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Friday, July 30, 2004

BOSTON – John Kerry skipped past his role in the Vietnam protest movement that brought him to prominence when he talked of his younger days fighting for his country and ignored that conflict when praising the American tradition of going to war only "because we have to."

Kerry once famously called the Vietnam War "the biggest nothing in history," and says he is still proud of his anti-war activism when he came back. But in the text of his televised speech at the Democratic National Convention, he emphasized his war record and offered mere clues to his protesting past.

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  A video introduction shown at the convention before the broadcast networks began carrying his speech included a clip of the young Kerry, in military garb, testifying to Congress against the war in 1971.

And his speech made passing reference to his generation's marches for "civil rights, for voting rights, for the environment, for women, and for peace."

Kerry short-handed a few telling policy details in other parts of his speech.

He declared, for example, that "we value health care that's affordable and accessible for all Americans" and called that care "a right for all Americans."

But his plan, while aimed at expanding coverage and reducing premiums, does not ensure coverage for all. His campaign says the plan would extend coverage to an additional 27 million people, which would leave more than 10 million without health insurance.

He rhetorically asked: "What does it mean when 25 percent of the children in Harlem have asthma because of air pollution? America can do better. And help is on the way."

A study by Harlem Hospital Center last year found 25 percent of the children in a 24-block area of Harlem had the disease. But blaming all of that on air pollution as part of a case against the Bush administration is not supported by the study.

Apart from genetic factors, the study found that the asthmatic children were about 50 percent more likely to live with a smoker. Pollen, dust, animal dander, cockroaches and cold air were thought to be among the contributing causes, along with urban air pollution.

On equipping the military, he said, "You don't value families if you force them to take up a collection to buy body armor for a son or daughter in the service." He's had a long-running dust-up with Republicans who criticize him for voting against an $87 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan that included money for thousands of extra sets of body armor.

His campaign said he voted against the bill, among other reasons, because it included no-bid contracts for companies.

Kerry emphasized throughout his speech his credentials as a Vietnam veteran. "I defended this country as a young man," he said. "We fought for this nation because we loved it, and we came back with the deep belief that every day is extra."

'Monster'

There was no telling from his remarks that Kerry became a leading anti-war protester after his return from Vietnam.

Testifying to Congress on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he detailed atrocities he said were committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam, including rapes, beheadings and random killings of civilians, only to acknowledge later he had not witnessed these acts.

He tossed away the ribbons he had received with his war medals, threw away the medals of other veterans who weren't able to attend a protest and told the 1971 Senate hearing: "The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history."

Despite his judgment then that Vietnam was about "nothing," and despite other wars and invasions of arguable necessity, Kerry suggested Iraq was a departure from a long-held practice of last-resort wars.

"As president, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence," he said. "I will immediately reform the intelligence system so policy is guided by facts, and facts are never distorted by politics.

"And as president, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to."

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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