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March 15, 2004

Kerry, Bush, and Vietnam

I talked about the similarities between George W. Bush and John Kerry's attempts to evade military service in Vietnam last week. At the time I was challenged as to the evidence regarding Kerry's attempts to avoid service in Vietnam, so I decided to take a closer look.

Let me start out with a few disclaimers: I am in no way trying to take anything away from what John Kerry did in Vietnam. He earned a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for his service in Swift boats, and was apparently highly regarded by his men (with one notable recent exception). There is no doubt that Kerry provided yeoman service to his country in Vietnam, and he deserves credit for that. I was merely curious to see whether or not his actions were really all that different from George W. Bush's.

President Bush is on record admitting that he had no real desire to go to Vietnam. So he joined the Texas Air National Guard and learned to fly F-102s, a dangerous aircraft that started to phase out two years prior to the end of his committment. As he wasn't planning on continuing his service beyond his obligation, Bush stopped flying when the F-102 was phased out and spent his last 18 months in the Guard performing other duties. He then left the Guard eight months before the end of his obligation in order to attend Harvard Business School.

John Kerry never sought to avoid active military duty. The son of a military pilot, Kerry did actively seek to serve his country. He did so by joining the Navy as a sailor, an occupation that was not known for spending a great deal of time in Vietnam. Kerry also tried to have his service deferred for a year so he could study in Paris. There's nothing at all wrong with that: the Navy needed people in places other than Vietnam, and Kerry was hardly alone (and certainly no different from George W. Bush) in preferring not to end up getting shot at in the jungles of Vietnam. Kerry's first tour was on board the USS Gridley, a frigate in support of aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin (presumably where he learned about aircraft carriers). Kerry was then required to go through retraining, and he volunteered for the swift boats, a duty that was at the time akin to Coast Guard duty, cruising the Vietnam coast and stopping civilian vessels for inspection. Once again, Kerry was seeking an assignment that would keep him away from the war, something he admits (and again, it's nothing to be ashamed of).

Unfortunately for Kerry, the swift boats' mission was changed two weeks after he arrived in Vietnam, and instead of serving a safe tour, Kerry ended up going into heavy action. To his great credit, he served there with distinction, as noted previously. After accumulating three Purple Hearts while losing only two duty days, Kerry requested an early return from Vietnam, which was granted. Assigned as an aide to an Admiral, Kerry then decided he wanted to get into politics, so he asked for an early release from his commitment and got it, leaving the Navy six months early in order to run for Congress and protest the Vietnam War.

Clearly there are significant differences between President Bush's service in Vietnam and John Kerry's. Were this election a referendum on what each man did in Southeast Asia, Kerry would be the clear candidate. Yet I can't help thinking that aside from Kerry's actual actions in Vietnam, the two men don't have as much separating them as people think. Both tried to avoid service in Vietnam, Bush through the Guard, Kerry through the Navy. Kerry deserves credit for still joining the active force, but it's clear he wasn't champing at the bit to get into the war, he just wanted to do his duty and go home. He did what he could to avoid getting any closer to Vietnam than necessary, and he left as quickly as he could. When he got home, both Kerry and Bush were able to get out of their obligations early to pursue personal business. Again, Kerry deserves great credit for what he actually did while he was in Vietnam; my point is only that the image he now cultivates of the marked contrast to President Bush is, at least in part, an accident. Had Kerry gotten what he wanted, he would never have had to fire a shot in anger, and the only difference between his service and President Bush's would be that Kerry did serve on active duty while Bush was a reservist.

Are the two equivalent? No. But I the evidence seems to show that the two men's attempts to avoid Vietnam were more similar than people would now believe.

Having said that, I don't think it makes a big difference (although, having read some of the accounts of Kerry's service in Vietnam, I am more impressed with him than I was before, so doubtless it will give him an electoral advantage, and I don't know that that is necessarily a bad thing). While what the two men did 30 years ago is certainly an indicator of their characters, both men have been in public life long enough to have far more recent examples to examine.