[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 57 (Tuesday, May 1, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4091-S4094]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   BOB KERREY, DISTINGUISHED OFFICER

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I address the Senate with regard to 
Senator Bob Kerrey. I do this out of, first, a sense of duty. I was 
Under Secretary of the Navy beginning in February 1969, together with 
our most beloved and distinguished former colleague who sat behind me 
many years, Senator Chafee, who was the Secretary. Senator Chafee and 
I, then Secretary of the Navy and Under Secretary Warner, were a very 
close working team. I have searched my mind many times as to what he 
would say were he here today. I think I can safely represent to the 
Senate that my remarks today would be very close to, if not exactly, 
what my dear friend, our former Senator and former Secretary of the 
Navy, would have said about our colleague, Bob Kerrey, this 
distinguished officer of the U.S. Navy.
  I came to know him in the many years we served together in the 
Senate. We often sat together on the floor. I remember distinctly going 
over to his side of the aisle. We reflected on those days together of 
Vietnam. He shared with me some very personal insights with regard to 
that conflict and how they affected his life.
  I am also very respectful of Senators McCain, Cleland, Hagel, and 
John Kerry. I have, likewise, had the benefit of listening to them and 
sharing with them my recollections of that incredible period of 
American history. I served in the Pentagon beginning in February 1969, 
leaving in 1974, for 5 years plus a few months during some of the most 
intense periods of that conflict. I visited Vietnam on occasions, as 
did Secretary of the Navy Chafee, and then when I became Secretary of 
the Navy, succeeding Chafee, of course, my visits continued. I have 
been on the fire bases, in the hospitals, where the wounded were 
brought back.
  I remember one story, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, 
General Krulak, came to see me just before his confirmation to review 
various procedural matters with regard to his confirmation. We were 
there with General Mundy. He was then Commandant of the Marine Corps. 
We spent an hour together in a very thorough analysis of his 
background. I was doing it on behalf of then-Chairman Strom Thurmond. 
General Krulak got up to leave. This is a moment I shall never forget 
in my career as a Senator.

[[Page S4092]]

  He said: Senator Warner, this is not the first time we met. I was a 
little taken aback. I was thinking, where had I met this fine officer? 
I had known his father. He said: I was wounded in Vietnam, and I was in 
the process of being evacuated. I was on a stretcher with other men who 
had just been wounded, and the helicopter was coming in to take us out. 
Someone came up and grabbed me by the big toe and shook that toe. He 
said to me: Captain, you are going to be all right; you are going to 
make it. He said: I am here today to say, I made it, and you were that 
gentleman, as Secretary of the Navy, who grabbed me by the toe.
  I had no recollection because I visited with so many wounded and 
injured in that period on my visits to Vietnam. But it is a personal 
recollection of that period that I shared with another distinguished 
combat veteran who did a wonderful job as Commandant.
  Bob Kerrey and I traveled together, I remember so well, on a trip to 
Bosnia. We were coming into that zone where the war had just passed 
through not more than a day, if even as much as a day. Homes were 
burning. The ordnance was clearly visible, and the escort officers we 
had were somewhat concerned. I remember Kerrey fearlessly walking 
through areas. I was there by his side. We visited with a number of 
detainees who had been captured. You learn about an individual when you 
do a trip such as that. I became very close to him. We bonded together 
in many respects on that trip to that war zone on that particular day, 
the several days we were together.
  I reposed unquestioned confidence in his judgment, his honesty, and 
his integrity, being his boss in 1969, as Under Secretary of the Navy, 
at that time when these incidents happened. Indeed, the Medal Of Honor 
came up through the Navy Secretariat. I remember it quite well. Senator 
Chafee and I sat down, and Senator Chafee, then being the Secretary, 
affixed his name to that citation for his heroic actions.
  This has been a personal experience to watch very carefully, to study 
and read the many pieces that have been written, to watch him in his 
public appearances and study his face very carefully, his eyes and his 
mannerism, as he, I think in a very forthright manner, shared with the 
American public, and, indeed, those in Vietnam who watched, his 
heartfelt expressions about this incident. It was a tragic incident.
  I ask unanimous consent two articles which appeared in today's media 
be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2001]

                         The Consequence of War

                            (By James Webb)

