A Contrast in Character

In the small town of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, a nationally recognized public speaker and Vietnam Veteran delivered a message of courage and hope to an enthusiastic crowd. Up the coast, at a rally in Virginia, a Democratic presidential candidate was also delivering a message of similar themes to an equally enthusiastic crowd.

To my knowledge, Clebe McClary and John F. Kerry have never met. Their two stories have very similar beginnings. McClary is a decorated war hero and Vietnam Veteran. After surviving a ferocious midnight attack by a Vietnamese suicide squad that left him with one less arm and eye, McClary was awarded three Purple Hearts and a Bronze and Silver Star.

Kerry also fought bravely in Vietnam. Kerry earned his stars as the commander of a patrol boat, where he was wounded in battle three times. When his service was completed, Kerry also earned three Purple Hearts and a Bronze and Silver Star, just as McClary did.

However after returning from Vietnam, the two war hero’s lives would begin to track in much opposite paths.

After recovering from 39 surgeries, McClary would return from Vietnam and begin an illustrious public speaking career that would impact thousands of lives. Many speaking engagements, from Fortune 500 companies to professional sports teams, would follow. Still, McClary would always feel most at home when speaking on messages of bravery and courage with his fellow men and women of the Armed Forces. These speaking engagements would take McClary to United States military bases all around the world.

Kerry returned from Vietnam a changed man as well. The same men that had served so bravely on his patrol boat and those that had fought fearlessly in the rice fields of Vietnam were now taking the brunt of Kerry’s attacks. Kerry had now joined a new army. Kerry now stood beside actress Jane Fonda, in an all out assault on his fellow Vietnam Vets. In the following months, Kerry would play a vital role on the attacks of the psyche of the American Vietnam Veteran.

Kerry would first play an integral part in the “Winter Soldier Investigation” hearings, where he would assert that United States soldiers often committed acts of torture, murder, and rape, while serving in their respective tours of duty. After the “hearings,” Kerry would go onto speak before Congress saying that it was our soldiers who were committing the atrocities in Vietnam, not the enemy. Kerry would always deliver speeches thick with anti-war rhetoric, yet very thin on hard facts backing up his accusations.

Additionally, Kerry would go onto pen a book, The New Soldier, to further raise his stock with the anti-war crowd and lower even further the self-esteem of his fellow Vietnam Veterans. This book featured an insulting cover that mocked the patriotic and legendary image of the Marines raising the American flag in the battle for Iwo Jima, by showing the flag upside down.

Kerry’s final act of solidarity to the “Hanoi Fonda” movement came when he supposedly threw his military medals over the fences guarding the capitol building, during a protest in DC. We would later find out that these medals were not his own, but a fellow Vietnam Vet duped by the cool anti-war Kerry. Kerry was smart enough to know that these medals may come in handy someday during a congressional, senate or even a presidential election run.

I mention these facts because I was in the crowd the other night when McClary spoke. There is something he said that night that I cannot forget. He spoke of his fondness for fellow Vietnam Vets and lifting up their spirits over the years through his speaking. He talked about the 56,000 plus names on the Vietnam Memorial. McClary then spoke of the thousands of additional honorable Vietnam Vets who probably took their own lives after the war. He spoke of their negative portrayal on TV, in the movies and by activist groups after the war. The unfair and horrific assault on their character drove many Vets to lose all self-worth and pay the ultimate price via their own hands.

Now the man that played a major role in the ferocious attack on the character of the American Vietnam Veteran is returning for a new tour of duty. Now Kerry expects these Veterans to forget his attacks on their character and service to country, and participate as political pawns by lending their support to his upstart campaign.

One man chose to build up and give hope to our Veterans, while another broke them down with character assassinations and false accusations. The contrast in character is apparent to me and surely to our honorable Vietnam Veterans too.

Hope its OK to put this here.

War veteran shares story of life after 'death'

AFMC News Service Release 0238
Released Feb. 27, 2003

By Jeanne Grimes
Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center Public Affairs

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (AFMCNS) — The possibility of war lent power and poignancy to the message a Marine veteran brought to Tinker recently during a National Prayer Breakfast gathering.

