Joe, I see you already know about Sinclair! Forget my F911 comment.
Toni, Vietnam is still as divisive as it was in the 60's and 70's. I'm not saying that your family and friends aren't entitled to their opinions. They are shared by many. I just disagree.
All of my generation grew up with a draft. Gee, I just id'd myself as a boomer! And Vietnam was incredibly divisive (but so was the Civil Rights movement). My brothers and cousins and friends and neighbors all had to deal with the question, as all of them were eligible for the draft and none were rich or powerful. My cousin was in Nam. To this day he won't alk about it. A guy I grew up with, went to church with, sat next to in band, etc., joined the Marines. Not because he particularly wanted to fight, but because he had to do something or be drafted. He went to Nam. Received many medals from US and S. Vietnamese. Then he went back. He was the kind of casualty of the war that people didn't want to acknowledge...he died by his own hand. Suicide in Saigon? Why should he be honored with a military funeral? And later, why should his name be on the Vietnam wall? I'll give you the answer my minister gave the community....because his death, even by his own hand, was because he went to war.
I've known who John Kerry was since I was in college in the early 70's. I have also heard all the reasons other people feel he was a traitor. Yes, he probably was already running for something. But who in their right mind would choose such an issue if they planned on a political career? He could have showed off his medals and kept his mouth shut. He chose to act on his own conscience. On what he saw and felt and heard in a war he at least showed up for..twice. That's more than those chickenhawks Bush and Cheney and company can say.
Having lived in NE Ohio my whole life, I was in the thick of the anti-war movement. Kent State was one of the colleges I was accepted to. They even offered me a scholarship..for the journalism school. I chose a smaller college a half hour away. It was a very polical time and I was very political then. I am back to being a political animal because now it's MY SON being asked to put his life on the line for some fuzzy thinking and inadequate planning. This tears me up just as the Vietnam war did. Just as it must have torn up those friends and family members you mention. But that was their emotional involvement, not yours. Or mine.
My dad, like all the other men in our family went off to fight WWII. Both he and his brother served in North Africa and Sicily. (My uncle went on to invade Italy and then France and Germany. Like his nephew, he would never talk about it). My dad could never forgive the American poet, Ezra Pound, for defending fascism in Italy. He went ballistic when we studied his poetry in school. Other people of his generation had bad feelings toward people like Charles Lindbergh who was anti-war and apparently pro-German.
So, should we refuse to acknowledge the achievements of Lindbergh and Pound because they took unpopular political stands?
It will be interesting down the road to hear what sticks in peoples minds and guts from this time. As my sixth grade teacher wrote on the chalkboard (because she was crying) when JohnF. Kennedy died, "We are living history." I always remember that. And I always try to remind people.
thank you very much I am not paying 1600 bucks to be force fed Michael Moore's opinions!
How can telling the TRUTH be called a mockery? :scratch: I think it takes balls to tell the truth especially when it it makes you unpopular. Kerry put his life and his reputation on the line. Remember he was actually there. I don't think anyone who has completed a tour of duty in Viet Nam would call their time there a mockery of anything. Kerry could have taken an education deferment, gone the ROTC route, or skipped over to Canada. But he SERVED and came back and told what we had a right to know. It continues to amaze me that the "moral" Republicans only care about telling the truth and government interference when it comes to stuff that is none of their business.... Clinton/Monica, gay marriage, and trying to force people to bear children they don't want or shouldn't have for example. Maybe the Republicans are kinkier than we give them credit for? 
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