Vietnam War Also Divisive Issue Among O.C. Leaders

One is an Orange County judge who won a Purple Heart in Vietnam, and still grapples with the demons of war.

Another is a congressman who supported the war in college, then lost faith in U.S. efforts and used an X-ray of a high school football injury to prove he was unfit for the draft.

And there is the local mayor who frequented anti-war demonstrations as an undercover police officer, then agonized as his own brother became a victim of Vietnam.

Nearly a quarter century has passed and still it haunts us. These days, the war in Vietnam is being fought in the presidential race. On Sunday, President Bush reiterated his charge that Democratic challenger Bill Clinton is unfit to be commander-in-chief because of his anti-war activities while a Rhodes Scholar in England. Said Bush: “I just think it’s wrong.”

In the conservative stronghold of Orange County, the reaction to Bush’s attack on Clinton is mixed. Although a quick survey of politicians and community leaders who came of age during the Vietnam War found that many feel military service is a plus for a presidential candidate, most consider Clinton’s anti-war activism irrelevant compared to the other issues facing the country.

“The road to the White House does not go through Vietnam,” said Dana Reed, 48, a Republican and Orange County Transportation Authority Board member who was not drafted during the war because he had a high lottery number. “As long as they didn’t violate any laws, I don’t have a problem at all” with anti-war demonstrators.

San Juan Capistrano Councilman Kenneth E. Friess, 50, called the issue of Clinton’s anti-war activism “stupid,” suggested that Vietnam “has absolutely nothing to do with what’s going on in the world today” and added that “patriotic people protest, too.” Friess, a Republican and former educator, turned on the war when a favorite student was killed in Vietnam.

Superior Court Judge David O. Carter, who was a Marine lieutenant in 1968 when he was shot three times within two hours while leading a platoon at Khe Sanh during the Tet Offensive, said the issue of anti-war activism has little relevance in the presidential contest.

“I think the real issue is looking forward. . . . I’m personally looking for a healing of this country,” said Carter, 48, a Democrat.

Some disagree, suggesting that Clinton should be accountable for his Vietnam War-era activities. Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter, a Republican, has no fond memories of the war--his brother was an infantryman who was wounded and suffered from malaria twice in Vietnam. Since then, Hunter’s brother has been in and out of Veterans Administration hospitals. He’s never been the same. Still, Hunter can’t bring himself to condone Clinton.

“He was out there protesting the Vietnam War, when at the same time there were people like my brother out there dying,” said Hunter, who was an undercover police narcotics officer during the 1960s. “My brother didn’t go off to Oxford. We were poor people. We grew up in the slums of Wilmington. . . . It’s going to be hard for (Clinton) to tell my brother and all the people in the VA hospitals that he did the right thing in protesting war.”

Few of the Orange County leaders interviewed by The Times Orange County Edition served in the military. Fewer still went to Vietnam. The issue of Clinton’s anti-war protests, along with controversy over his efforts to avoid the draft, will resonate primarily with the “older, more conservative voters,” Reed predicted.

“I didn’t serve in Vietnam and I truly don’t know very many who did,” Reed said. “The people who actually went were mostly from the inner cities. It was not a representative sample of the U.S. population, and certainly not representative of the people who have gained leadership positions in the ‘90s.”

San Juan Capistrano Councilman Gary L. Hausdorfer, a rising star in the GOP, held student and parental deferments during the war. “When I think about it, there were just an awful lot of deferments during that time,” said Hausdorfer, who is a staunch Bush supporter but disagrees with the President’s tactic. “None of the people I hung out with even got close to being drafted.”

Among the leaders surveyed who did serve in Vietnam, Clinton’s conduct as a student was judged to be a non-issue.

In 1969, Murry Cable, former John Wayne Airport manager now in charge of the county’s landfills, was a 23-year-old Army enlistee who had reached the rank of captain and was piloting helicopters in Vietnam. Shot down several times, he was awarded a Purple Heart. He suffered severe back injuries, from which he still has pain.