With one empty sleeve and a black eye patch as reminders of courage in combat, Clebe McClary’s South Carolina accent said, “Y’all, this is a serious time. We’re getting ready to jump in something right now, and I haven’t seen a whole lot of people praying. And we need to get back to prayer.”

His own life, McClary said, is proof that God answers prayer. He was a college coach in December 1966 when he came to a turn in the road.

“I saw a young man do something on a college campus I hope and pray I never see again,” said McClary, referring to a United States flag-burning.

He said the scene so disturbed him that he quit his job and went to Parris Island, S.C., where he enlisted in the Marine Corps. Following basic training, the Corps sent him to Quantico, Va., for Officer Candidate School and in 1967 commissioned him a second lieutenant.

He was later sent to Vietnam, where he led numerous reconnaissance patrols into enemy-held territory. The 19th patrol would be his last.

He said the 13-member patrol landed on a small tea plantation and made camp atop a hill they cleared of punji pits, booby traps and mines. Around midnight, McClary thought he heard enemy movement at the bottom of the hill.

He started toward his nearest men when a grenade exploded. McClary, hit in the shoulder and neck, got the radio and called for air support. A suicide squad of 10 to 12 North Vietnamese Army regulars breached the defenses.

“They had grenades around their waists, had the pins pulled, killing themselves, trying to kill us,” McClary said. “I didn’t know them, didn’t know anything about them, didn’t hate them, just didn’t want them killing me.”

McClary said he shot an enemy soldier, who fell into the pit where he’d taken shelter. The satchel charge the North Vietnamese was carrying exploded, blowing both men from the pit.

“I reached back for my shotgun and realized the blast had blown my left arm off just above the elbow,” McClary said. “I looked to my left. My radioman [and] my corpsman were dead or unconscious.”

In the foxhole to McClary’s right, a private “walked up on a grenade, smothered it with his stomach and blew himself in half to save my life and the lives of two Marines with him.”

Yet another grenade came his way and McClary threw up his right hand to shield his face.

“The grenade exploded and blew my nose off and my left eye, teeth on the left side and both eardrums out,” he said. “... I don’t know how long had passed, but believe me, y’all, I never wanted to live so bad in all my life. I wasn’t trying to be a super hero. I took 12 men out there, Marines, and I wanted to bring them back.”

Helicopters evacuated the Americans at 3 a.m.

“Five more minutes and nobody would have gotten off that hill alive,” McClary said.

Broken and bleeding, McClary said he wasn’t expected to live. His men, making what they believed was a deathbed call, brought him a plaque that read, “In this world of give and take, there are not enough people willing to give what it takes.”

Thirty months in hospitals and 39 operations gave McClary his life back. But it was a Michigan minister speaking at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes rally that gave him new spiritual realization.

“He said, ‘There are two kinds of fools in this world — a fool for Christ and a fool for others. Whose fool are you?’ That just slapped me right in the face,” McClary said.

After talking about his spiritual beliefs, McClary encouraged his listeners to give themselves and their children a few things money can’t buy — leadership, integrity and courage.

“Fellas, take that stupid cover off when you come in a building,” he said. “Stand up when a lady comes into the room, open the door for a lady, close the door. Pull her chair out, push it back. And ladies, let ‘em do it!”

Since the military loves acronyms, McClary left his audience with a few new ones:

PIG (Professional, Integrity, Guts) — “One needs to be professional, folks,” he said. “Be responsible. If you make a mistake, don’t blame somebody else. Take a stand.”

PRIDE (Personal Responsibility in Daily Effort) — “Pride in coming early and staying late, pride in shining your shoes, tucking your shirt tail in,” he said. “We’re gonna change the world and we can’t make up our beds? Something’s wrong.”

FIDO (Forget It and Drive On) — “Make a mistake, learn from it, forget it and drive on,” he said. “Don’t let somebody else’s life ruin your life.”

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