Ghost war

A measure of the man is what he has attempted to do for the country as a whole.

"Some thought Kerry was overdoing his Vietnam credentials with his theatrics of 'reporting for duty.' But Kerry was on to an essential truth about the America that emerged from Vietnam: That duty begins when you open your eyes in the dark face of reality. It is the same truth with which he closed his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 33 years ago:

'We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done, and all that they can do by this denial, is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission: To search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war; to pacify our own hearts; to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last 10 years and more. And more. And so, when, 30 years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say 'Vietnam' and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned, and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning. '

'One last mission': The turning is still in progress."