Kerry: Bush Broke Faith With Vets

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that President Bush broke faith with veterans who have been promised medical care even as he sent thousands of men and women into harm's way in Iraq.

"Here we are with an administration that is busy creating a whole new generation of veterans," Kerry said during a flag-draped forum at a center for aging associated with the Department of Veterans Affairs. "Veterans earned their health care ... it was a promise made by a nation. People who served their country, I believe, above all have a right to have that promise kept."

The Massachusetts senator, concluding a four-day campaign swing focusing on health care, contended that Mr. Bush has cut funding for VA health programs and left hundreds of thousands of veterans without care. He called for mandatory funding for veterans health care and a series of cost-cutting measures to assist veterans and their families.

Prominent Kerry supporters, including former rival and fellow Vietnam veteran Wesley Clark, criticized Mr. Bush's own military record. After comparing Kerry's public service to his detractors, Clark said, "Some of them put on their cowboy boots and put their feet up on the desk."

Hershel Gober, who served as secretary of Veterans Affairs under President Clinton, said far too little attention is being given to military personnel serving in the war on terror.

"This war is worse than Vietnam," Gober said. "These troops have the highest suicide rate of any war we've had."

Veterans at the forum told Kerry about their struggles to find help after they came home and complimented Kerry for his service in the Navy.

"It feels great to have somebody who has been in Vietnam and who has been to war," said one of the veterans, David Smith. "I've never had that before."

Clark and others contrasted Kerry's experience as a swiftboat commander in Vietnam to the National Guard service of President Bush, who served stateside during the war.

"Can you imagine having a president who actually answered the country's call and went to war when our country needed him as a young man?" Clark asked during an airport rally.

"John Kerry, when he was a young man, he could have had an easy life, he could have worn cowboy boots," said Clark, a retired four-star general who, like Kerry, was wounded in Vietnam. "He didn't manage a professional sports team using some of his daddy's name. John Kerry took tough assignments."

In another reference to Mr. Bush, Clark said Kerry "could have chosen an easy life. Some people who went to Yale did." Both the president and Sen. Kerry graduated from Yale University during the Vietnam era.

The Bush campaign responded to the criticism by noting that former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas and 49 Medal of Honor recipients had endorsed the president "because of his steady leadership and winning the war on terror."

Mr. Bush was continuing his weeklong focus on education Thursday with a visit to a high school in West Virginia, where he is in a close race for the state's five electoral votes.

The country's high schools need to "raise the bar" with the goal of "educating children that have got the capacity to take over the jobs of the 21st century,'' said Mr. Bush, appearing at Parkersburg South High in Parkersburg, W. Va.

As he has for the past two days, Mr. Bush defended the education reform law called No Child Left Behind, which requires federally funded school systems to demonstrate that their students can meet a set of learning standards.

"There needs to be a rigorous focus on English and math and science," the president said before a banner that read, "Better Education, Better Jobs."

Mr. Bush has been competitive on the education issue since the 2000 campaign, when his proposals helped him win support from women voters. But he and Kerry are now running close nationally on the question of who would do a better job on education, with Kerry ahead in some polls and the two closely matched in others.

Kerry, who voted for No Child Left Behind in the Senate, has criticized Mr. Bush for what he says is the failure to give schools enough money. Kerry has touted his own plan to reduce the number of school dropouts and hire more teachers.

"Thirty percent of high school students aren't finishing high school, but this president is failing to enforce the provisions of his own education law that address this crisis," said Kerry spokesman Phil Singer.