Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- John Forbes Kerry
Statement Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 1
向参议院外交关系委员会发表的声明 1
delivered 22 April 1971, Washington, D.C.
1971 年 4 月 22 日交付于华盛顿特区
[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio (2)]
[真实性认证：以下文本版本直接转录自音频 (2)]
* Thank you very much, Senator Fulbright , Senator Javits , Senator Symington , Senator Pell .
* 非常感谢富布赖特参议员、贾维茨参议员、赛明顿参议员、佩尔参议员。
*
*
I would like to say for the record that -- and also for the men behind me who are also wearing the uniform and their medals -- that my sitting up here is really symbolic.
我想郑重声明，以及对我身后同样穿着制服并佩戴奖牌的人来说，我坐在这里确实具有象征意义。
I'm not here as John Kerry.
我不是以约翰·克里的身份来到这里的。
I'm here as one member of a group of 1000, which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country.
我作为 1000 人团体中的一员来到这里，这只是这个国家更大的退伍军人团体的一小部分代表。
And were it possible for all of them to sit at this table, they would be here and have the same kind of testimony.
如果他们所有人都可以坐在这张桌子旁，他们就会在这里并有同样的见证。
I would simply like to speak in very general terms.
我只想笼统地谈一谈。
I -- I apologize if my statement is general because I received notification yesterday you would hear me, and I'm afraid, because of the injunction, I was up most of the night and haven�t had a great deal of chance to prepare.
如果我的发言很笼统，我深表歉意，因为我昨天收到通知，你们会听到我的声音，而且我担心，由于这项禁令，我整夜没睡，没有太多的机会进行准备。
I would like to talk representing all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia.
我想代表所有这些退伍军人发言，并说几个月前我们在底特律进行了一项调查，其中超过 150 名光荣退伍的退伍军人以及许多获得高度荣誉的退伍军人对在东南亚犯下的战争罪行作证。
* These were * not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.
*这些*不是孤立事件，而是各级指挥人员充分认识到的日常犯罪行为。
It's impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit -- the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam.
不可能向你准确描述在底特律发生的事情——房间里的情绪以及那些重温越南经历的人们的感受。
But they did.
但他们做到了。
They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
从某种意义上说，他们再次经历了这个国家让他们所做的事情的绝对恐怖。
They told the stories of times that they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in the fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan , shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
他们讲述了他们亲手强奸、割下耳朵、砍下头、将手提电话上的电线绑在人类生殖器上、打开电源、砍断四肢、炸毁尸体、随意向平民开枪、以成吉思汗的方式夷平村庄、射杀牛和狗取乐、在粮食库存中投毒、以及在正常的战争蹂躏和正常的、非常特殊的蹂躏之外的一般蹂躏南越乡村的故事。是由这个国家的轰炸力量完成的。
We call this investigation the " Winter Soldier Investigation ." The term Winter Soldier is a play on words of Thomas Paine's in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.
我们将这次调查称为“冬兵调查”。 “冬日战士”一词是托马斯·潘恩 (Thomas Paine) 1776 年的文字游戏，当时他谈到阳光爱国者队和在福吉谷因处境艰难而开小差的夏季士兵。
And we who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now.
我们来到华盛顿来到这里是因为我们觉得我们现在必须成为冬季士兵。
We could come back to this country; and we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam.
我们可以回到这个国家；我们可以保持安静；我们可以保持沉默；我们不知道越南发生了什么。
But we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, not redcoats but the crimes which we�re committing are what threaten it; and we have to speak out.
但我们感到威胁这个国家的是事实，威胁它的不是红军，不是红衣人，而是我们正在犯下的罪行；威胁它的是我们所犯下的罪行。我们必须说出来。
I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of -- of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam.
我想和你们谈谈这些人从越南回来后的感受。
The country doesn�t know it yet but it�s created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped.
这个国家还不知道这一点，但它创造了一个怪物，一个以数以百万计的人为形式的怪物，他们被教导如何进行暴力交易，并且有机会为历史上最大的虚无而死；他们带着一种尚未被人领会的愤怒和背叛感归来。
As a veteran, and one who feels this anger, I�d like to talk about it.
作为一名老兵，一个感受到这种愤怒的人，我想谈谈它。
We�re angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the Administration of this country.
我们很生气，因为我们觉得我们被这个国家的政府以最糟糕的方式利用了。
In 1970 at West Point, Vice President Agnew said:
1970 年，西点军校副校长阿格纽说道：
Some glamorize the criminal misfits of society while our best men die in Asian rice paddies to preserve the freedoms which those misfits abuse.