       The Vietnamese government is happy to trot out witnesses 
     from the supposed atrocity conducted by Bob Kerrey's Navy 
     SEALs at Thanh Phong. It is doubtful that they would be so 
     cooperative if questions were asked about Communist killings 
     in places such as My Loc.
       In April 1969, the Marine rifle company to which I was 
     assigned was operating in the An Hoa Basin of Vietnam, west 
     and south of Danang. In addition to our routine of long-range 
     combat patrols and defensive positions along a vital and 
     heavily contested road, it was decided that we would provide 
     security for a ``town meeting'' hosted by the South 
     Vietnamese government's district chief, who had been 
     criticized for living in the distant and more secure confines 
     of Danang. Over the space of a few days, visits were made to 
     nearby hamlets, where 30 delegates were chosen to attend the 
     meeting. After that, the district chief and his senior aide 
     were brought in on the morning convoy.
       A thatch-covered ``hooch'' at the bottom of our perimeter, 
     about the size of a typical American living room, was chosen 
     as the meeting place. Shortly after the meeting began, a Viet 
     Cong assassination team raced through the thick foliage, hit 
     the hooch, and fled. My rifle platoon was returning from a 
     combat patrol as explosions rang out to our front. In seconds 
     a Viet Cong soldier sprinting down the trail collided with my 
     point man. I can still see his young face, adrenalized and 
     madly grinning, as he was captured. And I remember the sight 
     of the others as we reached the hooch.
       The floor inside was covered with an ankle-deep mix of 
     blood, innards, limbs and bodies. I and several others waded 
     into the human mire, emptying bodies from the hooch and 
     finding medical care for those who had survived. Nineteen 
     people were dead, including the district chief and his aide. 
     The aide's right arm was blown off near the elbow, its 
     tendons like slim white feathers, as if he had been reaching 
     to catch a grenade.
       Nearby an older woman sat motionless against a wall, her 
     face stunned and her dark eyes piercing, untouched except for 
     a small, square hole in her forehead. I thought she was alive 
     until I grabbed her arm. The wounded squirmed on the floor, 
     reaching past dead bodies as they crawled in the muck, 
     covered thickly with blood and twisting among each other like 
     giant fishing worms.
       We cleaned out the hooch, evacuated the wounded, washed at 
     a nearby well, and went back to our war. By the next day this 
     incident was over, a little piece of history in the long and 
     ugly journey of a combat tour. But in the coming months as I 
     reflected on them, the killings at My Loc raised an important 
     distinction, which has become even more relevant with the 
     media firestorm over Bob Kerrey's ill-fated SEAL patrol in 
     the Mekong Delta.
       Civilians have a terrible time in any war zone--fully one-
     third of the population of Okinawa was killed in 12 weeks of 
     fighting on that island in 1945. But in a guerrilla war, the 
     support or control of the local population, rather than the 
     conquest of territory, is the ultimate objective. Civilians 
     become enmeshed in the actual fighting, inseparable from it.
       They fight among themselves for political dominance of a 
     local area. They form an infrastructure and quietly support 
     one side or the other when it moves through their village. 
     They suffer greatly when battles are fought on top of them, 
     and when emotions overcome logic and troops snap, as at My 
     Lai. But the villagers of My Loc and others like them, 
     clearly noncombatants, were killed purely as a matter of 
     political control, for having met with a South Vietnamese 
     government official and given some legitimacy to his 
     authority.
       Any American who directed a similar slaughter, or 
     participated in it, would have been court-martialed. This 
     distinction was basic to our policy in Vietnam, and it seems 
     to have been lost by many over the past week. The body 
     language and word choices of many media commentators 
     indicates clearly that a larger issue--how history will judge 
     our involvement in Vietman--is still very much in play, and a 
     big part of that issue is to continue to demean the American 
     sacrifices in that war.
       Words like ``atrocity'' and ``massacre'' are routinely 
     being thrown about, with some even calling for Nuremberg-like 
     trials for Americans' war crimes in Vietnam. Aggressive 
     reporters have played ``gotcha'' with every Kerrey statement. 
     How could he say it was a moonless night when the charts say 
     it was a half-moon? (Try clouds. Or canopy. Or vegetation.) 
     Did he take one shot or many shots at the first outpost? Did 
     he kneel on a guy when his throat was getting cut?
       For many who went through extensive combat in Vietnam, such 
     parsing brings back an anger caused by memories not of the 
     war but of the condescending arrogance directed at them upon 
     their return, principally by people in their own age group 
     who had risked nothing and yet microscopically judged every 
     action of those who had risked everything and often lost a 
     great deal. Combat in a guerrilla war requires constant moral 
     judgments, in an environment with unending pressure, little 
     sheep, and no second chances for yourself or the people you 
     are leading when you guess wrong. Were we perfect? No. Were 
     we worse than Americans in other wars, or our enemy in this 
     one? Hardly.
       Which brings us to the recent attention given the Kerrey 
     patrol. There is much in the New York Times magazine story to 
     make one uneasy. They key ``witness'' from the village where 
     the incident took place is the wife of a former Viet Cong 
     soldier, who now has told Time magazine that she did not 
     actually see the killings. She and the other Vietnamese 
     witness, who was 12 at the time of the incident, live in a 
     communist state where propaganda regarding America's ``evil'' 
     war efforts is one of the mainsprings of political 
     legitimacy--not the best conditions to produce honesty in 
     cases with international implications.
       The one member of Mr. Kerrey's SEAL team to allege extreme 
     conduct did not pass the credibility test with Newsweek 
     magazine when the story was considered there. CBS's ``60 
     Minutes,'' which co-sponsored the investigation, seems to 
     have an affinity for stories about Americans committing 
     atrocities, having rehashed My Lai as the best way to 
     remember the 30th anniversary of 1968, the year that brought 
     the worst fighting, and highest American casualties, of the 
     war.
       Most important, to one practiced in both combat and 
     journalism, a key and possibly determinative piece of 
     information seems vastly underplayed. According to the Times 
     magazine story, archive records of Army radio transmissions 
     indicate that two days after the incident, ``an old man from 
     Thanh Phong presented himself to the district chief's 
     headquarters with claims for retribution for alleged 
     atrocities committed the night of 25 and 26 February 69. Thus 
     far it appears 24 people were killed. 13 were women and 
     children and one old man, 11 were unidentified and assumed to 
     be VC.''
       Given the tone of the story, this radio transmission was 
     probably included because it refers to the Kerrey patrol as 
     having committed an atrocity. But a closer reading would 
     appear to confirm the position of Mr. Kerrey and the five 
     others on the patrol that they took fire and returned it, 
     with the loss of civilian lives an unfortunate consequence.
       This piece of evidence is perhaps the most objective 
     account available of the results of the Kerrey patrol, coming 
     as it does from a

