-- by Michael J. Bowers
My May 9 column on John Kerry in Vietnam was based on what I'd read in the news.
It's too bad I didn't know I could have gotten first-hand accounts from two local men who were on the Bay Hap River when Kerry arrived in December 1968.
The first man is Don Matras, a veteran who lives in Lemont. He's a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of about 220 members who think Kerry is unfit to be commander in chief. Matras served on PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) 72, while Kerry served on PCF 94. The two boats went on missions together.
The second man is Jim Wasser, who served directly with Kerry as the radarman on PCF 94. He lives in Kankakee, where he works as an electrician and serves on the school board.
He is one of nine in the Band of Brothers, a group of Swift boat veterans who are campaigning enthusiastically for Kerry for president.
Wasser, who once ate *censored*roaches for beer money, says Kerry is a man of proven character and leadership who deserves to be president.
He thinks Kerry's most prominent opponent, John O'Neill, is motivated by "right-wing Rush Limbaugh politics."
Despite the difference of opinion on Kerry, Wasser tells me there is no personal disrespect among any of the 3,500 Swift boat veterans, and I have zero wish to suggest otherwise.
Instead, I am just going to tell you two war stories and let you draw your own conclusions.
Today, I write about Mr. Matras. Please check back in two weeks, on June 20, to read about Mr. Wasser.
Don Matras graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor High School in 1965 and joined the Navy in 1966.
In June 1968, he received his Swift boat training at Coronado Island, Calif. In August, he was assigned to the base at An Thoi, an island in the Gulf of Thailand, southwest of Saigon.
Matras served at An Thoi from August 1968 to May 1969. Kerry served at An Thoi from Dec. 6, 1968, until the next St. Patrick's Day. Then he returned to the States, citing the obscure "Three Purple Hearts and You're Out" rule.
Mr. Matras says his crew once saved Kerry from a dicey situation.
He describes a mission on which PCF 94 traveled down a narrow canal and into an ambush. Turning around in a Swift boat is difficult, and the pilot made it worse when he did it wrong. He exposed the rear end of the boat to enemy fire, rather than the front end.
PCF 72 caught up to Kerry's boat and suppressed the attack so that both boats could return to safety.
Later, Matras and his crewmates pressed their commander, Lt. Bob Hildrich, to write them up for commendations.
They were young kids who thought they deserved some of the medals that the Navy was handing out. A Bronze Star, at least.
Hildrich said no. He told his crew they were just doing their job: to sail the rivers and get the Viet Cong. None of them was going to make a career out of the Navy, so what was the point of seeking a medal?
"What do you guys want to be?" Hildrich asked. "Heroes or something?"
The crew decided their commander was right. They went back to doing their job.
Matras grants that Kerry probably deserved his Bronze Star. The Silver Star, he's not so sure about. Kerry earned it on Feb. 28, 1969, when he beached his boat, chased down an enemy and killed him.
Matras says that "if Kerry actually jumped off his boat in pursuit of a Viet Cong soldier … he violated a standing naval order and exposed himself and his crew to grave danger, possible capture or possible death."
The standing order was that "the officer was not supposed to leave the boat for any reason whatsoever while on patrol, because he had knowledge and access to classified information we enlisted didn't have.
"He would have been a great war trophy and information source for the North Vietnamese if he had been captured."
All right then, I asked, what about the issue of George Bush's service in the Air National Guard?
It seems clear the future president wished to avoid combat in Vietnam. Do you hold that against him?
Matras paused, thought, then said simply:
"No."
It's not that Matras adores Bush. He calls the fall election a choice of the lesser of two evils.
It's just that he and fellow veterans cannot forgive one thing: the speech to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971.
That's when Kerry said that American soldiers committed atrocities on a "day-to-day basis."
Recently the candidate has backed away from this assessment. But for men like Matras, the speech was Kerry's Jane Fonda moment. Even after 33 years, it will not go away.
"Kerry put us in the same category as Genghis Khan," Matras says. "He called us baby-burners. This guy wants to be commander in chief, and he discredits veterans in that manner? We got a real problem with that.
"It would be great to have an ex-Swiftie for president. But why does it have to be John Kerry?"
This article was published in the Chicago Star
http://horse.he.net/~swiftpow/article.php?story=20040706122424839