一些人美化那些与社会格格不入的犯罪行为，而我们最优秀的人却为了维护那些与社会格格不入的人滥用的自由而死在亚洲稻田里。
And this was used as a rallying point for our effort in Vietnam.
这被用作我们在越南努力的一个集结点。
But for us, his boys in Asia whom the country was supposed to support, his statement is a terrible distortion from which we can only draw a very deep sense of revulsion; and hence the anger of some of the men who are here in Washington today.
但对于我们，他在亚洲的孩子们来说，国家应该支持他们，他的言论是一种可怕的歪曲，我们只能从中感到非常强烈的反感；因此，今天在华盛顿的一些人感到愤怒。
It�s a distortion because we in no way considered ourselves the best men of this country; because those he calls misfits were standing up for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to; because so many who have died would have returned to this country to join the misfits in their efforts to ask for an immediate withdrawal from South Vietnam; because so many of those best men have returned as quadriplegics and amputees, and they lie forgotten in Veterans Administration hospitals in this country which fly the flag which so many have chosen as their own personal symbol.
这是一种扭曲，因为我们根本不认为自己是这个国家最好的人；我们认为自己是这个国家最优秀的人。因为那些被他称为格格不入的人正在以这个国家其他人不敢做的方式为我们挺身而出；因为许多死去的人会回到这个国家，加入那些不合群的人的行列，要求立即从南越撤军；因为许多最优秀的人都以四肢瘫痪和截肢者的身份回归，而他们却被遗忘在这个国家的退伍军人管理局医院里，这些医院悬挂着许多人选择作为自己个人象征的旗帜。
And we cannot consider ourselves America�s best men when we were ashamed of and hated what we were called to do in Southeast Asia.
当我们对自己在东南亚所做的事情感到羞耻和憎恨时，我们就不能认为自己是美国最优秀的人。
In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America.
我们认为，根据我们的经验，南越没有任何事情、任何可能发生的事情能够真正威胁到美利坚合众国。
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, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it�s that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.
试图通过将一名美国人在越南、柬埔寨或老挝的生命损失与维护自由联系起来来证明其正当性，而这些不合时宜的人据称滥用了自由，这对我们来说是虚伪的犯罪行为，我们认为正是这种虚伪撕裂了这个国家。
We are probably much more angry than that and I don�t want to go into the foreign policy aspects because I�m outclassed here.
我们可能比这更愤怒，我不想谈论外交政策方面，因为我在这里被超越了。
I know that all of you have talked about every possible -- every possible alternative to getting out of Vietnam.
我知道你们所有人都谈到了离开越南的所有可能的选择。
We understand that.
我们明白这一点。
We know that you�ve considered the seriousness of the aspects to the utmost level and I�m not going to try and deal on that.
我们知道您已经最大限度地考虑了问题的严重性，我不会尝试解决这个问题。
But I want to relate to you the feeling which many of the men who�ve returned to this country express because we are probably angriest about all that we were told about Vietnam and about the mystical war against communism.
但我想向你们表达许多回到这个国家的人所表达的感受，因为我们可能对我们被告知的有关越南和反共产主义的神秘战争的一切感到最愤怒。
We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese, whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image, were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.
我们发现，这不仅是一场内战，是一个多年来一直寻求摆脱任何殖民影响的人民的努力，而且我们还发现，我们热情地按照我们自己的形象塑造的越南人很难承担起对抗我们本应拯救他们的威胁的斗争。
We found that most people didn�t even know the difference between communism and democracy.
我们发现大多数人甚至不知道共产主义和民主之间的区别。
They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart.
他们只想在稻田里工作，不想让直升机扫射，让凝固汽油弹轰炸他们的村庄，让他们的国家四分五裂。
They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace; and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North Vietnamese, or American.
他们希望与战争有关的一切，特别是与美利坚合众国的外国存在有关的一切，让他们享有和平；他们通过在特定时间站在任何一支军事力量一边来实践生存的艺术，无论是越共、北越还是美国。
We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies.
我们还发现，美国男人经常因为缺乏盟友的支持而死在稻田里。
We saw first hand how monies from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime.
我们亲眼目睹了美国税收如何被腐败的独裁政权利用。
We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties.
