War Hero
May 1, 2001

by Joe Sobran

     Did former Senator Bob Kerrey murder harmless 
women and children in Vietnam one night in 1969?

     No, says Kerrey: he and his men were just 
returning fire from the tiny village of Thanh 
Phong. It was dark, and only after firing 1200 
rounds of ammunition did they discover that they 
had inadvertently killed more than a dozen 
noncombatants.

     Yes, says Gerhard Klann, a member of the six-
man SEALs team Kerrey led that night. He says the 
village was already subdued when Kerrey ordered the 
civilians -- an admittedly blurry category in that 
war -- lined up and shot, for fear that they might 
help the enemy later.

     Other members of the team vaguely support 
Kerrey's story but don't want to speak to the media 
about the incident. They may be telling the truth, 
or they may feel that to accuse Kerrey would be to 
admit their own guilt in participating in the 
slaughter.

     Klann's account is vivid, and he can't be 
suspected of self-exculpation: he says he cut an 
old man's throat with Kerrey helping hold the 
victim down. This is what lawyers call "an 
admission against interest": the fact that the 
witness is willing to make himself look bad gives 
his testimony special weight. But who knows? The 
details are too few, too indistinct, and too 
confusing to allow certainty either way.

     One thing is clear, though. If you want war, 
this is the sort of thing you are going to get. 
Combat veterans always come home with memories they 
don't care to share, often guilty memories. Kerrey 
says he is still haunted by the memory of that 
dreadful night. But is his conscience bearing any 
fruit?

     Let's suppose you found yourself in combat in 
Vietnam at the age of 25. In a moment of rage and 
terror, not knowing where danger lay and finding 
the natives incomprehensible and exasperating, you 
and your platoon cut loose and did something awful. 
Something you'd never imagined doing back when you 
were mowing the lawn in the suburbs. Something you 
hope nobody on earth ever finds out about.

     A few months later you go home, minus part of 
your leg, dreaming every night about the scene 
you're glad your family has no inkling of. They 
think you're a war hero. So does everyone. You 
modestly demur, but without explaining why: let 
them think you're just being self-effacing.

     You publicly protest against the war, and your 
words mean more to the folks than the words of some 
draft-dodging hippie college kid, because you're a 
war hero. In a few years you run for office, 
letting your promoters portray you as a war hero -- 
even though the phrase "war hero" sounds, to your 
inner ear, like a contradiction in terms.

     Those who know you, know nothing of your inner 
life, how you hate war, or the real reason why. You 
wince when they praise your courage. They think 
you've already met, and passed, the test of your 
lifetime.

     Maybe, without revealing your terrible secret, 
you can use your conscience productively in 
politics. You can help make sure other boys don't 
have to go through what you've endured -- what 
you're still enduring.

     You wind up in the U.S. Senate. You have to 
join in debates and votes on whether to send 
American military forces into combat, whether to 
impose harsh sanctions on other countries, whether 
to let the president order the bombing of cities 
without a declaration of war. Knowing what you know 
about how the innocent get hurt -- and knowing that 
your president, a fellow Democrat, is using his 
power cynically to distract attention from his 
pending impeachment -- what do you do?

     Do you use your reputation as a war hero to 
prevent needless bloodshed? Do you speak out 
against sanctions that mean disease and starvation 
for thousands of children? Do you denounce a 
criminal president for inflicting death abroad to 
save his own political hide?

     Or do you keep a low profile to save your own 
political hide? Do you quietly sit out the debates 
on war and sanctions? Do you join your party in 
protecting your president and voting to acquit him 
when you know he is guilty as charged -- no, much 
guiltier than charged?

     Just asking.

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