WEBVTT FILE 00:00:09.490 --> 00:00:23.812 Interviewer: If you could, since this would be used with some of your footage, describe what a typical mission was like and if you could mention the fact that you had this camera and why you wanted to have some pictures and mention Don Droz. 00:00:23.812 --> 00:00:24.125 Interviewer: Um... 00:00:24.125 --> 00:00:26.149 Kerry: In, in all in this answer. 00:00:26.149 --> 00:00:26.600 Interviewer: Ya. 00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:27.388 Interviewer: Just... 00:00:27.388 --> 00:00:29.541 Kerry: Don't know how to throw in the names. 00:00:29.541 --> 00:00:33.288 Interviewer: This way you have nothing to pick up on Don Droz. 00:00:33.288 --> 00:00:37.636 Interviewer: Just that what it was like to go up these up these canals. 00:00:37.636 --> 00:00:38.004 Kerry: Uh. 00:00:38.004 --> 00:00:38.372 Kerry: Huh. 00:00:38.372 --> 00:00:42.194 Interviewer: And, ah, what you what it was what was your conclusion to that. 00:00:42.194 --> 00:00:44.820 Interviewer: And you talked about kind of senseless loss. 00:00:44.820 --> 00:00:45.735 Kerry: Um. 00:00:45.735 --> 00:00:46.420 Kerry: Mm. 00:00:46.420 --> 00:00:48.291 Interviewer: And, what that was like. 00:00:48.291 --> 00:00:49.936 Interviewer: You don't have to be. 00:00:49.936 --> 00:00:51.881 Interviewer: I mean just sort of talk. 00:00:51.881 --> 00:00:53.302 Interviewer: When you're ready. 00:00:53.302 --> 00:00:53.901 Interviewer: Ready... 00:00:53.901 --> 00:00:54.929 Kerry: Whatever. 00:00:54.929 --> 00:00:57.088 Kerry: That's the question. 00:00:57.088 --> 00:00:58.322 Kerry: Well, okay. 00:00:58.322 --> 00:00:58.733 Kerry: Ah. 00:00:58.733 --> 00:01:05.828 Kerry: Well a typ—a typical mission, ah really didn't have any sense to it. 00:01:05.828 --> 00:01:41.301 Kerry: It was ah the logic that was explained to us by the ah command in Vietnam was that we were quote "showing the flag in the back yard of the enemy" which literally entailed driving up rivers sometimes ah so thin that the bow of a boat was nudging the trees on one side while the stern was caught on the banks of the other side as we turned around. 00:01:41.301 --> 00:02:02.283 Kerry: Then, we'd go up these rivers or canals and shoot at any quote "targets" of opportunity and at that point in time targets of opportunity were thatched huts or any people who happened to be in the area because it had been designated an enemy zone and, therefore, a free fire zone. 00:02:02.283 --> 00:02:02.552 Kerry: Ah. 00:02:02.552 --> 00:02:04.645 Kerry: Or there was specific targets. 00:02:04.645 --> 00:02:16.456 Kerry: There were bunkers or there were enemy strongholds which ah any of the strongest stronghold of the enemy entailed again thatched huts or small village or something like that. 00:02:16.456 --> 00:02:20.303 Kerry: And, the basic theory was you gonna make a lot of noise. 00:02:20.303 --> 00:02:22.058 Kerry: You're going to be there. 00:02:22.058 --> 00:02:23.611 Kerry: They're gonna see you. 00:02:23.611 --> 00:02:35.220 Kerry: They're gonna, therefore, feel that the Navy and the American military forces are without fear and without ah any restraint in its capacity to go into any part of Vietnam. 00:02:35.220 --> 00:02:36.705 Kerry: So, we would do that. 00:02:36.705 --> 00:03:02.352 Kerry: We would just go up these rivers with three and four and five boats lined up in back of each other sitting there like ducks on a shooting gallery waiting to be shot at and ah ah we'd go through...I think we went through almost every river in the Mekong Delta at one time or another, and we were shot at in almost every river in the Mekong Delta, and, received enormous casualties. 00:03:02.353 --> 00:03:02.574 Kerry: Ah. 00:03:02.574 --> 00:03:03.794 Kerry: We had no protection. 00:03:03.794 --> 00:03:06.234 Kerry: We were quarter inch aluminum in our boats. 00:03:06.234 --> 00:03:09.339 Kerry: We were all basically exposed, and we never shot first. 00:03:09.339 --> 00:03:11.003 Kerry: We always were shot at first. 00:03:11.003 --> 00:03:16.215 Kerry: We were always ambushed, and then it became just a question of getting out of the the ambush. 00:03:16.215 --> 00:03:27.637 Kerry: Survival and ah whatever numbers of wounded there were would be heli—helicoptered medivac’d out or you'd get them back to one of the coast guard vessels off the coast and then you'd go back and do it again. 00:03:27.638 --> 00:03:37.041 Interviewer: How, how was, I mean when your mission, when, when your orders were given to you how did they make sense of it? It doesn't seem as if it made any sense. 00:03:37.041 --> 00:03:42.265 Interviewer: What were your officers say to you about what was the purpose of what you were doing? 