Letter to the Editor

The controversy between pro- and anti-Kerry Vietnam Swift boat veterans seems to have reached an impasse. So far, the documentary evidence as well as the most reliable eye- witness testimony overwhelmingly supports Kerry’s position. Nevertheless, there is a considerable body of anecdotal evidence from Kerry’s compatriots that refutes this evidence. Essentially, the anti-Kerry group (which is clearly pro-Bush, despite its protestations to the contrary) is offering a conspiracy theory: According to this theory, a young John Kerry, swollen with political ambition, volunteers for dangerous duty. His objective is to create a false record as a war hero. To that end, he arranges his own wounds, writes a fictitious action report, and somehow cons his shipmates and superior officers into validating his fabricated account. On the face of it, this theory is absurd, not because it is a conspiracy theory, but because it fails to account for the known circumstances: What rational person would put him or her self in harms way on the basis of such a cold-blooded political calculation? Whether one agrees or disagrees with Kerry’s politics, nothing in his long record of public service suggests that he is mentally deranged, as he would have to be to have plotted such a hazardous and implausible scheme. Moreover, if the wartime motives attributed to Kerry by his detractors are credible, is his anti-war stance rendered incredible? Surely, so cynical a conspirator would realize that in returning home as an anti-war protestor, he was undermining the very record he had run such risks to establish.

Assuming all this is true, the question still remains: Why would over two hundred presumably honorable men seek to discredit one of their own? The Democratic Party answer is simple: These men are political pawns willing to say anything to further the cause of their candidate, George W. Bush. While unfortunately this argument might apply to some of those involved (John O’Neil for instance, whose well-established credentials as a Republican stooge for Nixon date back to the early 1970s), this is surely too simplistic an explanation. More plausible, in my view, is the notion that most of these men are victims of what Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung termed “denial,” i.e., the need to suppress truths too painful to be confronted openly. It is a matter of record uncontested by any reputable historian that atrocities were committed in Vietnam, as Kerry related in his Senate testimony. Vietnam was an unjust war, if for no other reason than that the distinction between combatants and non-combatants, required by the doctrine of just war, was not observed. As in our current Iraqi War, the conditions under which the Vietnam War was waged made that distinction difficult, if not impossible, to observe. Indeed, it was plainly a matter of policy that it not be observed.

Numerous Vietnam veterans, unable to understand the patriotism of a man who placed his loyalty to democratic principles ahead of his loyalty to a misguided governmental policy, were incensed by Kerry’s willingness to “speak the truth to power” when he returned from Southeast Asia. I would suggest that the men who are impugning Kerry’s war record experienced precisely what he did, but were unable to confront that disturbing truth openly. Apparently, they still are. Such men are in denial about our Cold War history, about the changes that overtook America in the 1960s, and about the futility of the Vietnam conflict itself. They do not merit support, but neither do they deserve condemnation. We owe these men our gratitude for their well-intentioned service many years ago, our pledge that the traumas inflicted on them will not be needlessly visited upon other young men and women elsewhere, and our sympathetic understanding of their long and no-doubt painful dilemma. I support John Kerry’s claim to being an authentic war hero precisely because his experience in war led him to speak out on behalf of peace. He demonstrated the courage to fight when necessary and the wisdom to desist when fighting was shown to be unnecessary. It is primarily for this reason that I support his bid to be our next commander-in-chief.

Dr. Greg Pepetone
Professor of Music and Interdisciplinary Studies

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 3 2004. Filed under Letters to the Editor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry