WalterM140
July 6th 04, 11:25 AM
"In the years between his arrival at Yale and the end of his military service,
Mr. Kerry lost his first political heroes to assassination and cherished
childhood friends to combat. He killed a Viet Cong fighter on the banks of the
Dong Cung River, earning the Silver Star. He also earned a Bronze Star and
three Purple Hearts, and returned from Vietnam in 1969 with a fresh wound, only
to find protesters greeting his plane at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma,
Wash., and a chilly reception on a commercial flight back East from San
Francisco a day later.
"I was in my uniform, because you had to fly in uniform to get the lower fare,"
Mr. Kerry recalled, "and I remember being seated there and I was asleep, and
had a bandage on my arm still. And the jostling of the plane jostled me out of
my sleep, shouting, you know, `Get ready!' or `They're coming!' or something.
Everybody moved away. Nobody asked, `Are you O.K.?' And suddenly there was this
sort of section of the plane where everybody moved out, and I said to myself,
`Whoa, what a reaction.' It was a funny time."
NY Times 7/6/04
Any of you Viet Nam vets have a similar experience?
Walt
Mr. Kerry lost his first political heroes to assassination and cherished
childhood friends to combat. He killed a Viet Cong fighter on the banks of the
Dong Cung River, earning the Silver Star. He also earned a Bronze Star and
three Purple Hearts, and returned from Vietnam in 1969 with a fresh wound, only
to find protesters greeting his plane at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma,
Wash., and a chilly reception on a commercial flight back East from San
Francisco a day later.
"I was in my uniform, because you had to fly in uniform to get the lower fare,"
Mr. Kerry recalled, "and I remember being seated there and I was asleep, and
had a bandage on my arm still. And the jostling of the plane jostled me out of
my sleep, shouting, you know, `Get ready!' or `They're coming!' or something.
Everybody moved away. Nobody asked, `Are you O.K.?' And suddenly there was this
sort of section of the plane where everybody moved out, and I said to myself,
`Whoa, what a reaction.' It was a funny time."
NY Times 7/6/04
Any of you Viet Nam vets have a similar experience?
Walt