01:00 AM EDT on Friday, August 20, 2004

They were called RAMFs, sometimes REMFs. The first two letters stood for Rear Area or Rear Echelon. The last two stood for a 12-letter obscenity.

They were the ones who stayed behind -- the noncombat support troops who pounded typewriters, stocked the shelves at the PX, cooked in the mess hall, repaired truck engines, tended bar at the enlisted men's club, manned the huge supply depots, processed paychecks and did the dozens of other things vital to the war effort but were removed from the line of fire.

So those who were in combat came up with those nifty acronyms for those who weren't. They were applied with a salty disdain. And it didn't help that everybody got the same combat pay just for being there.

Now that Vietnam veterans are hot property, right there in the eye of the political storm, it is perhaps a good time to check credentials. Because sometimes, believe it or not, the war experience gets bolder and bloodier as the years go by. The office clerk becomes the infantry point man, facing the possibility of deadly ambush with every step down a jungle trail. The mechanic becomes a mortar man, dropping in rounds under intense enemy fire.

It happens. It's not easy telling the kids or grandkids that you fought the war with a manual typewriter instead of an M-60 machine gun. There is some dramatic revision at times. It hurts no one.

It's important to remember, though, that in Vietnam, there were about 10 people in rear area assignments for every 1 who was in combat. So as veterans of that war come forward to weigh in on the race for president, it would serve the cause of accuracy and public understanding to make sure they have known the same dangers as the man they are trying so hard to put down.

There was a wonderful cartoon by Oliphant in yesterday's Journal. It shows five barroom warriors discussing John Kerry.

"In all my time as a clerk-typist in Vietnam, I never seen Kerry do nothing HEE-ROIC," says one.

"You an me was right there in latrine maintenance -- we orta know," says another.

So, Oliphant seems to be saying, there could be Vietnam veterans out there putting down John Kerry's combat credentials without ever having been close enough to combat to know what they're talking about.

I was somewhere in between. As a Marine combat correspondent, I spent time on combat operations but never the 30 or 40 days that Marine grunts often put in. And the thing I used most often was a plastic-wrapped notebook. I spent more time back where the cold beer was than out where the fighting was going on.

But I saw enough to appreciate the differences. There were people who lived dirty for weeks, "humped" for miles, fought those nasty little hit-and-run firefights day after day, saw unspeakable brutality and dreamed of clean sheets and cheeseburgers.

And there were many, many more who slept on a bunk every night after warm chow in the mess hall and a few beers and maybe a porn flick at the club.

So if those threatened by John Kerry's candidacy continue to haul in Vietnam veterans willing to turn on one of their own, it seems only right to ask those veterans if they, like Kerry, actually heard a shot fired in anger.

It seems a very minor but very fair standard to apply.

Then there are those, of course, who question Kerry's service in Vietnam without ever having served there themselves. They are neither RAMFs nor REMFs.

They are just shameless lowlifes.

Bob Kerr can be reached by e-mail at bkerr [at] projo.com.