我们看到，这个国家的许多人对于我们的旗帜让谁享有自由有一种片面的想法，因为黑人的伤亡比例最高。
We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs as well as by search and destroy missions, as well as by Vietcong terrorism; and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Vietcong.
我们看到越南同样遭到美国炸弹、搜索和摧毁任务以及越共恐怖主义的蹂躏；然而，当这个国家试图将所有的破坏归咎于越共时，我们却倾听着。
We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them.
我们合理化摧毁村庄是为了拯救它们。
We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers that hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.
我们看到美国失去了道德感，她非常冷静地接受了美莱，并且拒绝放弃美国士兵分发巧克力棒和口香糖的形象。
We learned the meaning of " free-fire zones ," "shoot anything that moves," and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of Orientals.
我们了解了“自由射击区”、“射击任何移动的物体”的含义，并且看着美国轻视东方人的生命。
We watched the United States' falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts.
我们看到美国伪造死亡人数，实际上是美化死亡人数。
We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break.
我们一个月又一个月地听着，我们被告知敌人的后背即将断裂。
We fought using weapons against �oriental human beings,� with quotation marks around that.
我们使用武器对抗“东方人类”，并用引号引起来。
We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in a European theater -- or let us say a non-third-world people theater.
我们对那些人使用武器进行战斗，我不相信如果我们在欧洲战场——或者让我们说在非第三世界人民的战场——进行战斗，这个国家会梦想使用这些武器。
And so we watched while men charged up hills because a general said "That hill has to be taken." And after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the hill for the reoccupation of the North Vietnamese; because -- because we watched pride allow the most unimportant of battles to be blown into extravaganzas; because we couldn�t lose, and we couldn�t retreat, and because it didn�t matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point.
因此，我们看到人们冲上山，因为一位将军说“必须占领那座山”。在损失一两个排后，他们离开山头，前往北越重新占领。因为——因为我们看到骄傲让最不重要的战斗变成了华丽的表演；因为我们不能输，我们不能撤退，因为无论牺牲多少美国人的尸体来证明这一点都没关系。
And so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 881's and Fire Base 6's , and so many others.
于是就有了汉堡山 (Hamburger Hills)、溪山 (Khe Sanhs)、881 山 (Hill 881) 和 Fire Base 6's，等等。
And now we�re told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.
现在我们被告知，在那里作战的人们必须静静地看着美国人丧生，这样我们就可以表现出令人难以置信的傲慢，使越南人越南化。
Committee Chair (Sen.
委员会主席（参议员。
Fulbright): I hope you won�t interrupt [to audience who applauded Mr. Kerry's immediately preceding remarks].
富布赖特）：我希望你不要打断[对克里先生之前的言论鼓掌的观众]。
He�s making a very significant statement.
他正在发表一个非常重要的声明。
And let him proceed.
并让他继续。
Mr. Kerry: Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam, someone has to give up his life so that United States doesn�t have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we cannot say that we�ve made a mistake.
克里先生：每天，为了促进美国对越南“洗手”的进程，必须有人牺牲自己的生命，这样美国就不必承认全世界都知道的事情，这样我们就不能说我们犯了错误。
Someone has to die so that President Nixon won�t be, and these are his words, �the first [American] President to lose a war.� 2
必须有人死去，尼克松总统才不会成为“第一位输掉战争的[美国]总统。”2
And we are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?
我们要求美国人思考这一点，因为你如何要求一个人成为越南最后一个死去的人？
How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
你如何要求一个人成为最后一个因错误而死的人？
But we�re trying to do that, and we�re doing it with thousands of rationalizations, and if you read carefully the President�s last speech to the people of this country, you can see that he says, and says clearly:
但我们正在努力做到这一点，我们正在用数千种合理化的方式来做到这一点，如果你仔细阅读总统对这个国家人民的最后一次演讲，你可以看到他说，而且清楚地说：
But the issue, gentlemen, the issue is communism, and the question is whether or not we will leave that country to the Communists or whether or not we will try to give it hope to be a free people.
但问题是，先生们，问题是共产主义，问题是我们是否会把这个国家留给共产党，或者我们是否会努力给它带来成为自由人民的希望。
3
3
But the point is they�re not a free people now -- under us.
但关键是他们现在不是我们统治下的自由人民。
They�re not a free people.
他们不是自由的人民。
And we cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learnt that lesson by now.
我们无法在全世界范围内对抗共产主义，我认为我们现在应该已经吸取了教训。
But the problem of veterans goes beyond this personal problem, because you think about a poster in this country with a picture of Uncle Sam and the picture says �I want you.� And a young man comes out of high school and says, �That�s fine.
