If you haven't read it, you should. Many of the problems with the Iraq war (including intelligence issues, failure of the local population to fight on the US side, a dismissive attitude towards international law, misrepresentations from the Administration, a compliant and indifferent press, rightwing accusations that opponents of the war were actually opposed to the troops ...) are echoes of the Vietnam experience. Kerry as a young man did a beautiful job of discussing many issues, making clear his genuine concern for the lives and safety of his brother soldiers, his anger at the inadequate treatment of wounded veterans, his love for his country, and his respect for international norms of conduct.
Of course, thirty years later, one can imagine things Kerry could have said better. But Bush is just blowing smoke when he claims Kerry should apologize. This is honest and honorable testimony. You can find it at
http://www.c-span.org/2004vote/jkerrytestimony.asp but here is a lengthy excerpt that gives much of the flavor of the hearing:
Legislative Proposals Relating to the War in Southeast Asia Thursday, April 22, 1971 United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:05 a.m., in Room 4221, New Senate Office Building, Senator J. W. Fulbright (Chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Fulbright, Symington, Pell, Aiken, Case and Javits
The Chairman: <snip> I want also to congratulate Mr. Kerry, you, and your associates upon the restraint that you have shown, certainly in the hearing the other day when there were a great many of your people here. I think you conducted yourselves in a most commendable manner throughout this week. <snip>
Senator Javits: Mr. Chairman, I was down there to the veterans' camp yesterday and saw the New York group and I would like to say I am very proud of the deportment and general attitude of the group. <snip>
Mr. Kerry: <snip> I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony. <snip>
I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. <snip>
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
We call this investigation the "Winter Soldier Investigation." The term "Winter Soldier" is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.
We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. <snip>
We are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country. <snip>
We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North Vietnamese, or American.
We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. <snip>
We watched the U.S. falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. <snip>
Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake. <snip>
But the largest corps of unemployed in this country are veterans of this war, and of those veterans 33 percent of the unemployed are black. That means 1 out of every 10 of the Nation's unemployed is a veteran of Vietnam.
The hospitals across the country won't, or can't meet their demands. It is not a question of not trying. They don't have the appropriations. <snip>
I understand 57 percent of all those entering the VA hospitals talk about suicide. <snip>
We are asking here in Washington for some action, action from the Congress of the United States of America which has the power to raise and maintain armies, and which by the Constitution also has the power to declare war. <snip>
We are also here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We are here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric and so many others. Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. <snip>
Finally, this administration has done us the ultimate dishonor. They have attempted to disown us and the sacrifice we made for this country. <snip>
But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission, to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbarous war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and the fear that have driven this country these last 10 years and more and so when, in 30 years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory but mean instead the pace where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning. <snip>
The Chairman: Mr. Kerry, it is quite evident from that demonstration that you are speaking not only for yourself but for all your associates, as you properly said in the beginning. <snip>
You have said that the question before this committee and the Congress is really how to end the war. <snip>
The question before us is how to do it. <snip>
I realize you want it immediately, but I think that procedure was about as immediate as any by which a country has ever succeeded in ending such a conflict or a similar conflict. Would that not appeal to you?
Mr. Kerry: Well, Senator, frankly it does not appeal to me if American men have to continue to die when they don't have to, particularly when it seems the Government of this country is more concerned with the legality of where men sleep than it is with the legality of where they drop bombs. (Applause.) <snip>
The Chairman: The congress cannot directly under our system negotiate a cease-fire or anything of this kind. <snip>
Mr. Kerry: <snip> But I think if can talk in this legislative body about filibustering for porkbarrell programs, then we should start now to talk about filibustering for the saving of lives and of our country. (Applause.) <snip>
President Kennedy said this, many times. He said that the United States simply can't right every wrong, that we can't solve the problems of the other 94 percent of mankind. <snip>
Senator Pell: <snip> As the witness knows, I have a very high personal regard for him and hope before his life ends he will be a colleague of ours in this body.
