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| Scroll to see: A WWII perspective on the Kerry Vietnam debate |
Also see: Other Iraq coverage |
Having killed and been wounded in war, I find myself pleased, irritated, amused, and frustrated by the behavior of the media covering the war in Iraq.
The embedded journalists traveling with the armed forces can be excused for pontificating about the broad picture even though they are experiencing only the tiniest slice of that picture. They find it hard to limit themselves to reporting what they see and hear, but their attempts to interpret the significance of a single small firefight are most often off the mark.
Then there are those idiots -- sorry, there is the press corps -- asking simultaneously stupid and arrogant questions during briefings. My favorite idiot was the 20-something year old female who suggested that Apache helicopters wouldn't have been shot down if the several types of helos had been dispatched in a different order than the generals chose. I marvel at the patience of the Military.
Even worse are those desk-bound anchors already opining about whether Americans can absorb the loss of life and the casualty-counts as the war proceeds.
General Franks rightly points out that for the individual soldier caught up in a small firefight, that battle is the size of the entire war, but it isn't the entire war. In that regard, I recall that I lost more men in a few hours of fighting than were lost in the first four days of the Iraq war. And my mission, successful, was just to neutralize about 20 houses in a small village and take a nearby hill. In contrast, today's coalition had captured and occupied hundreds of square miles.
God help us if Americans don't have the courage and the patience to absorb the tragedy and pain of perhaps hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded as we fight the necessary battles before us.
Frank Versagi
26 March 2003
November 2003: America -- and increasingly the West -- is in for a 50- or 100-year war. There will be daily deaths, if not in Iraq, then elsewhere. And, those who hate us for either religious or nationalistic reasons will continue to try to destroy us even if we cut and run from Iraq.
March 2004: There have always been anti-war movements and pacifist sentiment throughout American and world history. Until Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, the majority of Americans did not see the need to enter World War II. Some of that anti-war feeling was based on the suspicion that we would be suffering deaths and casualties merely to preserve the British Empire.
There was intense anti-war activity during the Revolutionary War; the War of 1812; the Mexican War (Abe Lincoln got in trouble with his constituents for suggesting the U.S. was the aggressor); the Civil War (including draft riots); World War I; the Korean Police Action; and, yes, the Viet Nam war.
In each instance, there were hawks and doves operating on principle; there were opportunists seeking one advantage or another from their stance; there were brave souls and cowards on each side.
Look at the Civil War and you wonder how the nation ever made it through; for years, the North lost more battles than it won. Good old England put troops in Canada, hoping to help defeat the North. During World War I, Germany tried to influence Mexico to attack the U.S., with the promise of regaining Texas and California, which had been taken by the U.S. during the Mexican War.
As far as allies. They have come and gone following the traditional diplomat's rule: "We have no permanent allies, only permanent interests."
A WWII veteran
looks at the Kerry Vietnam controversy
The unseemly battle about John Kerry’s
war record is so politically skewed that everybody – pro-Kerry, pro-Bush,
journalist, pundit – is ignoring the fact that warriors who fought in the same
battle honestly remember details differently and that military clerks who write
up citations have to work with those differences. Here, a handful of real-world
personal experiences with military records.
| This is an edited version of an article originally published in the Royal Oak Mirror and its companion papers on 26 August 2004. |
~ Apparently confusing two firefights which took place during the same 3- or 4-day battle, the soldier-clerk who wrote up my citation for a Bronze Star described as the man I saved a soldier who was already dead. Although I did save another man’s life pretty much as the citation describes, that happened in another firefight, so the official record is at least partially wrong.
~ Two or three days after one battle, resting and reminiscing in a hotel we had captured, confiscated, several of us in that battle had differing memories about the flow of the firefight – so much so that some of the replacement-kids began to wonder if we weren’t making up some of what we were telling them.
~ Once, after I had lost several men, killed and wounded – including one whose right leg was blown off – my knee was grazed by shrapnel, and I spent a few hours in a nearby field hospital. When the Medic began asking for name-rank-serial number to write me up for a Purple Heart, I convinced him to have the record show that I was there for treatment of a severe case of athlete’s foot. In truth, my feet were soaking in potassium permanganate while my scratch was being dressed, and I had purple feet for weeks afterward. Today, with the scar gone, I can’t remember which leg was hurt. The point is that if that hospital record exists it will not show that a battle wound was treated.
~ Forty years after World War II (about the same time-frame as that in which the Vietnam Veterans are currently working), some vets – I, among them – had to look at maps and find ways to reconstruct the sequence of events: Did Sessenheim come before or after Wurzburg? Was it Christmas Eve, or later that winter, when we were ordered not to move until 0600 and to fire on anything or anyone who moved after 2400?
~ Finally, in the months after VE Day (8 May 1945), I was appointed Information & Education Sergeant for my battalion. A major part of that I&E function was to speak to units about current events. When I returned to the States, the rookie who filled out my discharge papers saw "I&E" and recorded that I was leaving the service as an "Intelligence NCO," something I didn’t read until years later. My official discharge, therefore, incorrectly identifies the last duty I performed before leaving the Army.
All by way of saying that memories of combat can differ among those who actually took part in the firefight – whether they end up being Democrats or Republicans -- and that official records can be intentionally or unintentionally modified by people who were nowhere near the battle.
So, it would be great if the pro-Kerry and pro-Bush partisans forget Vietnam and argue about Iraq.
FJV
26 Aug 04
Vietnam, Iraq, and the 2004
Election
"Vietnam holds
certain lessons for America. But for far too many in the media, academia, and
public leadership, Vietnam became the only point of reference when
thinking about military force and foreign policy . . . we know that many
of our other struggles are at least as important for understanding America's
place in the world . . . the waters of Pearl Harbor, the thick forests of the
Argonne, the ghastly ovens of Auschwitz, the turbulent air over Germany, and the
shores of Normandy all hold lessons for America. So, too, do the beaches of Iwo
Jima, the frozen mountains of Korea, the western ridges of Gettysburg, the
rolling plains of Manassas, the long-manned watchtowers of Central Europe."
-- from a speech by U.S. Senator Zell Miller, reported in Imprimis,
published by Hillsdale College