00:03:42.265 --> 00:03:58.060 Kerry: Well, there was a lot of debate and argument about that purpose right right there in Vietnam, and I think that ah within the...certainly within the officer group, but I think even down into you know the enlisted men also I think there was a tremendous amount of questioning. 00:03:58.060 --> 00:03:59.381 Kerry: Why are we doing this. 00:03:59.381 --> 00:04:12.763 Kerry: What are we doing this for, and I know I was part of a group of people who were questioning and and in there was so much questioning at, that one day they literally stopped the war for us, told us all to get into our khaki uniforms. 00:04:12.763 --> 00:04:48.487 Kerry: We went to the airport on Phu Quoc Island and they flew up to Saigon and the group from Vung Tau came up in their boats up the Saigon River and we met at Admiral Zumwalt's residence in Saigon where General Creighton Abrams came himself came in and addressed us as well as Admiral Zumwalt and told us that what we were doing was terrific and important to the war effort and that there was a future chief of naval operations there in that room and how proud they were of us and ah within hours we were back in our rivers and going at it again and there wasn't any purpose to it and I think ah most people began to see that. 00:04:48.487 --> 00:04:50.383 Kerry: We weren't gaining any territory. 00:04:50.382 --> 00:04:54.309 Kerry: We weren't winning the hearts and minds of anybody. 00:04:54.309 --> 00:04:54.611 Kerry: Ah. 00:04:54.611 --> 00:05:00.804 Kerry: We certainly weren't securing any particular strongholds or strategic objectives. 00:05:00.804 --> 00:05:14.321 Kerry: We were simply doing a very macho kind of ah ah you know public demonstration of our presence ah which ah was in many ways I think very very foolhardy and without any foundation. 00:05:14.321 --> 00:05:21.571 Kerry: I I I think many of us felt it was the Navy's way of having their presence and being in the war. 00:05:21.571 --> 00:05:39.925 Kerry: Because without that, the Navy basically only had the seals who were doing you know some long-range patrol and demolition work and stuff like and they had their forward gun observers, not very many of them, and otherwise they were ah off the coast and not really in it. 00:05:39.925 --> 00:06:04.915 Kerry: But, in this form through the Riverine patrol both the PBR's, the small patrol boats, as well as the PCF's which we were which were the patrol craft fast, we ah began to have much more Navy presence I think and ah you know to some degree it could have been useful had it been prosecuted differently, had they been more intelligent about what they were doing, and ah you know I mean it's not that it was doomed from the beginning. 00:06:04.915 --> 00:06:11.540 Kerry: It was just doomed because of the way they did it and because you didn't have a lot of very smart people doing it. 00:06:11.540 --> 00:06:13.829 Interviewer: How could it have been prosecuted differently? 00:06:13.829 --> 00:06:15.973 Kerry: Well, because I—I mean I think that... 00:06:15.973 --> 00:06:16.886 Interviewer: Start with... 00:06:16.886 --> 00:06:37.826 Kerry: It could have been done differently by genuinely setting some objectives of dealing with the people, with the infrastructure of Vietnam, ah, in those particular areas by ah you know having medical services and training services and people who could speak Vietnamese. 00:06:37.826 --> 00:06:51.081 Kerry: You know, all of the ingredients of trying to constructively build some kind of a relationship with the people with whom you were supposed to be prosecuting this effort. 00:06:51.081 --> 00:06:53.708 Kerry: But, on the contrary, there was no relationship. 00:06:53.708 --> 00:07:11.244 Kerry: I mean there was this incredible division which I noticed the first day I arrived in Vietnam between those of us who were supposedly helping people to fight the war and those for whom we were fighting the war, and that division was so enormous that those for whom we were fighting the war were not even part of the damn thing. 00:07:11.244 --> 00:07:14.300 Kerry: I mean they were just ah ancillary really to the process. 00:07:14.300 --> 00:07:14.553 Kerry: Ah. 00:07:14.553 --> 00:07:25.556 Kerry: And, and people had disdain for the rough puff troops as they were called for the regional popular reconnaissance forces and Vietnamese forces were the few minor exceptions. 