Senator Kerry has known this woman for a long, long time. She was married to a Lt. Don Droz that was also the skipper of a Swift Boat in Vietnam. Don Droz died about two months after Kerry left that country and that war to come home. There is an independent film that chronicles some of what happened to Don Droz in Vietnam, how the daughter he barely met has coped with that death and with her mother's grief over the years.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/begoodsmilepretty/film.htmlI saw Judy Droz Keyes several times during the last Presidential campaign. She has recounted her story before. Each time she does so, it seems to freshly hurt again. She talked today about how her husband had seen first-hand that Vietnam was not going to be 'won' by the US. Judith talked about how, after her husband's death in mid 1969, she took up his cause and protested that war to help fulfill her husband wish that the war end.
It still hurt. This woman whose husband had died in that pointless war, was called a 'commie', spat on and told that if she didn't like this country, she could leave. Droz Keyes, left to raise a daughter on her own because of the war, was wounded again because of the people who believed that dissent was somehow wrong and unpatriotic. And it still hurt. I have no idea how many times she has told her story since 2003, but, dammit, it still hurt. She got a hitch in her voice when she spoke of the death, another one when she spoke of the injustice of beng told she was not a 'good American' when she voiced her dissent. She also spoke of her pride when she heard her husband's friend, John Kerry. testify to that Senate Committee and give the perspective that seemed so in line with what her own husband had confided in her shortly before her death.
It still hurt. Gawd in heaven, it still hurt. There's still a sense of loss, of grief, and feelings of abandonment from those who didn't know her loss and who thought she was 'hurting the troops' by trying to end the war with protests. 37 or so years later the loss of her husband still hurt, 35 years later and the loss of good faith in her fellow countrymen still hurt.
Damn, no wonder Senator Kerry asked her to speak today. She was really brilliant.