darrels joy
02-22-2004, 04:03 PM
Kerry's bid divides veterans or Retitled in the Las Vegas Review Journal as "Kerry's presidential quest invigorates vets".
02/17/04
Sabrina Eaton
Plain Dealer Bureau
Washington- Joe Muharsky of Mentor knows what it's like to have nothing but the quarter-inch hull of an aluminum boat between himself and a barrage of Viet Cong bullets.
After surviving bloody raids and ambushes in Navy Swift boats along the Ca Mau Peninsula's canals in 1969, Muharsky says the next president of the United States needs that kind of battle experience. That way, he will fully grasp the horror of war before he subjects a new generation of soldiers to it in the Iraqi desert.
"I have three sons," said Muharsky, 56. "If someone is going to make a decision to send any of them into combat, I want to make sure they have been there and done that and know what they are getting into."
That's why the Mentor heating and air conditioning contractor joined the "Band of Brothers," a group of veterans striving to make Sen. John Kerry, who served in Muharsky's Swift boat unit, the nation's next president.
Muharsky wasn't friendly with Kerry in Vietnam, but got to know him at unit reunions.
The presidential quest of Kerry, who led protests against the war in Southeast Asia after winning a chestful of combat decorations, has rekindled controversies over the war and polarized veterans.
Some, like Muharsky, say he's a patriot who saved troops' lives but others dub him "Hanoi John" and insist he betrayed his comrades.
Democrats in Wisconsin hold that state's primary today, and Kerry is scheduled to visit Dayton and Columbus Wednesday, in advance of Ohio's March 2 primary. More than 10,000 veterans, many from the Vietnam era, have volunteered for Kerry, a mobilization its organizers say is unprecedented. Many say they joined Kerry's campaign because they felt the Vietnam War was a politically motivated mistake and they fear the current war in Iraq is, too.
They say they're upset the Bush administration is cutting veterans' benefits and shuttering veterans hospitals even as it risks troops' lives in Iraq. A federal panel last week recommended closing the Department of Veterans Affairs' Brecksville hospital, moving its services to the Wade Park complex in Cleveland.
"If veterans get motivated, they can make a real big difference," said Bobby Hanafin, 52, a disabled Air Force retiree from outside Dayton who traveled to Iowa and New Hampshire to campaign for Kerry. He said he left the Republican Party because he was dismayed by President Bush's treatment of veterans and unfocused battle tactics in Iraq, where his son serves as an Army tank gunner.
Hanafin decided to volunteer for Kerry because he was impressed by the Massachusetts senator's record on veterans issues, and by the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts that Kerry earned for saving a comrade's life in Vietnam.
Even as Kerry's campaign galvanizes veterans who believe he would be a better leader than Bush, veterans who felt betrayed by Kerry's 1970s activism against the Vietnam War are fighting his presidential bid. Some veterans felt stabbed in the back when Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971 that U.S. troops in Vietnam committed war crimes "reminiscent of Genghis Khan" and argued the war was a mistake fought for political reasons.
"I truly believe that John Kerry's testimony before Congress had a big role in people who were supposedly peaceniks spitting on vets and calling them baby killers' when they got home," said North Carolina restaurateur Ted Sampley, who served as a Green Beret in Vietnam and says he didn't see "anything there that fit the description John Kerry gave the world."
Sampley calls Kerry "Hanoi John" to play on the enmity and "Hanoi Jane" moniker actress Jane Fonda earned by visiting North Vietnam during the war. His "www.vietnmamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com" Web site contains a picture of Fonda and Kerry at a 1970 anti-war rally.
The 2000 Census indicated the nation has roughly 26.5 million veterans, including more than 1.1 million in Ohio. More than 300,000 of those Ohio veterans served in the Vietnam era.
Whether their votes will ultimately help or hurt Kerry is an open question, said Duke University political scientist Peter Feaver, who studies voting patterns among veterans. He said it's too earlyto tell whether veterans who agree with Kerry's anti- war protests outnumber those angered by them.
Candidates' war records haven't been much of an issue in the past decade, Feaver said, but Democrats' opposition to the Iraq war has brought it to the fore, giving Kerry an edge over his rivals. Feaver said the emergence of Jim Rassmann, a former Green Beret and Republican whose life Kerry saved in Vietnam, helped humanize a politician with a reputation for remoteness and self-importance at a crucial time before the Iowa caucuses last month.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe's attacks on President's Bush's military record gained traction last week because they can be linked with public doubts over whether Bush told the truth about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and how the war there would be conducted, Feaver said.
Some Democrats have suggested that Bush was AWOL, or absent without leave, during a phase of his Texas Air National Guard service in which he moved to Alabama. The White House denies this and notes Bush's honorable discharge. Feaver predicted that public interest in Bush's National Guard attendance will be short-lived because Bush did nothing illegal.
Surveys indicate veterans tend to identify themselves as Republicans by as much as two to one over Democrats, Feaver said.
