In case you’re interested, the taffrail is the rail on ship above the stern (back end if you don’t know any sailor’s lingo. The front of the ship, the “bow” is the pointy one, the back end is usually the roundy one although on most modern ships it is just a straight drop into the water.). The taffrail is a place where sailors have long gathered to shoot the breeze, gossip, tell jokes and just enjoy the sight of the prop wash blending into the foaming wake of the ship. It is place where you see where you have been.
Talking about looking at where you been, the dust up between Senator Kerry and his one time shipmates is bubbling over. Much of the mainstream press is still trying to cover up the story -- not a bad idea because they get hopelessly tangled in Navy jargon and ambiguous records when they try to make a closer examination of the story.
Some thoughts about it:
God knows 1969 was a long time ago, and things really change, in my case a dozen more belt notches are necessary to hold up my pants and there is no sign of a long gone head of curly dark hair -- I am now Hippocratically bald -- meaning there are no survivors on the top of my head, like the esteemed and venerated Greek physician whose best advise remains absolutely sound: “First, do no harm.”
Memories get tangled after all these years although some remain very vivid most don’t. Motives get tangled too. Now John Kerry’s terminally New England preppie manner may have rubbed some people the wrong way way back then. Like former President George H. W. Bush, he had Yale Skull and Bones almost tattooed on his large forehead. The guy did not have the common touch and his height and to most swabs odd way of speaking made him seem different. All that being the case, what made so many of his one time fellow officers HATE him, not just dislike but hate him with a righteous rage was was he did and said after he left the Navy and became one of the stars of the antiwar Movement.
While the Navy does not have the obvious and compelling Marine Corps “band of brothers” ethos, a Jesuit like sense of loyalty and tightness, the Navy does have its traditions and bonds. Shipmates have a real sense of community and small “f” fraternity, especially if you have served in combat, but even if you didn’t there is a real since of brotherhood with the people you spent a year or two at sea. On my second ship we all were proud that we had defended our honor against the creeps from the USS Ranger in a saloon brawl one night in Olongapo in the Philippines. There were old and running feuds in the Seventh Fleet and the guys from the Ranger were on one side and the guys from the USS Camden and the USS Kitty Hawk were on the other. The Kitty Hawk and Ranger were super carriers while the Camden was a very large oil and munitions ship that resupplied them at sea ever few days.
Anyway, John Kerry in calling his former shipmates war criminals and all the rest of his litany of crimes infuriate most of them. He ratted on his shipmates and tarred all with the broad brush of infamy. They are still furious about it. Sure it was a long time ago, but the bitterness is deep and sincere. In an us vs. them fight he was for them. He was not one of us. He was a rat.
As an aside I should point out that most people who were deeply involved in the bitter tumult of the the late 1960’s and early 1970’s have made their peace. The actress Jane Forda who was the poster girl of the antiwar movement a number of years ago became a Methodist and issued a statement where she reached across the divide and said she deeply regretted the excesses of that time and harsh words that engendered so much bad feeling. She didn’t apologize for her political position, but for the hurtful and excessive things that got everybody’s blood pressure up and left deep resentments. For me, she put PAID to the bad memories with an expression of good will and regret that seemed sincere and healing.
John Kerry’s big time mistake was not making a similar act and statement of reconciliation. This should have been done last year at a major veterans meeting. For some reason he appears to want it both ways -- the adulation for being a war hero while also taking full credit for being the big time antiwar firebrand.
John Kerry had good and honorable service but was not a hero. The other Senator Kerrey (D-Nebraska) was a HERO. Check it out. Bob Kerrey was the Bob Dole of my generation, the hero who overcame terrible wounds to go into business successfully and on into politics. If he was the nominee of the Democrat Party nobody would ever have raised a voice in anything but praise for his exceptional service. A few years ago there was mini fire storm of trumped up fake war criminal bullshit that I think broke his heart and he withdrew from politics. I’d love to know who cooked up this poisonous brew. It wasn’t the Republicans, but the small ferret minded gang of character assassins that operate on the far fringe of the Democratic Party. These creeps usually surface in the primaries. Enough said.
What would a full investigation reveal about Senator Kerry’s record? Honestly it would be nearly as inconclusive as the current debate, much passion but not enough certainty to clear things up. The paper work from the war period is incomplete and often riddled with contradictions. Who wrote the actual combat reports? Did Kerry write some? Maybe he did, but who can tell now. Further the documents are riddled with errors, some obvious like the Combat “V” authorized for Kerry’s Silver Star on his discharge papers. (Silver Star is a combat medal and doesn’t need a “V” attachments like those medals than can be for combat or non combat service -- Bronze Stars where the brass “V” is added to make it clear it is combat service.)
Finally, to judge the documents the people reading them must know the context of the time, Navy usage and custom, the real not the apparent meaning of the words. Sometimes a slight variation from the norm can actually have a major negative meaning that an outsider would not even notice. That's my take on this stuff.
Ironically most of the newsies who are covering this dog fight are shocked at the bitterness on both sides. They were too young to have known the pain and harshness of the time. I know my own daughter thinks my talk about Vietnam is as distant from her reality as the Spanish American War or her great grandfather’s four years in France with the Queen’s Yorkshire Rifles in WW I. In her last year at UCLA Theater Arts Department, they put on a production of HAIR. She and the other students considered it a funky but dated period piece, like Private Lives is a period piece of the 1920’s or Anything Goes for the 1930’s.
Little items:
1. After running a bunch of ordinary errands late yesterday afternoon, my wife and I had a wonderful simple dinner at a little family run Neapolitan place in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood. We had Veal Piccata as good as I ever had, a rich subtle cloud of veal with the tang of lemons and capers. The real stuff.
2. Last week Teresa Heinz Kerry told an interviewer that really nobody was qualified to be President. The job was just way too big for any mortal human. She naturally added that her husband was less unqualified than George Bush. But she is right in her blunt firm jawed Portuguese way. Portuguese widows don’t mince words. I like her a lot because she reminds me of my mother another woman of Portuguese heritage who was widowed early with three sons. Some say she is blunt and outspoken because she is so rich. Ain’t so. She’d be the same if she ran a bakery or a dairy or was a high school teacher in Los Banos or Tracy California.
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