但退伍军人的问题超出了这个个人问题，因为你想想这个国家的一张海报，上面有山姆大叔的照片，照片上写着“我想要你”。一个高中毕业的年轻人说，“没关系。”
I�m going to serve my country.� And he goes to Vietnam and he shoots and he kills and he does his job or maybe he doesn�t kill, maybe he just goes and he comes back.
我要为我的国家服务。”他去了越南，他开枪，他杀人，他做他的工作，或者也许他不杀人，也许他只是去了然后回来。
When he gets back to this country he finds that he isn�t really wanted, because the largest unemployment figure in the country -- it varies depending on who you get it from, the Veterans Administration 15 percent, various other sources 22 percent -- but the largest figure of unemployed in this country are veterans of this war.
当他回到这个国家时，他发现自己并不是真正被需要的，因为这个国家最大的失业数字——这取决于你从谁那里得到的数据，退伍军人管理局为 15%，其他各种来源为 22%——但这个国家最大的失业数字是这场战争的退伍军人。
And of those veterans 33 percent of the unemployed are black.
在这些退伍军人中，33% 的失业者是黑人。
That means 1 out of every 10 of the nation�s unemployed is a veteran of Vietnam.
这意味着全国每 10 名失业者中就有 1 名是越南退伍军人。
The hospitals across the country won�t or can�t meet their demands.
全国各地的医院不会或无法满足他们的要求。
It�s not a question of not trying.
这不是不尝试的问题。
They haven�t got the appropriations.
他们还没有得到拨款。
A man recently died after he had a tracheotomy in California, not because of the operation but because there weren�t enough personnel to clean the mucous out of his tube and he suffocated to death.
最近，一名男子在加利福尼亚州接受了气管切开手术后死亡，不是因为手术，而是因为没有足够的人员清理管子中的粘液，他窒息而死。
Another young man just died in a New York VA hospital the other day.
前几天，另一名年轻人刚刚在纽约退伍军人管理局的一家医院去世。
A friend of mine was lying in a bed two beds away and tried to help him, but he couldn�t.
我的一个朋友躺在两张床之外的床上，试图帮助他，但他无能为力。
They rang a bell and there was no one there to service that man, and so he died of convulsions.
他们按响了门铃，但没有人为那个人服务，所以他死于抽搐。
Fifty-seven percent -- I understand 57 percent of all those entering VA hospitals talk about suicide.
百分之五十七——据我所知，在所有进入退伍军人管理局医院的人中，有百分之五十七谈论过自杀。
Some 27 percent have tried, and they try because they come back to this country and they have to face what they did in Vietnam, and then they come back and find the indifference of a country that doesn�t really care, that doesn�t really care.
大约27%的人尝试过，他们尝试是因为他们回到这个国家，他们必须面对他们在越南所做的一切，然后他们回来后发现一个并不真正关心、并不真正关心的国家的冷漠。
And suddenly we are faced with a very sickening situation in this country because there�s no moral indignation, and if there is it comes from people who are almost exhausted by their past indignancies, and I know that many of them are sitting in front of me.
突然之间，我们在这个国家面临着非常令人作呕的情况，因为没有道德义愤，即使有，它也来自那些几乎被过去的义愤填满的人，我知道他们中的许多人就坐在我面前。
The country seems to have lied -- lain down and accepted something as serious as Laos, just as we calmly shrugged off the loss of 700,000 lives in Pakistan , the so-called greatest disaster of all times.
这个国家似乎撒了谎——躺下并接受了像老挝这样严重的事情，就像我们平静地对巴基斯坦70万人的生命损失——所谓的有史以来最大的灾难——不屑一顾。
But we are here as veterans to say that we think we are in the midst of the greatest disaster of all times now because they are still dying over there, and not just Americans, Vietnamese, and we are rationalizing leaving that country so that those people can go on killing each other for years to come.
但我们作为退伍军人在这里说，我们认为我们现在正处于有史以来最大的灾难之中，因为他们仍然在那里死去，而不仅仅是美国人、越南人，我们正在合理化离开那个国家，以便这些人可以在未来的岁月里继续互相残杀。
Americans seem to have accepted the idea that the war is winding down, at least for Americans, and they have also allowed the bodies, which were once used by a President for statistics to prove that we were winning this war, to be used as evidence against a man who followed orders and who interpreted those orders no differently than hundreds of other men in South Vietnam.