00:07:25.556 --> 00:07:28.780 Kerry: There were a few units that were capable and good. 00:07:28.780 --> 00:07:32.384 Kerry: But, by and large, you never wanted to go out with them. 00:07:32.384 --> 00:07:51.860 Kerry: I mean every time we ever involved ourselves with any Vietnamese forces you could be guaranteed there would be an ambush, and ah gees I remember going out once with ah two very close friends of mine one of whom was killed Don Droz and another who now writes for a newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, Bill Rude. 00:07:51.860 --> 00:07:52.098 Kerry: Ah. 00:07:52.098 --> 00:08:04.119 Kerry: And, we went up the river, a tiny little river you know with thirty troops on each of our boats unable to move very fast and sure enough within ten minutes of leaving the village we were being shot at. 00:08:04.119 --> 00:08:05.131 Kerry: We were ambushed. 00:08:05.130 --> 00:08:15.491 Kerry: And, ah, that was the day that ah we were all decorated because instead of ah instead of just going through the ambush and getting shot up ah I I just got fed up with it. 00:08:15.491 --> 00:08:24.457 Kerry: I got, de—decided to ah ah attack the ambush and we just turned our boats and we beached right in the middle of the ambush and we ran right over it. 00:08:24.457 --> 00:08:51.530 Kerry: And, ah, the ah eh eh when we came back to the village, as a matter of fact, I'll never forget it, there wasn't a soul at the dock, which was to—totally different from normal because normally whenever we came back all the kids were there and all the villagers were but this time when we came back the dock was empty, the village was empty, and you just knew that they knew both what had happened as well as the fact that it was going to happen. 00:08:51.530 --> 00:08:53.302 Interviewer: Let's stop for a minute. 00:08:53.302 --> 00:08:55.571 Interviewer: How much film have you got left? 00:08:58.139 --> 00:09:03.940 Kerry: Sorry. 00:09:03.940 --> 00:09:04.682 Interviewer: That's okay. 00:09:04.682 --> 00:09:05.150 Kerry: Ahm. 00:09:05.150 --> 00:09:19.464 Kerry: I think a lot of people and I think more people ha—the majority of people had serious reservations and doubts about the propriety of what we were doing. 00:09:19.464 --> 00:09:30.503 Kerry: There were intense arguments at times in the officer's quarters ahhhh after meals over meals about what we were doing. 00:09:30.504 --> 00:09:30.771 Kerry: Ah. 00:09:30.771 --> 00:09:40.997 Kerry: At meetings when missions were being assigned ah there were discussions about the ah the purpose of the missions and and what was gonna be accomplished. 00:09:40.997 --> 00:09:52.492 Kerry: There were people who believed, there were people who believed that we were fighting communism and that this was terrific and it was important and who were all swept in it. 00:09:52.493 --> 00:09:55.548 Kerry: But, I think most people ah did not. 00:09:55.548 --> 00:10:04.218 Kerry: I think ah ah people like my friends that I mentioned Don Droz ah Billy Rude others ah were questioning. 00:10:04.218 --> 00:10:20.072 Kerry: I don't think they were on the on the you know total this is absolutely crazy side, but they had serious doubts and serious reservations and and ah ah didn't like what was you know being done. 00:10:20.072 --> 00:10:33.782 Kerry: In fact, you know, most of us, I mean one of the things that I'm proudest of is that the group of people that I served with, and I think they were an exceptional group of people. 00:10:33.782 --> 00:10:56.605 Kerry: I mean they really were an an incredible group of ah individuals www—acted on their own to make decisions, to separate what was good and what was bad and I think most of our guns most of the time were fired only in anger, only in response when we were in a situation that we're being been fired at. 00:10:56.605 --> 00:11:12.737 Kerry: By and large I think we took pains not to fire in free fire zones even where we were let allowed to, but where we just knew there were people there and we weren't going to be you know responsible for that, and we weren't. 00:11:12.737 --> 00:11:15.571 Kerry: And, I think a lot of people feel that. 00:11:15.571 --> 00:11:15.849 Interviewer: Stop. 00:11:15.849 --> 00:11:17.286 Interviewer: I think we've run out of film. 00:11:17.286 --> 00:11:18.306 Interviewer: Are you still rolling? 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000 Kerry: Oh, Calley made a dif—Calley made the whole antiwar difficult in a way. 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000 Kerry: Ahm. 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000 Interviewer: Just the picture of him and how he got... 00:11:25.899 --> 00:11:28.582 Kerry: ...secretaries, and chiefs of staff. 00:11:28.582 --> 00:11:29.017 Kerry: Beep. 00:11:29.017 --> 00:11:29.452 Kerry: Beep. 00:11:29.452 --> 00:11:32.643 Kerry: And, you know, get away in December, I hope. 00:11:34.915 --> 00:11:40.702 Kerry: Ah, Don Droz and I became very, very good friends and ah we did a lot of mission together. 00:11:40.702 --> 00:11:43.181 Kerry: We also did a lot of talking together. 00:11:43.181 --> 00:11:44.707 Kerry: We were really ah ah ... 00:11:44.707 --> 00:11:52.091 Interviewer: Want to start over. 00:11:52.091 --> 00:11:52.778 Kerry: Yeah. 00:11:52.778 --> 00:11:53.115 Interviewer: Yeah. 00:11:53.115 --> 00:11:53.620 Interviewer: Go ahead. 00:11:53.620 --> 00:12:00.130 Kerry: Can we wait? 00:12:02.890 --> 00:12:04.700 Interviewer: Say when... 00:12:04.700 --> 00:12:24.562 Kerry: Everything everything about the war obviously I mean as a matter of history now was as polarizing as anything that I can remember in our political process and I think that ah the Calley incident did two things. 00:12:24.562 --> 00:12:33.600 Kerry: One it helped as a catalyst to move more people into an antiwar camp because they were outraged. 00:12:33.600 --> 00:13:11.624 Kerry: But at the same time it moved a lot of other...it it helped other people to retrench and to to you know it was so horrible and it was so unheard of for American soldiers to be involved in something like that that it challenged everybody's notion of what we do that is supposed to be good in the world and what soldiers of America have always done and the whole WWII image and handing out chocolate bars and GI Joe and all of those images were really threatened by Calley so it made it much harder in many ways for us to reach out ah because people didn't want it. 00:13:11.624 --> 00:13:13.512 Kerry: They couldn't deal with it. 00:13:13.512 --> 00:13:23.692 Kerry: It was very, very threatening I think to a lot of people and so it confused our capacity to be able to really communicate on why we shouldn't be there. 00:13:23.692 --> 00:13:28.274 Interviewer: But weren't you in retrospect were saying that Calley was not alone? 00:13:28.274 --> 00:13:29.418 Kerry: Yes, we were. 00:13:29.418 --> 00:13:31.841 Interviewer: Let's that how to start that one. 00:13:31.841 --> 00:13:36.331 Interviewer: What were your purposes in assembling Winter Soldiers hearings? 00:13:36.331 --> 00:13:40.466 Kerry: I think the purposes at that point were to... 00:13:40.466 --> 00:13:41.451 Interviewer: Mention Winter Soldiers. 00:13:41.451 --> 00:14:03.788 Kerry: The purposes of Winter Soldier were to try and get the press by and large to take notice, to start to write about a different kind of war than they were in ter—and to understand the antiwar movement in different terms to to perhaps ah you know up until that point veterans were just not being listened to. 00:14:03.788 --> 00:14:07.365 Kerry: People did not listen to the veterans of the war. 00:14:07.365 --> 00:14:29.288 Kerry: The press itself had difficulty in perceiving of a group of Vietnam veterans being opposed to the war, and we had been trying through more legitimate nonthreatening means to get them to say "God, they're a group of veterans who are opposed to this war," and it wasn't until Winter Soldier hit and even Winter Soldier was very difficult. 00:14:29.288 --> 00:14:36.639 Kerry: In fact, I conceived of ah the march on Washington as a reaction to the lack of reaction over the Winter Soldier. 00:14:36.639 --> 00:14:40.617 Kerry: When we were in Detroit with Winter Soldier New York Times never covered it. 00:14:40.617 --> 00:14:44.286 Kerry: I think there might have been one tiny clipping if I recall correctly. 00:14:44.286 --> 00:14:46.559 Kerry: The Washington Post barely took note of it. 00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:49.143 Kerry: And, the electronic media did not take note of it. 00:14:49.143 --> 00:14:49.423 Kerry: Ah. 00:14:49.423 --> 00:15:03.170 Kerry: So, that we suddenly realized we have to do something else to make America understand how the soldiers of this war feel about it, and also some of the things that they were engaged in over there. 00:15:03.170 --> 00:15:10.605 Kerry: But, I think the what they were engaged in I perceived of at least as so secondary to the bigger message. 00:15:10.605 --> 00:15:14.603 Kerry: It was a way of trying to get some people to take notice. 00:15:14.602 --> 00:15:22.235 Interviewer: But didn't some people, some veterans come to Winter Soldier hearings to say Calley is not unusual? Didn't they... 00:15:22.235 --> 00:15:23.990 Kerry: Some, some phrased it in those terms. 00:15:23.990 --> 00:15:24.682 Kerry: Oh, absolutely. 00:15:24.682 --> 00:15:27.324 Interviewer: That's, wait until I finish my question. 