Where I stand—Mike O’Callaghan: No easy assignment

Thursday, May 3, 2001 | 8:48 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

SEVEN MEN moving in the pitch-black night are in enemy-held territory. They have no air support and can't call in artillery fire because there isn't a friendly unit within miles. Their mission was to quickly upset a meeting to be held by a local Viet Cong secretary and then move back to the boat that had delivered them. In the process some women and children were killed in the village when the men returned fire coming from the dark. The secretary's meeting evidently wasn't held in that location and the men returned to their base.

This is only a brief sketch of what happened that February night in 1969. Nothing in such an escapade is all this simple. Six of the seven men recall this is what happened, but the seventh man says that women and children were lined up and shot. Around the seventh man's recollection has come a news magazine story and a television report 32 years later. Our country, still having mixed feelings about the Vietnam War, has been inundated with editorials, letters to the editor and follow-up stories about what took place.

In the center of the storm has been popular former governor and two-term U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey from Nebraska. Recently he assumed the presidency of a university in New York. He was the leader of the seven-man SEAL team that night in Vietnam and is now the victim of the morbid curiosity of people who haven't been in enemy territory leading a mission on a moonless night.

I didn't serve in Vietnam, but it must have been a guerrilla war that was most difficult to fight. Young boys and old ladies with hidden grenades and guns can kill a person just as dead as one being shot by a professional soldier. In Korea it was my experience to patrol into enemy territory and feel the rush of adrenalin when the first burst of fire interrupts your patrol. As a patrol leader you are only concerned about returning fire and maneuvering to protect your unit. When returning from a firefight it's necessary to talk with every patrol member because each individual had a different experience.

Whether it is in Korea, Vietnam or WWII, night ground combat with the explosion of grenades and chatter of automatic weapons causes confusion. The quiet that sometimes follows the first exchange of fire is eerie and unreal but is usually very brief.

We don't know exactly what happened when Kerry's Bravo One team entered Thanh Phong that night in 1969. Why we should expect them to now recall every bloody minute, to satisfy the curiosity of journalists and their desire to judge the past through inexperienced eyes, is beyond me.

Sen. John McCain, in an article for the Wall Street Journal, wrote, "My friend, Bob Kerrey, made a mistake in Vietnam. He was sent into a free-fire zone to kill for his country, and he helped kill the wrong people. Those who now judge him must follow the dictates of their conscience. But unless you too have been to war, please be careful not to form your judgment of him on your understanding of what constitutes a war hero. They are not the Hollywood copy you might expect."

Over the years I've known at least 15 men who were awarded the Medal of Honor, and each of them earned it the hard way. A month after that night in Thanh Phong, Kerrey was awarded our nation's highest decoration for action near Nha Trang Bay. His Medal of Honor citation in part reads:

"In order to surprise the enemy, he and his team scaled a 350-foot sheer cliff to place themselves above the ledge on which the enemy was located. Splitting his team in 2 elements and coordinating both, Lt. (jg.) Kerrey led his men in the treacherous downward descent to the enemy's camp. Just as they neared the end of their descent, intense enemy fire was directed at them, and Lt. (jg.) Kerrey received massive injuries from a grenade which exploded at his feet and threw him backward onto the jagged rocks. Although bleeding profusely and suffering great pain, he displayed outstanding courage and presence of mind in immediately directing his element's fire into the heart of the enemy camp.

"Utilizing his radio, Lt. (jg.) Kerrey called in the second element's fire support, which caught the confused Viet Cong in a devastating cross fire. After successfully suppressing the enemy's fire, and although immobilized by his multiple wounds, he continued to maintain calm, superlative control as he ordered his team to secure and defend an extraction site. Lt. (jg.) Kerrey resolutely directed his men, despite his near unconscious state, until he was eventually evacuated by helicopter. ..."

Bob Kerrey has become his own worst critic because of the innocents killed in February 1969. It's time for him and the journalists to put that short period of time in his life to rest. What he has done since then and is doing now in the field of education is what we should celebrate.

Yes, Bob Kerrey is a true American patriot who continues to serve the country he loves.

archive