[[Page S4093]]

     time near the incident, from a man who was asking for 
     retribution and thus was hardly trying to cover things up. It 
     also coincides with Mr. Kerry's recollection of 13 or 14 dead 
     civilians in the village before the team left the scene, as 
     any Viet Cong soldiers would most likely have been on the 
     other side of the villagers who were killed, perhaps even 
     using them as a screen while attempting to escape.
       As has often been said over the past week, we will never 
     know the exact details of what occurred. But is a seven-man 
     patrol operating independently at night far inside enemy 
     territory killed 11 Viet Cong soldiers after coming under 
     fire, it would seem they hit their assigned target. And the 
     loss of civilian life that accompanied this brief but brutal 
     firefight adds up not to an atrocity or a massacre, but to a 
     tragic consequence of a war fought in the middle of a 
     civilian population.
                                  ____


                [From the Washington Times, May 1, 2001]

                         Scales of Culpability

                         [(Georgie Anne Geyer)

       In days long gone by, when we lived far simpler lives, 
     according to the corny but nevertheless accurate truism, we 
     agreed that to genuinely know another human, you needed to 
     walk awhile in his moccasins.
       In those days, too, the press in particular held as its 
     central maxim the idea that we journalists were blessed with 
     our wondrous positions in order to tell the relative truths 
     that keep people sane (journalism is news, not ``truths'') 
     and to relate rather than judge. Walk in anyone else's 
     moccasins today trying to understand another's life? Not 
     really interested.
       Instead, in journalism and in politics as well, the 
     response to trials, scandal and tragedy has boiled down to 
     most news-gatherers (1) having no common experience with the 
     prolific targets of their fleeting attention, and (2) not 
     hesitating to publicly reveal every delicious tidbit they can 
     unearth. Thus, they become prosecutor, judge and jury.
       As you may perhaps have guessed, I'm being so critical 
     because of the evolving case study of Nebraska's respected 
     senator, Bob Kerrey.
       The retired senator, now president of the New School 
     University in New York, has long been one of our most 
     responsible public servants. Thoughtful, intellectual, known 
     for his integrity: Those are only a few of the small 
     accolades he has merited in a capital so often these days 
     filled with incompetence and greed.
       Recently, in a series of revelations whose genesis, at 
     least as of this writing remains unclear, a tragic story has 
     been unfolding about him in different venues of the press.
       In short, the story is that, in a midnight raid on a 
     supposed Viet Cong village in 1969, Mr. Kerrey led a Navy 
     SEALs raid. He believed his nervous and inexperienced unit 
     had been fired upon by the village, and so they bombarded it. 
     But when they entered, they found only the bodies of 13 
     Vietnamese women and children or more.
       For those of us who were in Vietnam (I was there for a 
     total of 10 months as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago 
     Daily News in 1967, '68, '69 and '70), such accidents of war 
     were so common as to be barely commented upon. In fact, what 
     exactly did Americans at home expect of these young men and 
     women, having sent them into such a hopeless and agonizing 
     morass, barely prepared and on such an imprecise, futile 
     mission?
       On any given night there, our soldiers were in dark jungles 
     or mountain ranges. They didn't know where the ``enemy'' 
     was--or why in God's name they were there at all. They didn't 
     speak the language, understand the culture, or see the great 
     ``geopolitical importance'' their leaders safely at home in 
     their air conditioned Washington offices seemed so insistent 
     upon giving to ``Vietnam.''
       There were some sadists and psychopaths in the U.S. 
     military then--and there were plenty of them in the anti-war 
     movement, as well--but Bob Kerrey was certainly not one of 
     them. Indeed, in all of the reporting on his bleak and 
     tormenting memories of that night, Mr.Kerrey has spoken 
     repeatedly of how he has ``never made by peace with what 
     happened that night.''
       Nor should the fact that his own fellow SEALs offer 
     dirrerent versions of that night by really surprise anyone. 
     Thirty-two years ago, a moonless night in a strange and 
     unknown country, told the enemy was all around them. . . . 
     Why, most of the families I know would tell different stories 
     abut what they had for dinner last night.
