Joseph L. Galloway
is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist.
One of America's preeminent war correspondents,
with more than four decades as a reporter
and writer, he recently concluded an assignment
as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell
at the State Department.
Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent
22 years as a foreign and war correspondent
and bureau chief for United Press International,
and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and
senior writer for U.S. News & World Report
magazine. His overseas postings include tours
in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore
and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow
in the former Soviet Union. During the course
of 15 years of foreign postings Galloway served
four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam
and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War
and half a dozen other combat operations.
In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert
Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division
(Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H.
Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The
finest combat correspondent of our generation
-- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."
WASHINGTON - Who would have thought four years into the 21st century
that the ghosts of the Vietnam
War would emerge to haunt two men running
for president, as well as a third who dared to speak up in favor
of one of those candidates?
This spring it will have been 29 years since the Vietnam War ended
with an ignominious helicopter retreat from the roof of the U.S. Embassy
and the fall of Saigon to the victorious North Vietnamese Peoples
Army. Those of us who were there during the decade of what the Vietnamese
call "the American War" can't forget, and shouldn't. The war was our
youth. It gave us much and it took away much. The memories won't fade
until the last of us has crossed the river.
One presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, has been attacked from
the right on the details of his honorable service in Vietnam and for
turning against the war once he was back home and thinking about a
political career. Did he properly earn his medals of valor? Did he
associate with Hanoi Jane Fonda? The sitting president, George W.
Bush, has been attacked from the left on the details of his honorable
service in the Air National Guard in lieu of a tour of duty in the
Vietnam War. Was he a draft-dodger? Did he attend the requisite weekend
drills while on temporary duty in Montgomery, Ala.?
Those who specialize in such matters have been mining the tailing
piles of the personal histories of both Kerry and Bush in search of
nuggets of proof. So far they seem to have come up with nothing more
than fool's gold. Nor does it seem likely that they will find anything
that really matters.
In a year when American troops are fighting in Afghanistan
and Iraq,
our Army is stretched to the breaking point, the federal deficit is
ballooning out of control, the threat of terrorism hangs over us all,
and the economy can't make up its mind whether it is half-alive or
half-dead, there are enough real issues to discuss without the distraction
of a long-lost war.
The Vietnam War and my memories of those days are a vital part of
my life, and yet I would be the first to suggest that we lay Vietnam
to rest with regard to the service of both Kerry and Bush. Enough
already. Both of them served, each in his own way. I would not include
either man on my short list of real heroes, but why don't we let Vietnam
go and turn to the real issues in this campaign?
There is one man I DO include on my short list of heroes who has been
damaged by this phony debate, and that is former Sen. Max Cleland.
Max Cleland is a terribly wounded Army veteran of service in Vietnam.
He travels in a wheelchair because he left two legs and an arm, and
a shattered youth in the red dust of Khe Sanh in 1968. I also count
him a good personal friend.
Because he dared exercise a right that he paid a terrible price to
earn, the Republican attack dogs were unleashed on him. Max went on
the road to campaign for his friend and Senate colleague, John Kerry,
in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere.
For that he was subjected to personal attacks that stepped far over
the line of fair comment and criticism. One columnist, displaying
both ignorance and meanness, wrote that Max was on his way to get
a beer at the club when he dropped one of his own hand grenades and
blew himself up.
In point of fact, then-Capt. Cleland had flown with the 1st Cavalry
Division (Airmobile), on their way to relieve the U.S. Marines in
the siege of Khe Sanh, when he stepped off a Huey helicopter. Some
say the hand grenade that grievously wounded Max fell off his belt;
others say it fell off another soldier's belt.
It doesn't matter whose grenade it was. It blew up a fine and decent
soldier and came within a hair of killing him. There was no club,
and no beer, at Khe Sanh. Only death and destruction and hard duty.
It ill behooves someone who was never there and knows nothing about
the war or Max to slink out of the dark woods, killing the wounded
and picking their pockets.
Whatever else, Max Cleland paid an unimaginable price for his American
citizenship and his right to speak his mind on any subject and to
campaign for whoever he deems the best candidate.
The bitter divisions of Vietnam, the angry incivility that war provoked
in our nation, have no real place in an American presidential campaign
in the year 2004.
