Retire the Bitterness and the War-Hero Rhetoric : Veterans: The generation that came of age in the Vietnam era is ready to lead the country; let’s purge politics of attacks on what we did 25 years ago.

Bob Kerrey was up to some mischief when he pounded hard at Bill Clinton on the question, “What did you do in the Vietnam War?” Now Kerrey is out of the presidential race, but the larger issue he raised still has meaning in the campaign: What standards should we apply in judging the character of candidates who grew up in the Vietnam era?

Candidates, like the rest of us (or so we like to think), grow in wisdom in middle age, becoming stronger in character. The bitter divisions of the 1960s make it especially important for the Vietnam generation to avoid hasty and harsh judgments that would deprive America of the best leadership. This should be the year that we purge political rhetoric of the sterile debate about Vietnam-era choices. By cashing in grandly on his record in a war that crippled our country and fractured a generation, Kerrey was uncharacteristically taking a low, easy and emotional road, obscuring the critical issues of American life today.

Kerrey, who lost a leg in combat, attacked Clinton’s decision to leave the ROTC after college and his claim that he opposed the war but would have served if his number had come up in the draft lottery. To Kerrey, only those objectors who publicly said, “The war is wrong and I will not serve” deserve respect for the courage of their convictions. This is a disingenuous distinction because the war had a very different impact between 1959 and the height of both the draft and the protest movement in 1969. The buildup was gradual, rupturing and deforming the lives of millions of Americans in ways that weren’t apparent then. The worst effect is a residue of cynicism, selfishness and bitter distrust that threatens to cripple our generation just as we begin to assume responsibility for the fate of our country.

In round numbers, 30 million men and 30 million women came of age during the Vietnam War and are now 39 to 52 years old, making the largest generation in American history. Ten million of the men served in the military, 3 million of whom went to Vietnam, where 300,000 of them were wounded and 59,000 were killed.

By 1966, early in the buildup, then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had secretly concluded that it could not be won short of a massive bombing of population centers, which he knew would neither be approved by the President nor accepted by the voters. By 1968, vets were returning from Vietnam saying that the war was a deadly process of attrition in which we would bleed until we quit.

For a decade, like hammer blows, the deaths kept mounting. Men who grew up with the same idealism and patriotism of their fathers found themselves torn between common sense and love of country. No other American generation has faced such a dilemma. Kerrey’s presidential fitness standard was totally unfair to the generation that inherited a vain war brought by vain men.

I served in Vietnam and have spent 20 years writing and working on the question of where the path for healing for our generation lies. For some years I shared Kerrey’s harsh view, but there is no wisdom or grace in that path. Leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Anwar Sadat, like post-World War II Generals George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur are the examples to follow.

Veterans can make a big first step to restoring reason to how all of us judge candidates. Americans defer to veterans on matters relating to the Vietnam War--vets led in opening relations with the new Vietnam--so it is vets who have to lead in putting the “What did you do in the war?” question to rest. That will open the way for all of us to take a healthier view of other private or public parts of a candidate’s past, including sexual matters, health and mistaken policy choices.

Some vets may find it hard to let go of the question of Vietnam War service, but true manliness and leadership lie in helping one another--and those in our generation who did not join in the war--to lay anger and self-righteousness aside.

Ironically, this November brings both the presidential election and the 10th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Wall. In 10 years, the Wall has become our generation’s focal point for healing, and our country still has a lot of healing to do. We can’t let anything get in the way of that.