Reply #46: It was a blunder to resurrect the ghosts of Vietnam!!!!!!

[IndianaGreen]

Only those that did not live through that traumatic period of our history, or were too young to be affected by it, are the ones that babble "Vietnam! Vietnam!" I don't want to hear Vietnam again!

Vietnam was not a glorious war that liberated an oppressed people!

Trying to sell the Vietnam "hero" thing is like selling the heroism of the French Foreign Legion in the Algerian war or in Vietnam. It won't fly with the Left, and it is not a topic that many people want to talk about.

The best thing Kerry did in Vietnam was not an act of war, and it was not his antiwar activities when he returned home from the war.

The best thing Kerry did were his trips to Vietnam, such as the one he made in May 1991, and the work he did on the POW/MIA issue. Kerry was the key to President Clinton's normalization of relations with Vietnam. I am surprised that these significant accomplishments have been generally overlooked by the campaign, as if they were ashamed of them.

Vietnam War, Peace Pivotal in Kerry's Life

By Edward Walsh
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 3, 2004; Page A01

In November 2000, the twilight of his presidency, Bill Clinton traveled to Vietnam, a place that he and thousands of other young Americans tried to avoid in the 1960s. He spoke at the Vietnam National University of Hanoi, and among those in the audience that he singled out for recognition was a tall man from New England who had been to Vietnam many times before.

His name was John F. Kerry, and he had played a key role in bringing about the first visit to Vietnam by an American president since Richard M. Nixon briefly met with U.S. troops there in 1969.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50479-2004Jan2?language=printer