00:15:27.324 --> 00:15:27.581 Interviewer: Ah. 00:15:27.581 --> 00:15:30.223 Interviewer: Well, were you concerned about that? Ah. 00:15:30.223 --> 00:15:37.824 Interviewer: Could you discuss that that some veterans did want to communicate that message and what did you think of that message? 00:15:37.825 --> 00:15:46.335 Kerry: Some veterans wanted to convey a message that clearly put America on notice that Calley was not alone. 00:15:46.335 --> 00:16:29.798 Kerry: I felt that that story had to be told but I did not for one and I I I was not always in agreement with all the other vet leaders either, but I felt that there were dangers in that and that it would conceivably make more difficult our capacity to try and reach those Americans who were not with us in this process yet, and so I had ambivalence and some reservations about the degree to which that particular notion should be pushed as opposed to talking more about how lives were being wasted, how the war was being prosecuted. 00:16:29.798 --> 00:16:30.050 Kerry: Ah. 00:16:30.050 --> 00:16:40.735 Kerry: Why we from our perspective saw that the Saigon government wasn't real, that the Vietnamese soldiers were not supportive, that the people themselves were not part of it. 00:16:40.735 --> 00:16:48.717 Kerry: I mean I felt that was where the debate should center and not on the atrocity angle of things even though I think it was real. 00:16:48.717 --> 00:16:57.202 Kerry: And, even in Washington when we finally got there and demonstrated I was personally not in favor of throwing the medals over the fence. 00:16:57.202 --> 00:17:13.006 Kerry: I wanted the medals returned on a white tablecloth, on a table that was placed in front of the capitol and each person walked up and quietly put their medals on the table and made a statement which that part of America that was not with us could understand. 00:17:13.006 --> 00:17:39.898 Kerry: And I think that the reaction of many of those people...Many people were moved by it but by the same token many of the people we needed to move into our camp were too outraged by it and felt that it was too insulting and for those mothers for whom the Silver Star was all they had left it was an awful challenge and we needed those mothers with us and that's why I I I you just you know felt that it was a problem, and I felt the same way about pushing the atrocity angle of things. 00:17:39.898 --> 00:17:44.910 Kerry: I didn't think it was ah you know I thought it was necessary to own up to the truth of it. 00:17:44.910 --> 00:17:49.287 Kerry: I think it's necessary to look at that as an angle of what we did. 00:17:49.287 --> 00:17:57.651 Kerry: I don't think we should ever run away from it, but I did not think it should be the focus of our antiwar communications process. 00:17:57.651 --> 00:18:02.536 Interviewer: What was your intention in planning Dewey Canyon III and with, with its various elements. 00:18:02.536 --> 00:18:02.754 Interviewer: Ah. 00:18:02.754 --> 00:18:09.160 Interviewer: Talk about it in, I just want to have the take on the fact that Winter Soldier didn't have the impact that you wanted. 00:18:09.160 --> 00:19:08.630 Kerry: The purpose of Dewey Canyon was was quite literally to get the United States of America to understand that there were thousands of veterans in this war, the young men who were sent over there who had a story to tell and that it was one of of profound importance, not only about why the war itself was wrong, and why we were not going to be successful and why we have to recognize that, but also a story about how people were being chosen to go and fight it, about who was being chosen to go and fight it, about how they were being treated when they returned to this country, about how a basic moral contract between government and its citizens was being broken...ah...in terms of employment and education opportunities and VA hospital treatment and a host of other things, and I think that ah we just felt that story had to be told, and the only way to tell it was to take it to Washington in that form. 00:19:08.630 --> 00:19:32.790 Kerry: And, part of the experience that that made that so clear to me was the Winter Soldier response and also I remember once I had a press conference in Washington which I put together and I had two or three Gold Star Mothers, I had General Shoup, former commandant of the Marine Corps, you know, Medal of Honor winner, remarkable person. 00:19:32.790 --> 00:19:33.071 Kerry: Ah. 00:19:33.071 --> 00:19:43.253 Kerry: I had a number of high administration officials, ah, former administration others and we had this press conference, and we advised it correctly. 00:19:43.253 --> 00:19:49.432 Kerry: We told everybody about it and this was an important antiwar statement and nobody came. 00:19:49.432 --> 00:19:52.101 Kerry: Nobody wanted to hear "talking heads". 