John Fund has written a fine article on the very stirring awards dinner at  the Restoration Weekend in Florida this past Saturday night.  At the dinner honoring John Warner, Carlton Sherwood and John O'Neill, I sat next to Norm Hapke, a Viet Nam veteran I met in Italy on the Center for Popular Culture's trip to Italy in June.  Norm was at the United States Naval Academy with O'Neill,  who is a brilliant man (first in his law school class at University of Texas, top of his class at Annapolis) and proved to be an unflappable representative of the Viet Nam veterans the past few months. Norm, an America West pilot, and a quiet guy, was yelling and cheering  during the speeches, as were many of the other veterans at the dinner. Wally Nunn, another Viet Nam veteran, who was on the Center's trip to Italy, and who helped raise money for the movie Stolen Honor, could not and did not want to conceal his anger at Kerry.  It was hard to imagine how these people would have reacted to a Kerry victory, but "not well" would not adequately describe it.

The evening was a very emotional experience. For David Horowitz, a Communist during the Viet Nam War, I think this campaign  and this awards dinner, was the final cleansing of his bile built up from that war. Viet Nam has been a largely buried war until this campaign.  The story of the war and  the opposition to it has been put aside, and for the succeeding generations of Americans who have grown up with few historical reference points, it was an unknown war.  

But for the people involved, their emotions are still very raw.  The hostility to the Swift Boat Veterans this year was two—fold. First it was vital for the left to fight back at attacks on Kerry, and prevent the Swifties from damaging his campaign. But the fereocity of the assault on John O'Neill and the furious campaign to prevent Stolen Honor from being seen, was also designed to preserve the left's history of Viet Nam, as a bad war with Americans behaving very badly, a prelude to the current conflict in Iraq of course. The Viet Nam War was the lodestone for many baby boomer lefties. They could not give up their mythology on the war, nor accept a challenge to their personal moral goodness for opposing it.  This would be to sacrifice sacred ground.

But for the veterans who fought, and saw their comrades die, wounded or imprisoned, the last three months provided an opportunity to redeem their reputations, and fight back at those who smeared them thirty years ago.   As one who opposed the Viet Nam war in the 60s and 70s, and avoided military service, it felt good to be on he right side this time around. 

The newspapers have been full of articles on how this election was fought over moral values, and the role of the gay marriage amendments in deciding the outcome in eleven states, and whether the economy or the war on terror was what rally mattered in the end. But this  battle over the Viet Nam War was the central focus for a collection of  aging American veterans who provided the same capable and courageous service to their country thirty five years ago, as the young men fighting in the narrow alleys of Fallujah are providing today. It was very good to see and experience their victory this time around.

Richard Baehr  11 15 04