Where was Top Gun when things were hot?
Is this not the same man who used his family connections to get into the National Guard to avoid a combat billet in south-east Asia?
In all fairness to Mr Bush, as a US marine sergeant in Vietnam I know that my platoon and I were able to kip down for a few quick winks between rocket attacks and ground assaults, safe in the knowledge that he was protecting the homeland skies over Alabama.
The post 9/11 neo-con myth of Mr Bush as a Top Gun action figure holds water only when compared to the heroic exploits of his vice-president, Dick Cheney, the administration’s ‘hard man’ who skived off from military service altogether.
When the ideological chips were down on the frontlines of the Cold War, neither of these two men had the conviction or the guts to pull a trigger, the bottom-line act of patriotic fervour they now champion.
John Kerry, for all his foibles, did not one but two tours of duty in Vietnam. He showed his courage a third time by coming home and speaking out against that heinous war. These are not the actions of a weak man. By contrast, I couldn’t get out of my worsted Marine khakis fast enough after the war because I did not want to be accosted as a ‘baby killer.’
During my tenure as a chaplain with the Veterans of Foreign Wars, I have visited with some of the 477,000 Vietnam vets whom the US Veterans Administration has classified as ‘psychiatrically incapacitated’ by their wartime experiences. One was a participant at the My Lai massacre.
To a man, none ever positioned himself as a hero despite decorations for personal bravery, and I can assure you that I never heard the strains of the Top Gun theme blaring out over the tannoys on their locked-down psychiatric wards.
Bryan Kennedy
Rushbrooke
Cobh
Co Cork
