Up the River

Twice now, Kansans have propelled much of the debate over Senator John Kerry's service in Vietnam. Most recently, former Senator Bob Dole questioned whether any of the injuries that earned Kerry three Purple Hearts had actually caused the candidate to bleed.

Yikes, Bob. Wasn't it just a few months ago that you invited Bill Clinton to Kansas and the two of you made a plea for less partisan bickering?

Anyway, now that the furor over ads put out by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is finally dying down, this meat patty wonders whether swing voters have really been swayed by the attacks on Kerry's jungle adventures. To help you find out how you've been affected, the Strip has devised this simple quiz.

1.On the morning of March 13, 1969, John Kerry skippered his swift boat to the entrance of the Bay Hap River, where, author Douglas Brinkley writes inTour of Duty, his book on Kerry's Vietnam experience: "Swarms of fishing boats of all shapes and sizes were bobbing around ... If Kerry had felt like enforcing the no-movement rule to the letter, he could have ordered his men to shoot every Vietnamese on the sampans. The dead would have been matter-of-factly written off as VC trafficking goods during the U.S.-ordained curfew time."

Instead, Kerry not only didn't kill anyone, he slowed down his boat so it wouldn't swamp any of the shallow sampans floating nearby.

What does Kerry's decision say about him?

A.Four months into his Vietnam War experience, Kerry had already been deeply affected by the waste of human life he'd witnessed. The last thing he wanted was to participate in a needless war atrocity.

B.Kerry took seriously the "no wake" restrictions he'd learned water-skiing as a spoiled rich kid.

C.Kerry would have personally killed all of the unarmed fishermen using a rocket launcher, but he'd sprained his trigger finger buttering his toast that morning and was busy writing up a Purple Heart citation for himself.

2. After joining several other boats and moving upriver, Kerry dropped off some Cambodian mercenaries, one of whom promptly stepped on a mine and was killed. Brinkley writes that Kerry kept a journal, in which he described helping to retrieve the body in a poncho. "I never want to see anything like that again," Kerry wrote. "What was left was human, and yet it wasn't -- a person had been there only moments earlier and ... now was a horrible mess of torn flesh and broken bones; bent and bloody, limbs contorted and distorted as if they could never be alive. Most of his stomach was hollowed out and there was a huge hole that went through his mouth and nose to the other side. I didn't really want to look and so I concentrated on looking right through him, avoiding contact with any personality."

Making matters worse, the Cambodian soldier, Bac She De, had been one of the most popular in his unit, a laughing, smiling character, but now, one soldier pointed out, his remains could fit in a bucket.

What does Kerry's concern for the dead Cambodian indicate?

A.Despite being around death and injury on a daily basis, Kerry still hadn't been completely desensitized by the war and was capable of seeing others -- even mercenaries from a foreign country -- as human beings needlessly wasted in an unwanted conflict.

B. Wait a minute. They carried him in a poncho? Ew.

C. Who keeps a journal in wartime and writes down what every little injury looks like? Someone with a long-range plan to falsely aggrandize himself as a war hero, that's who.

3. Before Kerry and another soldier could get the body back to the boat, he and his men were suddenly pinned down by gunfire. Kerry dropped the poncho and dived into a ditch as bullets whizzed over his head. In his journal, he wrote: "I just lay in the ditch, not firing because I wanted to save ammo and because I couldn't see what I was firing at, and I thought about what was happening in New York at that very moment, and if people really felt that I was doing something worthwhile while they went down to Schrafft's and had another ice cream sundae, or while some fat little old man who made another million in the past months off defense contracts was charging another $100 call girl to his expense account. And then, when the shooting stopped, I came back to where I was."

What do Kerry's musings about New York at such a terrifying moment indicate?

A.Even with his life in danger, Kerry could see his situation in a larger context -- one of the most important attributes of a leader.

B. Wait a minute. He was lying in a ditch next to the poncho with, like, the blown-up guy? Ewwww.

C.Typical pinko Democrat. His buddies are under fire, and Kerry's already practicing a stump speech demonizing future Vice President Dick Cheney.

4. After the shooting died down, the swift boaters tried to request helicopter support, but Lt. Cmdr. George Elliot, back at the waterborne HQ, told them all the choppers were tied up. "I swore," Kerry wrote in his notes. "We had been promised that when the shooting got heavy, we would have helos to help us out. But the headquarters just said that they were otherwise disposed and we would have to do the best we could."