansd especially to be for cutting intelligence money shows the dichotomy between his rhetoric and the reality of his record," sayd Genest. "That is Kerry's Achilles heel."

There is also the possibility, Genese says, that the public will grow tired of Kerry's endless references to Vietnam. "He wears his service so much on his sleeve that after awhile it wears thin."

Kerry is a man easily caricatured as a Boston Brahmin elitist, a windy speaker and stiff stage performer, a senator who overanalyzes issues and has been more follower than leader in his four Senate terms.

The tableau of his crewmates not only punctures that image but sends a deeper message and appeals to generations of American exceptionalism and idealism.

"I saw John Kerry's blood on the deck of that boat," said the Rev. David Alston of Columbia, S.C., another of Kerry's crewmates. "It was American blood and it was red, not blue."

Kerry has acknowledged that he had misgivings about the war while a Yale student. But he volunteered for the Navy; critics say he probably would have been drafted had he not.

Yet, thousands of young men of Kerry's social and economic status in the 1960s ducked Vietnam service by using educational or medical deferments. Many others used connections to join the National Guard, which in those days was known as easy stateside duty that carried scant chance of being shipped to southeast Asia.

A good example is former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, one of Kerry's Democratic nomination opponents. Dean was forced on the defensive after he acknowldeged getting out of the draft due to a medical diagnoses of a bad back, then admitting that he spent the next winter ski bumming in Colorado. Like Kerry, Dean is a Yale graduate from a prominent Yankee family.

Once in the Navy, Kerry attended Officer Candidate School at the Newport Naval Station and volunteered for what was considered a somewhat safe combat duty -- commanding a swift boat in open ocean. Then the Navy changed the mission of swift boats. Navy brass decided they wanted to contest the enemy in Vietnam's canals and rivers.

So swift boats were assigned to patrol the rivers. Kerry took to his assignment as the commander of the boat. Before his tour was over, he would win medals for heroism and bravery, including the Bronze Star.

"John performed well in getting us in and getting us all back out," says Alston. "We did not win the war in Vietnam, but John Kerry won his battle because he brought all of us back."

Over the years, Kerry has remained close to many of his crewmates, helping some cope with life's rough patches; he helped arrange for Del Sandusky, a crewmate who was on FleetCenter stage last Thursday, to receive help for alcohol abuse and depression years ago and kept in touch with Sandusky's doctors for years after.

While in the Navy, Kerry won an early exit from his normal duties. He qualified for early leave under a regulation that allowed a thrice-wounded soldier -- Kerry received three Purple Heart medals -- to be reassigned out of Vietnam combat.

"Let me say something important right up front; nobody asked me to join this campaign," said Jim Rassman, of Florence, Or., the burly crewmate whose life Kerry saved by pulling him from a muddy river under ememy fire.

"Any one of these 12 men can tell you, in a tight situation, when your whole future -- your whole life -- depends on the decisions of one man, you can count on John Kerry," said Rassman.

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