"If you are trying to woo veterans, you'd rather be a Republican than a Democrat, but if you are a Democrat trying to woo veterans, you'd rather have John Kerry at the top of your ticket," Feaver said.
Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman Kevin Madden predicted the president will win veterans' votes by a significant margin in November, and said McAuliffe's charges that Bush shirked military service will create "a tremendous backlash" against Democrats.
"The nation's veterans support President Bush because they know he has the utmost respect for the military and those who served," said Madden.
Although nonpartisan groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars have criticized Bush's 2005 budget for making veterans pay extra for health care, Madden said Bush has increased funding for veterans medical care by 40 percent since he took office, and the new budget will let the VA system treat over 1 million more patients than it now sees.
Madden added that Bush's plan to realign veterans health care facilities will boost the VA's outpatient capacity by more than 12 million visits a year, and preserve 97 percent of its hospital beds.
Madden said the Bush campaign has thousands of volunteer veterans organizers around the country, and more than 600 in Ohio. Gene Watts of Columbus, a former GOP member of the Ohio Senate who was an Army intelligence captain in Vietnam, is coordinating Bush's outreach to the state's veterans.
Watts said Ohio veterans he met at a recent Veterans of Foreign Wars convention were still upset over Kerry's allegations that U.S. troops committed war crimes and by Kerry's defense of President Clinton against charges he dodged the draft with a student deferment.
"I love that Democrats are finally saying, Hooray for Vietnam veterans,' because that has been missing from that party for a very long time," Watts said.
Veterans for Kerry national director John Hurley said his group will set up its campaign plans for Ohio closer to the March 2 primary. He said they are likely to include phone banks, and having veterans campaign for Kerry outside polling places.
"I think the vast majority of veterans will support Kerry instead of Bush," said Hurley. "There is a sense of movement on the part of vets, that this is our time."
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation President Bobby Muller said he has never seen as big a veterans' groundswell for a candidate as there is for Kerry. He attributes it to Kerry's wartime heroism and his peacetime efforts to provide money for veterans programs.
Mentor's Muharsky says he couldn't leave his business to campaign outside the state for Kerry, so he helps out by acting as a moderator of Kerry's online veterans discussion group at www.johnkerry.com/ communities/veterans/. Muharsky said he agrees "100 percent" with Kerry's controversial Senate testimony and believes it saved soldiers' lives by hastening the war's end.
"When the campaign comes to Ohio, I will do whatever they ask me to do," Muharsky said. "When Sen. Kerry comes to Cleveland, I want to be standing by his side."
http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/ispol/1077041736191780.xml?ispol
02/17/04
Sabrina Eaton
Plain Dealer Bureau
Washington- Joe Muharsky of Mentor knows what it's like to have nothing but the quarter-inch hull of an aluminum boat between himself and a barrage of Viet Cong bullets.
After surviving bloody raids and ambushes in Navy Swift boats along the Ca Mau Peninsula's canals in 1969, Muharsky says the next president of the United States needs that kind of battle experience. That way, he will fully grasp the horror of war before he subjects a new generation of soldiers to it in the Iraqi desert.
"I have three sons," said Muharsky, 56. "If someone is going to make a decision to send any of them into combat, I want to make sure they have been there and done that and know what they are getting into."
That's why the Mentor heating and air conditioning contractor joined the "Band of Brothers," a group of veterans striving to make Sen. John Kerry, who served in Muharsky's Swift boat unit, the nation's next president.
Muharsky wasn't friendly with Kerry in Vietnam, but got to know him at unit reunions.
The presidential quest of Kerry, who led protests against the war in Southeast Asia after winning a chestful of combat decorations, has rekindled controversies over the war and polarized veterans.
Some, like Muharsky, say he's a patriot who saved troops' lives but others dub him "Hanoi John" and insist he betrayed his comrades.
Democrats in Wisconsin hold that state's primary today, and Kerry is scheduled to visit Dayton and Columbus Wednesday, in advance of Ohio's March 2 primary. More than 10,000 veterans, many from the Vietnam era, have volunteered for Kerry, a mobilization its organizers say is unprecedented. Many say they joined Kerry's campaign because they felt the Vietnam War was a politically motivated mistake and they fear the current war in Iraq is, too.
They say they're upset the Bush administration is cutting veterans' benefits and shuttering veterans hospitals even as it risks troops' lives in Iraq. A federal panel last week recommended closing the Department of Veterans Affairs' Brecksville hospital, moving its services to the Wade Park complex in Cleveland.
"If veterans get motivated, they can make a real big difference," said Bobby Hanafin, 52, a disabled Air Force retiree from outside Dayton who traveled to Iowa and New Hampshire to campaign for Kerry. He said he left the Republican Party because he was dismayed by President Bush's treatment of veterans and unfocused battle tactics in Iraq, where his son serves as an Army tank gunner.
Hanafin decided to volunteer for Kerry because he was impressed by the Massachusetts senator's record on veterans issues, and by the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts that Kerry earned for saving a comrade's life in Vietnam.