00:19:52.101 --> 00:19:58.312 Kerry: And, I remember calling ABC I think it was and I got mad and I said what in the hell is the matter with you people. 00:19:58.312 --> 00:20:16.680 Kerry: I mean here is the former commandant of the Marine Corps who represents you know all the reasons a lot of young men are going over to Vietnam and getting killed who's saying we shouldn't be there and you people don't even let American hear his voice, and I said, I'll bet if we chained ourselves to the White House gates you'd have been there. 00:20:16.680 --> 00:20:19.163 Kerry: And, they said, ya, we probably would have. 00:20:19.163 --> 00:20:30.453 Kerry: And, at that point it was clear to me that the only way to do it was to bring masses of veterans to Washington and camp on the Mall and do something that was going to make them take notice and it did. 00:20:30.453 --> 00:20:32.540 Interviewer: I'd like to do one more take full. 00:20:32.540 --> 00:20:38.202 Interviewer: To separate it out from Winter Soldier about the disagreements on the returning of the medals. 00:20:38.202 --> 00:20:38.441 Interviewer: Ah. 00:20:38.441 --> 00:20:47.203 Interviewer: If you could describe it in terms of the dis—you know, sort of back room discussion about how that should be done and what your own concerns were. 00:20:47.203 --> 00:20:57.158 Interviewer: If you could add into this the fact that your own fears of what people how people saw the antiwar movement, what they had in mind when they thought that disorder in... 00:20:57.157 --> 00:20:57.593 Kerry: Sure. 00:20:57.593 --> 00:21:04.845 Kerry: I, well I was, you know I came to the antiwar movement from a different place than a lot of people. 00:21:04.845 --> 00:21:05.135 Kerry: Ah. 00:21:05.135 --> 00:21:18.480 Kerry: I came from a lot of very traditional assumptions expectations ah and when I came back from Vietnam the last place in the world I thought I would be is out in the street demonstrating. 00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:18.764 Kerry: Ah. 00:21:18.764 --> 00:21:23.933 Kerry: But, I found that the process finally demanded that and and so I did it. 00:21:23.933 --> 00:21:33.775 Kerry: But, I think unlike some people who were part of that process ah I didn't politicize a lot of other goals in the process of ending the war. 00:21:33.776 --> 00:21:37.513 Kerry: And, an awful lot of the antiwar movement did that. 00:21:37.513 --> 00:21:49.518 Kerry: There was a lot of confusion you know between ending the war in Vietnam and having the foreign policy that made sense and understanding deterrents and defense systems. 00:21:49.518 --> 00:22:06.723 Kerry: Confusion between all of that and social goals about the redistribution of income and and ah housing programs and racism and all sorts of other things that you know began to become part of it. 00:22:06.723 --> 00:22:08.004 Interviewer: Folks we're out of film. 00:22:08.004 --> 00:22:10.565 Interviewer: Just as well cause I think...I'd rather have it... 00:22:18.317 --> 00:22:31.303 Kerry: I think that the antiwar movement went through certain stages and I think that one of the problems with it is as is, it happens to a lot of movements. 00:22:31.303 --> 00:22:53.920 Kerry: I think it happened to the women's movement too that in order to begin and attract people's attention sometimes it takes a very radical kind of ah you know outrageous demonstration or effort to make people get their first consciousness that there's something new. 00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:58.410 Kerry: And, then more people begin to think about it and it brings in more people and it changes. 00:22:58.410 --> 00:23:03.642 Kerry: The problem with the antiwar movement really when the veterans appeared on the scene was- it had stalled. 00:23:03.642 --> 00:23:04.875 Kerry: It it really had stalled. 00:23:04.875 --> 00:23:11.286 Kerry: And, the image of it was ah Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman total sort of radicalized effort. 00:23:11.286 --> 00:23:42.256 Kerry: Suddenly here were these legitimate spokes-people, the veterans, who came right out of the heart of it who represented the next escalation of capacity to communicate who and and that was our strength really was that that we were a whole new group and I felt that it was dangerous to allow that new voice and new capacity to communicate to step back into the mold that the antiwar movement had reached at that point and stall that. 00:23:42.256 --> 00:24:10.613 Kerry: So I was very opposed to efforts by the veterans that were merely replicating what had brought the movement to its point of stalling and I saw the the return of the medals in a manner that threatened middle American as counterproductive rather than as you know a move, a moment when people were really gonna say well, Wow, you know, that's, look at those guys, that must really mean something. 