Many on the Left, including John F. Kerry, tout that they actually saved lives with their anti-war activities.
The American Civil War is said to have been the most divisive conflict in our nation’s history, and in terms of actual battlefield casualties, this is certainly true. However, with the exception of some tender sensibilities concerning the Confederate flag and those seeking reparations for slavery, that conflict has been laid to rest. Not so the Vietnam War.
Against the counsel of a few sane members of his party, John F. Kerry has chosen to reopen the still-festering national wound that was our longest war. The Democrats have frequently utilized divide and conquer tactics, but Kerry — in a way that is both self-aggrandizing and self-defeating — has cracked a can of worms that might well eat away at his candidacy.
Vietnam has for years been viewed as a victory, not only for the North Vietnamese and their Communist handlers, but for those Leftists in the original ‘peace’ movement and their media accomplices. It was their version of events in Southeast Asia that made it into the history books and the national mindset of those too young to recall the era firsthand.
For those of us who do vividly remember those events, the years have softened the rage many felt while living through them, but the memories remain. One of the canards the Left would have you believe is that all those who opposed the war did so for altruistic reasons, that they were the real patriots and not those ‘baby-killers’ doing the bidding of the U.S. military-industrial complex.
I remember a warm spring day in April 1971, when the Left held one of their ‘moratoriums’ where students were supposed to rise and leave their classrooms in protest. I was sitting in my high school English class when the appointed hour drew near and as some chairs began shuffling, our teacher made the following announcement:
Gentlemen, I am aware of what some of you are planning to do. Let me inform you of the consequences of your actions. Anyone who leaves this room will receive a failing grade for the year. If you fail this class, you will not, repeat, will not have a chance of entering college. No college, no draft deferment. The choice is yours.
Not a one of them moved. This is not to say that some in the movement weren’t committed to it but in my neck of the country, opposition to the war was mostly a case of self-preservation by young men scared out of their wits and demoralized by Walter Cronkite and friends. Also, it was the "in" thing to do. On the other side were those of us who supported the war and our friends and relatives fighting it. It was a bitter time.
The many young men who served in Vietnam with John Kerry, like all combat veterans, deserve our thanks for leaving a part of their youth and more, on foreign shores. But unlike Kerry — in part thanks to him — they returned home not to speak on Capitol Hill, appear on TV shows or conduct whirlwind publicity tours, but to a shame and disdain so thoroughly and despicably undeserved.
Now Senator Kerry is back and appealing to those who were on both sides of the issue to join him, as usual, on both sides of the issue. He asks to be honored as the decorated war hero yet revered also as a brave dissident, radically changed by the most action-packed four months in military history. Some of his fellow vets have disputed his battlefield hero status but it is his role as anti-warrior that has raised the most hackles.
Many on the Left, including Kerry, tout that they actually saved lives with their anti-war activities. Is this true? I give you the words of North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin. When asked if the American anti-war movement was important to Hanoi’s victory he said:
It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses.
To their credit, some who opposed the Vietnam War have come to regret their actions. One of these is David Horowitz, one of the original leaders of the anti-war movement, who says, “The blood of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, and tens of thousands of Americans, is on the hands of the antiwar activists who prolonged the struggle and gave victory to the Communists.”
If this is the reaction of one who was on Kerry and Fonda’s side in the first battle of the Vietnam War, wait for the tidal wave of repressed anger that washes over him in this, the second coming of that conflict. And remember who brought it up.
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