美国人似乎已经接受了战争正在结束的想法，至少对美国人来说是这样，他们还允许这些尸体——曾经被一位总统用来统计数据以证明我们正在赢得这场战争——被用来作为证据来指控一个遵守命令的人，而他对这些命令的解释与南越的数百名其他人没有什么不同。
We veterans can only look with amazement on the fact that this country has not been able to see that there's absolutely no difference between a ground troop and a helicopter crew.
我们退伍军人只能惊讶地发现，这个国家还没有看到地面部队和直升机机组人员之间完全没有区别。
And yet, people have accepted a differentiation fed them by the Administration.
然而，人们已经接受了政府给予他们的差异化。
No ground troops are in Laos, so it's alright to kill Laotians by remote control.
老挝境内没有地面部队，遥控杀老挝人是可以的。
But believe me, the helicopter crews fill the same body bags and they wreak the same kind of damage on the Vietnamese and Laotian countryside as anyone else, and the President is talking about allowing that to go on for many years to come.
但请相信我，直升机机组人员装满了同样的尸袋，他们对越南和老挝的乡村造成了与其他人一样的破坏，总统正在谈论允许这种情况在未来很多年继续下去。
And one can only ask if we will really be satisfied when the troops march in to Hanoi.
只能问，当军队开进河内时，我们是否真的会感到满意。
We are asking here in Washington for some action, action from the Congress of the United States of America which has the power to raise and maintain armies and which by the Constitution also has the power to declare war.
我们在华盛顿请求美利坚合众国国会采取一些行动，国会有权召集和维持军队，根据宪法也有权宣战。
We've come here, not to the President, because we believe that this body can be responsive to the will of the people; and we believe that the will of the people says that we should be out of Vietnam now.
我们来到这里，不是为了总统，因为我们相信这个机构能够对人民的意愿做出反应；我们相信人民的意愿表明我们现在应该退出越南。
We're here in Washington also to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy.
我们来到华盛顿还想说，这场战争的问题不仅仅是战争和外交问题。
It's part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country: the question of racism, which is rampant in the military; and so many other questions also: the use of weapons; the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the...
这是我们作为人类试图向这个国家的人民传达的一切的重要组成部分：军队中猖獗的种族主义问题；还有许多其他问题：武器的使用；我们对……感到不满是虚伪的
Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions -- in the use of free-fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, the killing of prisoners -- accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam.
南越许多部队都接受了《日内瓦四公约》并以此作为继续这场战争的理由，而我们比其他任何机构都更犯有违反《日内瓦四公约》的罪行——使用自由射击区、骚扰拦截火力、搜索和摧毁任务、爆炸、折磨囚犯、杀害囚犯。
That's what we're trying to say.
这就是我们想说的。
It's part and parcel of everything.
它是一切的重要组成部分。
An American Indian friend of mine who lives on the Indian nation of Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly.
我的一位住在印第安人阿尔卡特拉斯岛的美国印第安人朋友非常简洁地向我讲述了这一点。
He told me how as a boy on an Indian reservation he had watched television and he used to cheer the cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians.
他告诉我，当他还是一个印第安人保留地的男孩时，他就看过电视，当牛仔们进来射杀印第安人时，他常常为他们欢呼。
And then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said, "My God, I'm doing to these people the very same thing that was done to my people," -- and he stopped.
然后突然有一天，他在越南停了下来，他说：“天啊，我对这些人所做的事情和对我的人民所做的一模一样”——然后他停了下来。
And that's what we're trying to say, that we think this thing has to end.
这就是我们想说的，我们认为这件事必须结束。
We're also here to ask -- We are here to ask and we're here to ask vehemently, Where are the leaders of our country?
我们来这里也是为了问——我们来这里是为了问，我们来这里是为了强烈地问，我们国家的领导人在哪里？
Where is the leadership?
领导在哪里？
We're here to ask: Where are McNamara , Rostow , Bundy 4 , Gilpatric 5 , and so many others.
我们来这里是为了问：麦克纳马拉、罗斯托、邦迪 4、吉尔帕特里克 5 以及其他许多人在哪里。
Where are they now that we the men whom they sent off to war have returned?
我们这些被他们派去打仗的人已经回来了，他们现在在哪里？
These are commanders who have deserted their troops and there is no more serious crime in the law of war.