Even as Kerry's campaign galvanizes veterans who believe he would be a better leader than Bush, veterans who felt betrayed by Kerry's 1970s activism against the Vietnam War are fighting his presidential bid. Some veterans felt stabbed in the back when Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971 that U.S. troops in Vietnam committed war crimes "reminiscent of Genghis Khan" and argued the war was a mistake fought for political reasons.
"I truly believe that John Kerry's testimony before Congress had a big role in people who were supposedly peaceniks spitting on vets and calling them baby killers' when they got home," said North Carolina restaurateur Ted Sampley, who served as a Green Beret in Vietnam and says he didn't see "anything there that fit the description John Kerry gave the world."
Sampley calls Kerry "Hanoi John" to play on the enmity and "Hanoi Jane" moniker actress Jane Fonda earned by visiting North Vietnam during the war. His "www.vietnmamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com" Web site contains a picture of Fonda and Kerry at a 1970 anti-war rally.
The 2000 Census indicated the nation has roughly 26.5 million veterans, including more than 1.1 million in Ohio. More than 300,000 of those Ohio veterans served in the Vietnam era.
Whether their votes will ultimately help or hurt Kerry is an open question, said Duke University political scientist Peter Feaver, who studies voting patterns among veterans. He said it's too earlyto tell whether veterans who agree with Kerry's anti- war protests outnumber those angered by them.
Candidates' war records haven't been much of an issue in the past decade, Feaver said, but Democrats' opposition to the Iraq war has brought it to the fore, giving Kerry an edge over his rivals. Feaver said the emergence of Jim Rassmann, a former Green Beret and Republican whose life Kerry saved in Vietnam, helped humanize a politician with a reputation for remoteness and self-importance at a crucial time before the Iowa caucuses last month.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe's attacks on President's Bush's military record gained traction last week because they can be linked with public doubts over whether Bush told the truth about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and how the war there would be conducted, Feaver said.
Some Democrats have suggested that Bush was AWOL, or absent without leave, during a phase of his Texas Air National Guard service in which he moved to Alabama. The White House denies this and notes Bush's honorable discharge. Feaver predicted that public interest in Bush's National Guard attendance will be short-lived because Bush did nothing illegal.
Surveys indicate veterans tend to identify themselves as Republicans by as much as two to one over Democrats, Feaver said.
"If you are trying to woo veterans, you'd rather be a Republican than a Democrat, but if you are a Democrat trying to woo veterans, you'd rather have John Kerry at the top of your ticket," Feaver said.
Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman Kevin Madden predicted the president will win veterans' votes by a significant margin in November, and said McAuliffe's charges that Bush shirked military service will create "a tremendous backlash" against Democrats.
"The nation's veterans support President Bush because they know he has the utmost respect for the military and those who served," said Madden.
Although nonpartisan groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars have criticized Bush's 2005 budget for making veterans pay extra for health care, Madden said Bush has increased funding for veterans medical care by 40 percent since he took office, and the new budget will let the VA system treat over 1 million more patients than it now sees.
Madden added that Bush's plan to realign veterans health care facilities will boost the VA's outpatient capacity by more than 12 million visits a year, and preserve 97 percent of its hospital beds.
Madden said the Bush campaign has thousands of volunteer veterans organizers around the country, and more than 600 in Ohio. Gene Watts of Columbus, a former GOP member of the Ohio Senate who was an Army intelligence captain in Vietnam, is coordinating Bush's outreach to the state's veterans.
Watts said Ohio veterans he met at a recent Veterans of Foreign Wars convention were still upset over Kerry's allegations that U.S. troops committed war crimes and by Kerry's defense of President Clinton against charges he dodged the draft with a student deferment.
"I love that Democrats are finally saying, Hooray for Vietnam veterans,' because that has been missing from that party for a very long time," Watts said.
Veterans for Kerry national director John Hurley said his group will set up its campaign plans for Ohio closer to the March 2 primary. He said they are likely to include phone banks, and having veterans campaign for Kerry outside polling places.
"I think the vast majority of veterans will support Kerry instead of Bush," said Hurley. "There is a sense of movement on the part of vets, that this is our time."
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation President Bobby Muller said he has never seen as big a veterans' groundswell for a candidate as there is for Kerry. He attributes it to Kerry's wartime heroism and his peacetime efforts to provide money for veterans programs.
Mentor's Muharsky says he couldn't leave his business to campaign outside the state for Kerry, so he helps out by acting as a moderator of Kerry's online veterans discussion group at www.johnkerry.com/ communities/veterans/. Muharsky said he agrees "100 percent" with Kerry's controversial Senate testimony and believes it saved soldiers' lives by hastening the war's end.
"When the campaign comes to Ohio, I will do whatever they ask me to do," Muharsky said. "When Sen. Kerry comes to Cleveland, I want to be standing by his side."
http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/ispol/1077041736191780.xml?ispol