Well, yes and no.
While digging around some of my older files I found this article. For those of you who don’t know, Lewis “Chesty” Puller is a fabled Marine serving in WWII and Korea. He is so admired that the Marine Corp mascot at the (Washington, DC) Marine Corps Barracks is named “Chesty” in his honor, and is paraded every Friday night during their summer twilight ceremony.
Chesty had a son, Lewis Puller, Jr., who wanted to emulate his famous father’s career. He wound up as a young platoon leader in Vietnam and returned home a short three months later missing his legs and most of his fingers. After winning the Pulitzer for his autobiography, he became an alcoholic and ultimately committed suicide.
His autobiography says this about Vietnam and the government leaders that sent him there:
"I had given myself to a cause that, in addition to having robbed me of my of my youth and left me crippled and deformed, allowed me no pride for having been a participant."Puller eventually found himself swayed by the protesting veterans, and one Vet in particular - John Kerry:
"One articulate young combat veteran named John Kerry delivered a moving address before a special session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that, for me, summed up the sense of betrayal and the disillusionment I felt toward the administration and the leadership that had directed the course of the war from the safety of its Washington power base." Puller says such acts as Kerry’s helped strip him "of my remaining self-delusions" about what he concluded was a "wasted cause."
This should be on Kerry's website. For me, I think I'll see if I can find Puller's book.
The story is by Ellen Rafshoon. I got it from <
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/>
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