00:24:10.613 --> 00:24:13.060 Kerry: They're giving their medals back. 00:24:13.060 --> 00:24:15.508 Kerry: Instead they sort of trashed them. 00:24:15.508 --> 00:24:20.836 Kerry: Now, it turned out that it was effective for a certain group but that wasn't that point. 00:24:20.836 --> 00:24:52.506 Kerry: It could have been so much more effective to a much larger group and you wouldn't have wound up I think with the capacity to be able to begin to have articles appeared planted by Charles Colson and Richard Nixon and others that would begin to degrade those veterans who had taken part in it and have a legitimate capacity to have people listen to it which is what happened to a large degree and there was a certain discrediting that went on, ah, and that was too bad because some of the effectiveness of the voice was diminished. 00:24:52.506 --> 00:24:56.337 Interviewer: Why were you overruled on that? Was there just so much... 00:24:56.337 --> 00:24:59.266 Kerry: Because we were a very, very democratic...All right. 00:24:59.266 --> 00:25:00.205 Kerry: You want me to... 00:25:00.205 --> 00:25:01.238 Interviewer: Start it again. 00:25:01.238 --> 00:25:06.764 Kerry: Well, you know, my point of view did not prevail on that for you know we were a very very democratic organization. 00:25:06.764 --> 00:25:08.782 Kerry: We took a vote on everything that we did. 00:25:08.782 --> 00:25:18.009 Kerry: We took a vote on whether or not we would sleep over and defy the Supreme Court and that vote carried and frankly it wasn't that huge a margin, but it carried and everybody went along with it. 00:25:18.009 --> 00:25:27.736 Kerry: And, in the same way, the executive committee or six of us took a vote on the question of ah how it would proceed and I lost. 00:25:27.736 --> 00:25:28.045 Kerry: Ah. 00:25:28.045 --> 00:25:34.299 Kerry: And, ah, I think what what dominated it was the profound anger that people felt. 00:25:34.299 --> 00:25:43.100 Kerry: They just didn't want to give it any respect, and that's how they felt and they were gonna express how they felt. 00:25:43.100 --> 00:25:44.875 Kerry: So, that was important. 00:25:44.875 --> 00:25:46.285 Interviewer: All right. 00:25:46.285 --> 00:25:47.054 Interviewer: Okay. 00:25:47.054 --> 00:25:51.795 Interviewer: Maybe you want to stop for a minute. 00:25:51.795 --> 00:25:52.435 Interviewer: Um... 00:25:59.667 --> 00:26:02.257 Kerry: Are we rolling? Okay. 00:26:02.257 --> 00:26:05.552 Kerry: You want to talk about Don. 00:26:05.552 --> 00:26:06.258 Kerry: Okay. 00:26:06.258 --> 00:26:06.847 Kerry: Ahm. 00:26:06.847 --> 00:26:31.680 Kerry: Don Droz and I ah became very good friends and I recall that he ah went to Hawaii to visit ah his wife and he just had a baby and I could, I think the baby was a week or two old and he came back from that visit. 00:26:31.680 --> 00:26:31.913 Kerry: Ah. 00:26:31.913 --> 00:26:33.369 Kerry: He had a wonderful time. 00:26:33.369 --> 00:26:46.596 Kerry: Absolutely marvelous time and we were talking about what we were going to do afterwards and he was going to ah go to Dartmouth and he had a fellowship set up and we were going to sail down here and get together and you know ah. 00:26:46.596 --> 00:26:49.997 Kerry: And then I was wounded a third time lightly. 00:26:49.997 --> 00:27:23.175 Kerry: I was very lucky in each of my escapades but it was enough that they decided under rules (chuckle) you can go home if you want and I ah and I was sent home, and I guess about a week after I got back or so a very short time after I got back one of my other very, very close friends wrote me a letter describing to me how Don was killed, and ah it was ah just I mean it was the quintessential mission absurd of the missions that we were on. 00:27:23.175 --> 00:27:29.070 Kerry: I mean it was like all of them with its own heightened absurdity in many ways. 00:27:29.070 --> 00:27:29.342 Kerry: Ah. 00:27:29.342 --> 00:28:03.718 Kerry: You know crazy captains and people who were ah there for all the wrong motives giving people orders to do things that didn't make sense and they didn't know what made sense because they weren't there every day and ah you know, whole string of boats going up a tiny river and Don's boat took a B-40 rocket right under the cabin and Don was killed instantly and the boat rammed the beach at full speed and went right up on the shore and ah ah you know they wound up ah people wound up in hand-to-hand combat. 