这些指挥官已经抛弃了自己的军队，战争法中没有比这更严重的罪行了。
The Army says they never leave their wounded.
陆军表示，他们永远不会留下伤员。
The Marines say they never leave even their dead.
海军陆战队表示，他们甚至不会抛下死去的人。
These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude.
这些人抛下了所有的伤亡人员，并在公众正直的虔诚盾牌后面撤退。
They've left the real stuff of their reputations, bleaching behind them in the sun in this country.
他们留下了真正的声誉，在这个国家的阳光下褪色。
And finally, this Administration has done us the ultimate dishonor.
最后，本届政府给我们带来了极大的耻辱。
They've attempted to disown us and the sacrifices we made for this country.
他们试图否认我们以及我们为这个国家做出的牺牲。
In their blindness and fear, they have tried to deny that we are veterans or that we served in Nam.
在他们的盲目和恐惧中，他们试图否认我们是退伍军人或我们在南军服役。
We do not need their testimony.
我们不需要他们的见证。
Our own scars and stumps of limbs are witness enough for others; and for ourselves, we wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this Administration has wiped their memories of us.
我们自己的伤疤和残肢对其他人来说已经足够见证了；对于我们自己来说，我们希望仁慈的上帝能够像本届政府抹去他们对我们的记忆一样轻易地抹去我们对那次服务的记忆。
But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission: to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last 10 years and more.
但他们所做的一切以及他们通过这种否认所能做的一切，就是比以往任何时候都更加清楚地表明我们自己承担最后一项使命的决心：寻找并摧毁这场野蛮战争的最后遗迹，安抚我们自己的心灵，征服过去十年多来驱使这个国家的仇恨和恐惧。
And so, when 30 years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory but mean instead the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.
因此，30年后，当我们的兄弟走在街上，没有腿，没有胳膊，没有脸，小男孩问为什么时，我们将能够说“越南”，而不是指沙漠，不是肮脏淫秽的记忆，而是指美国最终转向的地方，也是像我们这样的士兵帮助它转向的地方。
Thank you.
谢谢。
* = content within asterisks absent from this audio and unverified as delivered.
* = 星号内的内容在此音频中不存在且未经验证。
Extant video indicates that an (ostensibly small) portion of the proceedings occurring between the end of Senator Fulbright's introductory remarks and the beginning of Mr. Kerry's statement was clipped.
现有的视频显示，在参议员富布赖特的介绍性发言结束和克里先生的发言开始之间发生的诉讼程序的一部分（表面上很小）被剪掉了。
The Congressional Record of the proceedings includes the opening salutation noted at the beginning of this transcript.
国会会议记录包括本笔录开头注明的开场致意。
1 This address -- along with RFK�s Day of Affirmation speech -- was added to the Top 100 Speeches of the 20 th Century index in May of 2014 to reflect accurately that list�s modification by its original authors.
1 这篇演讲连同 RFK 的肯定日演讲一起，于 2014 年 5 月被添加到 20 世纪 100 篇演讲索引中，以准确反映原作者对该列表的修改。
2 Nixon statement generally acknowledged, delivered circa October 1969, but source unconfirmed 3 Nixon statement source unknown and unconfirmed 4 Reference uncertain; may refer to McGeorge Bundy or William Bundy 5 Reference to Roswell Gilpatric Image of Uncle Sam Poster Source : Wikipedia.org Text Note : Special thanks to Dennis Couzin for his helpful corrections to the above transcript.
2 尼克松的声明得到普遍承认，于 1969 年 10 月左右发表，但来源未经证实 3 尼克松的声明来源未知且未经证实 4 参考文献不确定；可以参考 McGeorge Bundy 或 William Bundy 5 参考 Roswell Gilpatric 《山姆大叔》海报图片 来源：Wikipedia.org 文本说明：特别感谢 Dennis Couzin 对上述文字记录的有用修正。
Page Updated : 8/6/25 U.S Copyright Status : Text = Property of A merican R hetoric.com.
页面更新：25 年 8 月 6 日美国版权状态：文本 = American R hetoric.com 的财产。
Image of Kerry = Fair Use.
凯爱瑞 (Kerry) 的图片 = 合理使用。
Image of Uncle Sam = Public domain.
山姆大叔的图像=公共领域。
� Copyright 2001-Present.
� 版权所有 2001 年至今。
American Rhetoric.
美国修辞学。
HTML transcription by Michael E.
HTML 转录由 Michael E.
Eidenmuller.
艾登米勒。