By now, John Kerry must rue the day that he and his campaign strategists decided to make his four months in Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. All the polls showed that the voters were deeply concerned over the war against Muslim terrorists, and considered President Bush and the Republican Party far superior to the Democrats in waging it. On the other hand, Bush's contribution to the Vietnam War had been stateside service in the Air National Guard, and the liberal media had managed to raise questions as to whether he had even completely fulfilled that obligation. Kerry, on the other hand, was a Vietnam veteran, who had not only volunteered to serve there, but acquired a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for his heroism. If any Democrat was qualified to lead the war on terrorism, surely it was Kerry.

What the Democrats failed to foresee, however, was that war is a murky business in which personal recollections inevitably differ, and that there were bound to be scores (indeed, as it turned out, 250) of Kerry's fellow Vietnam veterans whose memory of those desperate days differed from Kerry's. Ordinarily, this wouldn't have mattered; but when Kerry and the Democratic campaign strategists publicized Kerry's version of events and made it the keystone of his entire campaign for the presidency, these men were moved to protest -- loudly.

Ever since, the Kerry campaign has been bogged down in an ugly fight with these protesters. It tried to suppress a book stating the angry veterans' side of the case; it threatened lawsuits against any TV station that aired interviews with their spokesmen; it became entangled in obscure arguments over whether there was enemy fire from the riverbank, and whether Kerry was or wasn't in Cambodia, and if so when, etc., etc. Inevitably the brouhaha took its toll on public opinion; Kerry's ratings dipped, and, as of this writing, haven't recovered.

My own guess is that we will never know the absolute truth on these subjects. Both sides are sincere -- it is simply a question of conflicting memories after 35 years. But there is another aspect of the story that threatens to be far deadlier to the Kerry campaign.

When Kerry returned from Vietnam, he was thinking seriously of running for political office, but was not notably concerned with the war as an issue. Through the latter part of 1969, however, his attitude hardened, and in 1970 he obtained early release from the Navy so he could run for Congress. (He subsequently dropped out of the race in favor of Robert Drinan, the antiwar Jesuit priest.)

But by now Kerry was morphing into a thoroughgoing antiwar activist. He joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and participated in demonstrations organized by Jane Fonda, among others. In the spring of 1971 he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It was here that Kerry made a widely publicized series of charges concerning the conduct of American soldiers in Vietnam. He declared that antiwar veterans "told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."

This is the grim bill of particulars that John Kerry laid at the feet of his fellow Vietnam veterans in 1971. And while atrocities did unquestionably occur in Vietnam, as they do in all wars, it was bitterly unfair, and totally false, for Kerry to suggest that such behavior was common, let alone permitted by higher authority. ("These were," he declared, "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.")

Is it any wonder that thousands of Vietnam veterans who read that testimony, knowing that it was false, and realizing the damage it did to their own proud service on behalf of their country, profoundly resent the man who blackguarded and slandered them? That is the real issue that John Kerry's boasts about his heroism have dragged into this campaign.

This article was published by The Decatur Daily Democrat