00:28:03.718 --> 00:28:10.905 Kerry: The VC came right out of the bunkers and tried to storm the boat and it was just a very, very messy scene. 00:28:10.905 --> 00:28:11.169 Kerry: Ah. 00:28:11.169 --> 00:28:19.076 Kerry: Some of our own people wound up firing at each other because nobody could make sense out of who was saying what to who. 00:28:19.076 --> 00:28:20.131 Kerry: Just pointless. 00:28:20.131 --> 00:28:21.976 Kerry: I mean absolutely pointless. 00:28:21.976 --> 00:28:26.048 Interviewer: Stop please. 00:28:31.545 --> 00:28:31.966 Kerry: Sure. 00:28:31.966 --> 00:28:32.388 Kerry: Sure. 00:28:32.388 --> 00:28:47.847 Kerry: Okay? Well, one of the reasons I think that veterans of Vietnam are still dealing with the war in many different ways is that ah you know we went and came back in in totally different from the soldiers of any other war. 00:28:47.847 --> 00:28:51.430 Kerry: We didn't go over with the units the way they did. 00:28:51.430 --> 00:28:51.711 Kerry: Ah. 00:28:51.711 --> 00:29:14.056 Kerry: We didn't ah ah live with a group and come back with a group and we didn't have time to work things out on a troop ship for three weeks playing poker, losing our wages, crying in each other's arms, doing all the things that those soldiers did, and we didn't have three weeks in Paris or six months or whatever it was. 00:29:14.056 --> 00:29:23.543 Kerry: We didn't come back to ah docks that were lined with people who validated the experience in all the ways that they were validated then. 00:29:23.542 --> 00:29:23.767 Kerry: Ah. 00:29:23.767 --> 00:29:35.065 Kerry: We came back...we went, you know, we went sort of goodbye, hop on a plane, bunch of people you've never seen in your life all going to different parts of the country you've never been to in your life. 00:29:35.065 --> 00:29:35.289 Kerry: Ah. 00:29:35.289 --> 00:29:37.931 Kerry: Stewardesses running up and down the airplane. 00:29:37.931 --> 00:29:39.393 Kerry: It's a chartered airplane. 00:29:39.393 --> 00:29:39.594 Kerry: Ah. 00:29:39.594 --> 00:29:40.800 Kerry: You know, have a drink. 00:29:40.800 --> 00:29:41.453 Kerry: Oh terrific. 00:29:41.453 --> 00:29:42.559 Kerry: You know long flight. 00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:45.021 Kerry: Destination whatever and suddenly there you are. 00:29:45.021 --> 00:29:55.123 Kerry: You get off the plane and you're with, you know, within hours you're with a unit, and somebody's briefing you on going out on a real mission and you're on a real mission and somebody's shooting at you. 00:29:55.123 --> 00:30:21.466 Kerry: And, ah, you know, you begin to see a lot of ah ah instant ah insanity and ah brutality that ah I don't think anybody prepared you for and then one day all of a sudden you're back on this airplane ah with stewardesses and people who are laughing and happy and you're coming out of this freaky atmosphere and ah you land back in the United States of America and nobody cares. 00:30:21.466 --> 00:30:23.855 Kerry: Nobody wants you to be in uniform. 00:30:23.855 --> 00:30:24.056 Kerry: Ah. 00:30:24.056 --> 00:30:25.773 Kerry: You get in a taxi and off you go. 00:30:25.773 --> 00:30:31.325 Kerry: You try and go home and you get caught in a traffic jam or you...you know, I mean, I'll I'll never forget it. 00:30:31.325 --> 00:30:36.272 Kerry: Getting into San Francisco that first night and ah nobody could have cared less where I had been. 00:30:36.272 --> 00:30:36.474 Kerry: Ah. 00:30:36.474 --> 00:30:37.736 Kerry: Absolutely unbelievable. 00:30:37.736 --> 00:30:48.034 Kerry: And, I remember going to the house of very close friends of mine in San Francisco and I knocked on the door and said hi, and the person came to the door and ah looked awful and I said, what's the matter. 00:30:48.034 --> 00:30:50.508 Kerry: And, they said well, my mother just shot herself. 00:30:50.508 --> 00:31:06.400 Kerry: And, and I stood in the door you know suddenly confronting you know the this incredible you know here was another death and here I was home and I remember feeling very very weird and uh that was that. 00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:07.032 Kerry: Strange. 00:31:07.032 --> 00:31:10.080 Interviewer: Say strange again. 00:31:10.080 --> 00:31:12.167 Kerry: Strange. 00:31:12.167 --> 00:31:13.663 Interviewer: One more time. 00:31:13.663 --> 00:31:15.124 Kerry: I can't. 00:31:15.124 --> 00:31:16.585 Kerry: I just... 00:31:16.585 --> 00:31:18.681 Interviewer: I talked over you both times. 00:31:18.681 --> 00:31:22.712 Kerry: It's just strange, very strange. 00:31:22.712 --> 00:31:23.678 Interviewer: Cut. 00:31:23.678 --> 00:31:25.608 Interviewer: Thank you.