Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 8, 1994                   TAG: 9406080073
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NORMANDY

To the professional Clinton-bashers, this will mean little. For them, anything the president could say or do on the 50th anniversary of the Allies' push into Europe during World War II is overshadowed by Clinton's "draft dodging," a quarter-century later during the Vietnam era, via slick deferment manipulation.

But why the double standard? Why, 10 years ago, was then-President Ronald Reagan not criticized for taking part in ceremonies commemorating the 40th anniversary of D-Day? Fair or not, it would've been more relevant.

World War II was not Clinton's war; he wasn't born until three years after D-Day. But it was Reagan's war - a war he as a young man was happy to sit out in Hollywood, making training films. That, incidentally, isn't unlike the record of the late Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democratic president who poured hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops into the Vietnam morass. Johnson, too, had managed to make himself little inconvenienced by World War II.

Nor were the two wars much alike. World War II was a total effort; enlistments and drafts were for the duration; victory was vital for the survival of democracy and freedom, and the vast majority of Americans knew it.

Vietnam was never anything like that. By the end, most Americans - though for differing reasons - had come to agree it was a mistake. Clinton, whether right or wrong, at least should be given credit for moral consistency. He openly opposed, mildly to be sure but also nonviolently and legally, the Vietnam war he sought to avoid. Surely that - trying to avoid combat while trying to stop the sending of other young men into combat as well - is morally preferable to supporting a war while making sure it's other young men who're doing the dying.

The memory of those who died in Vietnam deserves the same respect as the memory of those who died in World War II. Both lost their lives in the service of their country that put their lives at risk, a point that the differing circumstances of the two conflicts cannot erase.

But to sloppily conflate the two wars, to forget the fundamental distinctions between them, is to do a disserve to the very concept of memory. To do so for the purpose of erecting a double standard for making political cheap shots is to compound the offense.

PRESIDENT Clinton has represented America well, and spoken eloquently, during D-Day commemorative ceremonies in Normandy.

To the professional Clinton-bashers, this will mean little. For them, anything the president could say or do on the 50th anniversary of the Allies' push into Europe during World War II is overshadowed by Clinton's "draft-dodging," a quarter-century later during the Vietnam era, via slick deferment manipulation.

But why the double standard? Why, 10 years ago, was then-President Ronald Reagan not criticized for taking part in ceremonies commemorating the 40th anniversary of D-Day? Fair or not, it would've been more relevant.

World War II was not Clinton's war; he wasn't born until three years after D-Day. But it was Reagan's war - a war he as a young man was happy to sit out in Hollywood, making training films. That, incidentally, isn't unlike the record of the late Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democratic president who poured hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops into the Vietnam morass. Johnson, too, had managed to make himself little inconvenienced by World War II.

Nor were the two wars much alike. World War II was a total effort; enlistments and drafts were for the duration; victory was vital for the survival of democracy and freedom, and the vast majority of Americans knew it.

Vietnam was never anything like that. By the end, most Americans - though for differing reasons - had come to agree it was a mistake. Clinton, whether right or wrong, at least should be given credit for moral consistency. He openly opposed, mildly to be sure but also nonviolently and legally, the Vietnam war he sought to avoid. Surely that - trying to avoid combat while trying to stop the sending of other young men into combat as well - is morally preferable to supporting a war while making sure it's other young men who're doing the dying.

The memory of those who died in Vietnam deserves the same respect as the memory of those who died in World War II. Both lost their lives in the service of their country that put their lives at risk, a point that the differing circumstances of the two conflicts cannot erase.

But to sloppily conflate the two wars, to forget the fundamental distinctions between them, is to do a disservice to the very concept of memory. To do so for the purpose of erecting a double standard for making political cheap shots is to compound the offense.