       Still, even having said this, at least two additional 
     points need to be made: about the men truly responsible for 
     those moonless missions in Vietnam and about the coverage of 
     this Bob Kerrey story.
       For there are people who deserve to suffer as Mr. Kerrey 
     has--haunted and profoundly regretful for what he did under 
     his country's orders in the name of his people. They had the 
     real responsibility. Robert McNamara, the supercilious 
     weapons maven, Lyndon Johnson (remember how he just resigned 
     midstream when the war wouldn't go his way?), the fall-in-
     line joint chiefs of staff, not one of whom resigned over the 
     war, even John F. Kennedy and Harry S. Truman. I haven't 
     heard of much trauma or many sounds of remorse from these 
     men, let alone any seeking of forgiveness. And, remember, 
     too, that the American people voted enthusiastically for many 
     of these ``strategists'' of war.
       There are also people in the media for whom ``Vietnam'' is 
     less a country or even a war than another way to ``get'' 
     public officials.
       Most of the media do not cover stories overseas these days. 
     (If you watch the news discussion shows, few of the 
     participants go out in the field to actually report anymore.)
       That's precisely why they can be so judgmental of the men 
     and women our country sends out to do its dirty work. 
     Judgmentalism is fun. It builds bylines and reputations, and 
     if it hurts a few public lives here and there, well, that's 
     what those guys should have expected when they went into 
     public office. Given all of this, Bob Kerrey continues to 
     look like the hero everyone has thought him.

  Mr. WARNER. I was personally impressed by these articles, the first 
written by former Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb appearing today in the 
Wall Street Journal, and the second in the Washington Times, written by 
Georgie Anne Geyer. I have not sat down with Ms. Geyer in some time, 
but in my course of these 23 years in the Senate, I have had the 
opportunity to be interviewed by her. She is a very thoughtful and 
careful journalist. In this article she recounts that she spent some 10 
months in country covering that war.
  Jim Webb, of course, was a highly decorated combat Marine officer: 
Navy Cross, second highest decoration next to the Medal of Honor; 
Silver Star; Purple Heart; and, coincidentally, he was a naval aide to 
me and to John Chafee as a young captain and major in the Marine Corps 
in that period of time. He briefed me prior to trips I would take to 
Vietnam. Through the years I have valued his friendship enormously.
  I also had another personal experience. I remember one day there was 
a knock on my Senate door and in walked Jan Scruggs, who asked if I 
would help his group in their struggles to build the Vietnam Veterans 
Memorial. I cannot think of a greater honor I have had as a Member of 
the Senate than working, as I often refer to myself, as a private in 
the rear ranks of Jan Scruggs' group of individuals, who conceived and 
put together this magnificent memorial to the men and women who 
sacrificed so much in that conflict.
  I think I worked with him 6 to 7 years. I went to many meetings with 
many stormy sessions in either my Senate office or across the hall in 
the Armed Services Committee, and in the Veterans' Affairs Committee. I 
remember we would thrash out, in a highly contentious way, certain 
aspects of the design and development of that historic memorial. Now it 
stands as just an extraordinary reminder of that period. Its symbolism 
is different to every person who comes up to look at it.
  But in the course of those years, I relived, with so many of those 
people, their experiences in that conflict. Therefore I have had, if I 
may say, some modest association with the men and women who fought in 
that conflict, and I have shared with them many times their thoughts 
and concerns and recollections of the stresses and hardships that they 
have carried with them to this day.
  So I find these articles to be very compelling and I urge my 
colleagues to read them. I think they provide thoughtful, objective 
thinking to help in the interpretation of that chapter in history which 
was so difficult to understand, particularly Senator Kerrey's mission 
on that fateful night in Vietnam.
  Americans must understand that war is a terrible thing. Since the 
beginning of history, wars have imposed the harshest of consequences, 
not only on the combatants in uniform but so often on the innocent 
civilians who get entrapped between the lines or in the path of the 
advance or in the path of the retreat. And they have paid a price. I 
thought both Jim Webb and Ms. Geyer treated that subject thoughtfully 
based on their own firsthand observations and experiences in country in 
Vietnam.

