/RANT ON

Our country and our world have real problems, none of which are getting
solved by hashing over what happened 35 years ago.

Did Kerry embellish things from his past? Probably. As we get older, our
accomplishments tend to look better and our failures less important. This is
especially true of politicians, but it is human nature for all of us.

Did Bush use family and political influence to join the Guard and get
preferential treatment? Probably. Who among us is above using whatever
outside influence we can to accomplish our goals? This too is human nature.

I am a contemporary of Clinton, Kerry and Bush. I spent the better part of a
year stamped 1-A, USDA prime beef. For those of you who cannot get enough of
this argument, let me tell you what the world was really like in the late
sixties and early seventies if you were a young male 18 - 25.

If you went to college, you automatically got a four year deferment,
provided you stayed in school. Thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of
young men went to college, not because they necessarily wanted to or were
ready to, but because it bought them time to avoid the draft. By the late
sixties it was becoming clear to many of us that our government was lying to
us about Vietnam. There was nothing noble about what we were doing. We were
not protecting our country. I probably would have benefited from a year or
two bumming around the country/world before college, but I knew my
government was lying. I was not going to go die in some rice patty in
Vietnam for nothing. I entered college right out of high school.

All governments lie. Kerry learned this lesson late, much like he learned
late that we had no business invading Iraq. He believed his government then
and he believed it in 2002/2003 when he voted to give GWB the authority to
wage war on Iraq because it supposedly posed a threat to the US. He now
recognizes Iraq did not pose a threat. Even worse, our government has no
exit strategy and totally miscalculated the response of the Iraq people.

But I digress. Kerry volunteered for Vietnam because he believed what his
government was saying. He was patriotic. He went. He served honorably by any
objective measure, risking his own well-being in the process. I respect him
for doing that. He learned we had no business in Vietnam doing what we were
doing. He got out as fast as he could and became an anti-war activist. He
was not the only one. He was not the first. He was not the last. Now,
thirty-five years later, he is simply the best known because he is running
for President.

When I graduated from college (on time), my deferment ended and I was in the
same position as GWB. Many of our contemporaries did not have as a strong
feelings about the war as I did, they just knew it was at best an
inconvenience and at worse a death sentence and so tried to avoid it as best
they could. A popular option was the Guard. At that time the Guard rarely if
ever was deployed overseas, and certainly not in combat. Joining the Guard
was a safe, but acceptable, way to perform military service. It allowed you
to keep all your options open for the future - unlike moving to Canada, etc.
Of course everyone else figured this out at the same time and waiting lists
abounded. It was common knowledge in the late 1960s that you needed juice to
get into the Guard. While I did not personally try to get into the guard (I
mistakenly was blaming the military for Vietnam, not the old men in
Washington - if you want to get sick and mad all over again, watch the
documentary Fog of War), I had friends who did. None was accepted, because
none had any juice. Some ended up being drafted and some ended up enlisting,
because by enlisting they could have some influence on assignment. Some went
underground or to Canada. Others, like me, gamed the system hoping that the
longer we delayed, the better chance we would have that something would
change and we would not have to take more drastic measures.

GWB had the juice to get into the Guard. He would have us believe the
country needed him to play airman flying around Texas and not flying combat
missions in Vietnam. I respect him if he just admitted he went into the
Guard to avoid going to Vietnam - because that is the truth. No one joined
the Guard in the late 1960s because it was a good career move or to earn a
little extra money. They joined to avoid the draft.

My father, a WWII vet, was a huge hawk on Vietnam; that is until I got my
1-A notice, at which point he became a dove. He supported my gaming and I am
absolutely certain that if he had any pull, he would have worked to get me
into a Guard unit.

As it happened, I worked the system long enough (legal delays) to still be
out on the street when the first lottery was held. I went to bed thinking my
number was 63 and contemplating my next move (literally), but by mid-day of
the next day, I learned I was actually 308 - and safe. Let me tell you, a
lot of beer was consumed that night. (Get me a little drunk and I do a
funny - IMNSHO - 20 minutes on my whole military experience, including
pre-induction physical.) However, in the years since, I've felt pangs of
guilt because while I was delaying, gaming the system, someone else went in
my place. I wonder if GWB ever felt any guilt?

So let's concede that Kerry has embellished and Bush used family influence
to ride out the war and move on to the real problems facing our nation and
world today.

The Vietnam veterans who are so aggressively anti-Kerry are living in a
state of denial, still victims of Vietnam. I sympathize, but they need to
move on. They need to come to grips finally with the fact they were sent
over there to Vietnam to die because some old men in Washington were playing
empire games. Just like today. America was not noble. We were not protecting
ourselves. We were in fact behaving like common street thugs and bullies.
And like street thugs and bullies, we met a nasty end. We lost. A whole
generation, a whole nation, was traumatized. We cannot win the war in
Vietnam 35 years later by trampling all over Iraq.

I respect John McCain even though I disagree with him on a number of things,
because he has been able to put behind him an experience so horrendous none
of us can adequately comprehend. That folks is courage. The 50,000 names on
the Vietnam War Memorial are only a partial accounting of the costs and
casualties of that misguided adventure in imperialism. Add to that the tens
of thousands of missing body parts, the paralysis, etc.

Then there are the tens of thousands whose wounds are not visible. My former
brother-in-law was wounded several times and decorated for his service in
Vietnam. The doctors put him back together physically, but mentally and
emotionally, ... At night when he tried to sleep, he would always go back to
Vietnam --- and wake up screaming. Several years after coming back he
snapped (nothing else can adequately describe what happened). He became a
different person overnight. Someone who worked full time in a factory during
the day, going to school at night getting all A's, suddenly deserted his
seven month pregnant wife and 1 1/2 year old son and descended into the drug
and crime sub-culture, bouncing around the country in and out of jail. The
last I heard, about eight years ago, he was in jail in Florida. It is
amazing he is still alive. He had the best psychiatric care the government
could provide, but in the end it did not work. He is part of the walking
dead of Vietnam, dead as sure as those whose names are on that wall.

We are doing it all over again.

And before any of you get your panties all in a knot, I supported going into
Afghanistan - I just wish we had finished the job - because the Taliban and
al-Qaeda were a threat.

While the world is probably better off without one more despot dictator
(Sadam Hussein), we are being taught the lesson my parents tried to teach
me: the ends do not justify the means.

John Burke

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