When Mr. Kerry came back from Vietnam, he said:

we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom . . . is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy.

But now he sounds rather proud of what he did in Vietnam. He proclaims:

We fought for this nation because we loved it . . . I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as president.