This war was really just as wrong, immoral, and unrelated to our national interests 5 years ago as it is today, and I must say I agree with you. I think it is rather poor taste for the architects of this war to now be sitting as they are in quite sacrosanct intellectual glass houses. <snip>
It is interesting, speaking of veterans and speaking of statistics, that the press has never picked up and concentrated on quite interesting votes in the past. In those votes you find the majority of hawks were usually nonveterans and the majority of doves were usually veterans. <snip>
Finally, in connection with Lieutenant Calley, which is a very emotional issue in this country, I was struck by your passing reference to that incident. <snip>
Mr. Kerry: <snip> But I think that in this question you have to separate guilt from responsibility, and I think clearly the responsibility for what has happened there lies elsewhere.
I think it lies with the men who designed free fire zones. I think it lies with the men who encourage body counts. <snip>
There is one other body that has tremendous power in this country, which is a favorite topic of Vice President Agnew and I would take some agreement with him. That would be the fourth estate. The press. I think the very reason that we veterans are here today is the result partially of our inability to get our story out through the legitimate channels. <snip>
I called the media afterward and asked them why and the answer was, from one of the networks, it doesn't have to be identified, "because, is, new business is really partly entertainment business visually, you see, and a press conference like that is not visual." <snip>
I said, "If I take some crippled veterans doesn't to the White House and we chain ourselves to the gates, will we get coverage?" "Oh, yes, we will cover that."
The Chairman: <snip> I think you and your associates have contributed a great deal in the actions you have taken. As I said in the beginning, the fact that you have shown both great conviction and patience about this matter and at the same time conducted yourself in the most commendable manner has been the most effective demonstration, if I may use that word. <snip>
Senator Symington: <snip> Over the years members of this committee who spoke out in opposition to the war were often accused of stabbing our boys in the back. What, in your opinion, is the attitude of servicemen in Vietnam about congressional opposition to the war?
Mr. Kerry: If I could answer that, it is very difficult, Senator, because I just know, I don't want to get into the game of saying I represent everybody over there, but let me try to say as straightforwardly as I can, we had an advertisement, ran full page, to show you what the troops read. It ran in Playboy and the response to it within two and a half weeks from Vietnam was 1,200 members. We received initially about 50 to 80 letters a day from troops there. We now receive about 20 letters a day from troops arriving at our New York office. Some of these letters- and I wanted to bring some down, I didn't know we were going to be testifying here and I can make them available to you- are very, very moving, some of them written by hospital corpsmen on things, on casualty report sheets which say, you know, "Get us out of here." "You are the only hope we have got." "You have got to get us back; it is crazy." We received recently 80 members of the 101st Airborne signed up in one letter. Forty members from a helicopter assault squadron, crash and rescue mission signed up in another one. <snip>
Mr. Kerry: <snip> The intelligence missions themselves are based on very, very flimsy information. <snip> It is not reliable; everybody is feeding each other double intelligence, and I think that is what comes back to this country. <snip>
I know General Wheeler came over at one point and major in Saigon escorted him around. General Wheeler went out to the field and saw 12 pacification leaders and asked about 10 of them how things were going and they all said, "It is really going pretty badly." The 11th one said, "It couldn't be better, General. We are really doing the thing here to win the war." And the General said, "I am finally glad to find somebody who knows what he is talking about." (Laughter) <snip>
I think the press has been extremely negligent in reporting. <snip>
I went to Saigon and told this to a member of the news bureau there and I said, "Look, you have got to tell the American people this story." The response was, "Well, I can't write that kind of thing. I can't criticize that much because if I do I would lose my accreditation, and we have to be very careful about just how much we say and when." <snip>
The Chairman: You have certainly done a remarkable job of it. <snip>
Thank you very much. (Applause)
(Whereupon, at 1 p.m. the committee was adjourned subject to the call of the Chair.)
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