Over 30 years ago, the Vietnam War came to an end, and the 2004 Presidential election is proof that it will not go away. We’re talking about a time when the Godfather won the Oscar for Best Film and The Price Is Right made its television premiere. While the war was certainly a turning point in foreign policy and how we view sending our troops into war zones, the truth is that a war that ended decades ago is distracting Americans from the real issues.
One would think that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Sept. 11 attacks, and issues with North Korea and Iran would take center stage and bury a war that most Americans would simply like to forget. Instead, the media and, at times, both of the candidates, are concentrating their time and speeches on documents that may or may not be real, on whether or not a candidate was in Cambodia on this day or that day, and if serving stateside in the National Guard was honorable.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is considered by many to be one of our greatest wartime presidents. Roosevelt never served in the military and from a wheelchair commanded thousands of troops to victory in our nation’s greatest moment.
During the 1992 elections, Republicans accused Bill Clinton of being a draft dodger. Coming to his rescue was a decorated Senator from Massachusetts named John Kerry. Kerry called the accusations irrelevant to the election saying “We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways. Someone who was deeply against the war in 1969 or 1970 may well have served their country with equal passion and patriotism by opposing the war as by fighting in it.”
Yet, 12 years later, Kerry has seemingly changed his stance on the issue. Vietnam was bound to be an issue in this election considering the wartime history of the Massachusetts Senator. From the earliest days of his campaign and during the Iowa caucuses, Kerry put members of his swift boat at the forefront of his campaign. It’s hard to believe that Kerry didn’t want Vietnam to be a major issue in this election.
A poll conducted by Gallup found that 80 percent of Americans believe moral character is an important quality for a president. Seventy percent said government experience was a top priority. At the bottom of the categories deemed important for a candidate when running for the office of president was military service at 23 percent. War experience did little for Bush in 1992 when the economy was the deciding factor. The same happened to Bob Dole in 1996 despite Dole’s military service.
A cutback on the Vietnam rhetoric would be the best situation for voters. Polls show they don’t really care about military service when casting their vote. More specifically, Bush needs to explicitly denounce the Swift Boat Ads and Kerry must stop criticizing the President and Vice President about not serving in Vietnam. Any military service is respectable and exploiting weaknesses in the records of your opponent’s military service is dishonorable.
While our two candidates wage war over who did what in the 1970s, Americans in 2004 are struggling with issues of rising healthcare, soaring fuel costs, a growing gap between the rich and poor, two simultaneous wars, fears of another terrorist attack, a crumbling energy infrastructure, the exportation of jobs overseas, and much more.
The focus of this election should be what Americans need now and not what happened over three decades ago. There is far too much at stake in this election to be worrying about something we would rather forget.
Derek Montgomery ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and journalism.
