posted January 30, 2007 06:38 PM              

Vietnam Veterans in the Iraq Debate
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The Senate's tiny caucus of Vietnam combat veterans provided some of the most riveting exchanges last week as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a resolution that declared the president's planned troop increase in Baghdad "not in the national interest." All three Vietnam War veterans on the panel - two Democrats and a Republican - voted for the resolution.

"Maybe I have no political future, but I don't want to look back in regret that I did not do something about this," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., a committee member who served as an infantryman in 1968, the bloodiest year of the Vietnam War.

The Iraq debate, which could begin as early as this week, has complicated relationships and stirred painful memories among a group of men who have a bond that transcends politics.

There are at least 18 Vietnam combat veterans serving in Congress, congressional records show. The shared experience of combat in an unpopular war has helped many to forge an unusual bipartisan fellowship. That was dramatically evident during the 2004 presidential campaign, when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., rushed to the defense of John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, when some Republicans began questioning the Massachusetts senator's war record.

The Iraq-Vietnam Comparison
At left, a U.S. soldier sprints across a clearing as Viet Cong troops fire on a battalion in Vietnam on June 18, 1967. At right, a U.S. soldier hunts for insurgents Jan. 18 in Ramadi, Iraq.
AP / Getty Images
War Then and Now
Left: An American soldier sprints across a clearing as Viet Cong troops fire on a battalion near Saigon on June 18, 1967.

Right: An American soldier searches for insurgents Jan. 18 in Ramadi, Iraq.

When it comes to President Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq, however, Congress' Vietnam veterans are divided.

In the Senate, four Vietnam combat veterans are playing key roles in the debate: Hagel authored the resolution opposing Bush's plan; his close friend, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former prisoner of war in Hanoi, is a leading backer of the Bush plan.

"There's no one I admire more in this body than John McCain," Hagel said. But, he added, he disagrees with his friend on Iraq: "The deeper you get into this bog, the harder it is to get out."

Then there are Kerry and Sen. Jim Webb.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Webb, D-Va., leveled withering criticisms of Kerry's anti-war activities in the 1970s. This time, Webb voted with Kerry for Hagel's resolution.

In the House, which will begin a debate on Iraq after the Senate votes, Vietnam vets are playing an equally prominent role. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who served in Korea and volunteered for Vietnam, is promising to use his chairmanship of the defense appropriations subcommittee to fence off funding for more troops.

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Hagel Blasts Iraq Plan
The Republican senator calls the current Iraq strategy a ''pingpong game with American lives.''

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Rep. Sam Johnson, a Texas Republican who spent nearly seven years as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war after his Air Force jet was shot down, is sponsoring a resolution that would prohibit Congress from cutting off funds.

Johnson is sharply critical of fellow Vietnam vets who do not support the president's plan in Iraq. "They're off track. They've lost their course," the Texan said.

McCain is less eager to distance himself from veterans on the other side of the Iraq debate. He said he has more in common with his "close friend" Hagel and fellow vets Kerry and Webb than with some of the Iraq war planners, most of whom did not serve in Vietnam.

"We share the same frustration over the failed strategy, which all of us could see failing," McCain said. "Chuck and I were very alike. Where Chuck and I differ is, he thinks we may not be able to salvage it, and I think we can."

The Vietnam veterans are haunted and motivated by their war experiences. "It was the most defining experience of my life," Hagel said of his 12 months in Vietnam.

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In 1971, Kerry famously asked members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?" Last week, he told his colleagues: "I never thought I would be reliving the need to ask that question again."

Johnson sees different parallels: "When you look at Vietnam, we had it won, and Congress pulled the plug. I hope we don't repeat it."

Arguing against a Vietnam comparison is Webb, who continues to believe that war was justified, while Iraq is not. The senator, who taught himself Vietnamese after returning to the USA and has close ties to the Vietnamese-American community, said in an interview that he believes some of his fellow veterans have been "manipulated" into supporting the president's policy by those who have likened it to Vietnam.

"All the buzzwords you'd throw in over and over again, 'Ah, the media's against you; you know, you're going to go against the troops,' " Webb said. "So that in many ways they are emotionally reacting to Vietnam. Rather than seeing the reality of what we're facing today. "

The intensity of the Vietnam experience is evident in the political risks that veterans are taking in the Iraq debate, said former senator Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat who served as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam. In an interview with USA TODAY, Kerrey pointed to McCain and Hagel, who are considering running for the presidency in 2008.

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"It will be harder for McCain to win a general election because of his support of the war; it will be harder for Hagel to win Republican primaries because of his opposition," said Kerrey, now president of the New School, a university in New York City.

Even if on opposite sides of the debate, combat veterans have credibility with each other, Kerrey said. Part of the reason, he said, are the memories that few of them like to discuss. "It's intense. It's unusually horrible," Kerrey said, trying to explain the camaraderie of those who have survived a battlefield. "It's like, 'I know what you're thinking about when the lights go out.' "

posted January 30, 2007 10:11 PM              

Try again.........idiot.

As long as the copyright info is there and AOL does not claim it as it's own then it's all good.

I learned that not to long ago in my Business Law class.

Go back to school you redneck.

posted January 30, 2007 11:13 PM            

Still, since you're not trying to make a "commercial use" of their intellectual property, they probably wouldn't do more than slap you around some.

They might even take it easier on you if you tell them your name is Mystic Moron.

Yeah, that's the ticket. Plead ignorance.

posted January 30, 2007 11:17 PM              

So you're still wrong!

Unlike many idiots here. I'm not gonna take a statement you made as a fact just because you made it.

So show your proof and quit making up lies.