  So I attribute a great deal of credibility to these two authors, 
particularly because of my long personal knowledge of Jim Webb. I say, 
with great respect to him, his career in the military far exceeded 
anything I ever did with my two brief periods of active duty, one just 
in the training command at the close of World War II, and the second 
for a brief tour of duty in Korea with the 1st Marine Air Corps.
  To the extent I was able to observe others in a combat situation in 
Korea,

[[Page S4094]]

as basically a staff officer--I never put myself in the category of 
those who rightfully claim combat status, but I did stay in the same 
tents, eat in the mess, slept in the bunkers with them--they are a very 
special breed, these young men and women who fought wars in harm's way 
to preserve our freedom.
  Today I do my very best as a member of the Armed Services Committee 
to provide for a means of showing my respect for them and, indeed, my 
gratefulness to the American military for training me as a young person 
and for providing me with the GI bill of rights.
  I have many emotions as I stand before the Senate tonight to express 
these views. I got to know Jim Webb well when he was in the office of 
the Navy Secretary and I tried to counsel him as best I could on his 
decision to leave active duty--which largely was not of his choosing 
but was dictated by facts very personal to him. Had he stayed in the 
Marine Corps I think he was destined to the highest of rank and the 
greatest of responsibility. He had to make a tough decision to leave 
the Corps and pursue other challenges. I mentioned, of course, for a 
brief period he became Secretary of the Navy. I was very proud of his 
service as Navy Secretary.
  Several facts which I note from these articles and which I note from 
my own observation, again, are unquestioned. So many statements have 
been made by my distinguished colleagues about the honor and integrity 
of Bob Kerrey. His bravery and valor have been recognized many times, 
including being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
  I know during the Vietnam war we asked many young men--I repeat that, 
we, the United States of America, we the Congress of the United States 
and the President, the Presidents of the United States--asked many 
young men, and some women in a combat support status, to undertake very 
difficult missions under the most extreme and dangerous of conditions. 
They put their lives at risk to accomplish sometimes unclear missions 
while trying to minimize casualties within their own units.
  Recently, I discussed this with members of the Armed Services 
Committee staff, combat veterans from Vietnam. We followed these 
stories about Senator Kerrey. We sat down and exchanged our own views. 
I deferred to them because two of them were in the thick of battle and 
they talked about the number of times throughout that war as veterans 
of ground combat that they took risks, themselves, personally, and 
risks to their men who were with them, to provide some measure of 
protection to the innocent non-combatant persons who had gotten 
entrapped in those battles in the dark nights and dusty days in that 
deep canopy.
  Yes, they did take personal risks themselves. As near as I can 
determine, then-Lieutenant Kerrey, Robert Kerrey, took those risks 
himself.
  They did so to protect the civilians in the combat zone. In that 
period of time, it was very difficult to determine who the enemy was; 
imagine that--who the enemy was. It was a very complex conflict into 
which we injected our men and women.
  So we will never know exactly what happened that February night in 
that Thanh Phong, Vietnam, battle. But I respect the word of my former 
colleague, Robert Kerrey, and I urge other Senators to read these 
articles and decide for themselves. I believe each of us ought to make 
our own determination about this situation.
  I conclude my remarks with a salute to the men and women who fought 
in that conflict and share with them my complete understanding, as near 
as I can base it on my own experiences. I salute them.

                          ____________________