American Politics Journal

Remembrance of Things Past
The Curious Timing of CBS' Investigation of Bob Kerrey
by Tamara Baker

April 26, 2001 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- If you watched the CBS Evening News on Wednesday, April 25, you'll remember that the first story was their "exclusive investigation" into the February 25, 1969 nighttime deaths of 21 Vietnamese civilians at the hands of US Navy SEALS commanded by Robert Kerrey.

Kerrey commanded a squad of six men who, according to Kerrey and five of the six squad members, were out at night when, in response to sounded like enemy gunfire, they fired upon a group of people they thought were the ones shooting at them. It turned out that they had just fired upon, and killed, nearly two dozen unarmed women, children and elderly men, who may well have been deliberately used as human shields by the actual Vietcong shooters.

One of the squad members, who was shown on CBS News, claimed that Kerrey had ordered the civilians rounded up and shot. However, when it came to providing details, the man didn't offer up very much in the way details or evidence, unlike Kerrey and the other five squad members. Kerrey was awarded a Bronze Star for what the military called "killing 21 Vietcong and capturing weapons".

One month later, in order to save his unit, Kerrey literally threw himself into the path of a charging group of real Vietcong, almost as if he were hoping to get himself killed. Instead, he lived, though badly wounded, and received a Congressional Medal of Honor for his genuine bravery in that instance.

I really don't know what to think about all this. I do know, from a friend of mine who served over at Monkey Mountain in South Vietnam, that it was very easy for American soldiers to kill Vietnamese civilians, whether intentionally or by accident, and get away with it.

One day, my friend was trying to get a ride back to Monkey Mountain, when he fell in with some fresh-off-the-boat guys in a Jeep. They proceeded to barrel through a local, American-friendly village, ignoring my friend's protests, and ran over and killed two men. Then they laughingly shoved my friend out of the Jeep to deal with the understandably-angry crowd. If it wasn't for the presence of some ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) members who understood English and had watched my buddy's attempts to curb the goons in the Jeep with him, he wouldn't be here right now.

My friend, with the help of the ARVNs and the civilian witnesses, later saw to it that the murderers got nailed, and hard. But this was the exception, not the rule, when it came to deaths of this nature.

Fast-forward thirty-two years.

When I heard Dan Rather say Wednesday night that CBS News had been conducting "for months now" an investigation into what really happened on the night of February 25, 1969, my first thought was "When was the last time Bob Kerrey was in the news?"

Answer: Six months ago, when he was going after Shrub's going AWOL for two years.

Of course, the media loved Kerrey so long as he was bashing Clinton and Gore, but when he went after Shrub for being AWOL, and came out as the man to beat in 2004, we knew they'd attack him.

Draw your own conclusions.



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