Cable, 46, said he now believes that the anti-war demonstrations were a good idea. “That’s what brought the war to a close,” said Cable, a Democrat. “Whether it’s this patriotism issue or something else from 20 years ago, to think that you have to be so pure to be President is idiotic. . . . Bill Clinton was just like a lot of people.”

Sue Martinez, head of the critical-care unit at Western Medical Center-Anaheim, served as an Army nurse in Vietnam. Martinez, now 43, believes Clinton’s anti-war conduct is an “irrelevant bit of information for this campaign. The candidates should be focusing on the future.”

Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) was a first-year ROTC cadet in college in 1973. His first week at school, Umberg was walking across campus when he was approached by a student, who spit on him. It was, Umberg says, “a definitive moment in my life.” But he holds no grudge.

“I think it’s better to ask the people who served in Vietnam what they think,” said Umberg, 37. Nebraska Gov. “Bob Kerrey lost a whole leg and was a Congressional Medal of Honor winner in Vietnam. If he can support Bill Clinton, then I think the rest of us can support Bill Clinton. If he’s good enough for Bob Kerrey, he’s good enough for me.”

Orange County transportation official Stan Oftelie, a Democrat, said it would be wrong to deny the White House to an anti-war activist. “It was a very traumatic time for the country,” said Oftelie, 44. “Friends and families were split quite strongly on the issue, over very sincere beliefs. That’s a crucible that strengthens people. This country also has a quality of forgiveness.”

Orange County Democratic Chairman Howard Adler, 49, was himself an anti-war demonstrator and views those who participated with him as patriots. A congressional aide during the Vietnam War, Adler actually reported for military induction, but failed the physical because of an eye ailment.

“The patriotism issue is something we don’t need right now,” Adler said. “I think it’s a very dangerous tactic. . . . It divides us as a people.”

While people like Adler were protesting, some conservatives were toeing a harder line.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi, as a young deputy in the district attorney’s office, was assigned to advise police on dealing with campus demonstrators during the Vietnam conflict.

“I was prosecuting criminals,” said Capizzi, 53, a Republican. “Also, I was the adviser to police departments with respect to campus demonstrations, so I was desperately trying to work out nonviolent solutions to the demonstrations that Bill Clinton and his friends were organizing.”

A strong Bush supporter, Capizzi said he would be “troubled” by any presidential candidate who had demonstrated against the war, even nonviolently.

“Those who were organizing them, for the most part, were trying to turn them into sufficiently confrontational and belligerent events to further publicize their ends,” Capizzi said. “I would be very troubled by people who engaged in that conduct. I am even more troubled by someone going to a foreign country, where he was perceived to be representing people of the United States.”

Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates, 53, said that while other issues such as the economy and overall experience in office are much more important, it would be hard for him to totally ignore Clinton’s anti-war, patriotism issue.

“I’ve never thought about it,” Gates said of anti-war protesters’ questioned patriotism. “But when you have to put your life out on the line for your country or your community, it’s not a good feeling if you’re not being supported by everyone at home.”

San Clemente Councilman Scott Diehl, 42, said it isn’t so much the war that is at issue. “I think it’s how you conduct yourself,” Diehl said. “I would have preferred that Clinton would have answered the questions quickly and honestly. He’s practicing damage control and not practicing common sense.”

The son of a Marine officer, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) initially supported the war, but soured on it as the conflict dragged on. After graduating from college, he was called in for his physical, but the military doctors declared him ineligible for combat after Rohrabacher showed them an X-ray of a hip injury he suffered during a high school football game.

“By the time I went for that physical, Vietnam had been going on so long and seemed so senseless, I was pleased that I wasn’t going to have to put my life on the line for nothing,” recalled Rohrabacher, 45.

A staunch conservative Republican, Rohrabacher admits to feeling a small dose of empathy for Clinton. But only a small dose.

“Those were very confusing times,” Rohrabacher said. “I think a lot of patriotic people protested. But no patriotic people went overseas and protested. You don’t go outside your family and bad mouth your family. And you don’t go outside your country and bad mouth your country. It’s a character issue.”

Times staff writer Greg Hernandez contributed to this story.