If Kerry was saying that it is less educated people who are more likely to be be naive enough to enlist in the American (or in any) military and end up in a foreign war somewhere, wishing they were somewhere else....he was only stating something which has been true ever since the US military existed...not just presently in Iraq.

Poor neighborhoods with disadvantaged, poorly educated people are an ideal recruiting ground for the military. They always have been, they always will be, and not just in the USA.

That is not tantamount to saying that everyone who serves in the military is stupid.

Kerry just didn't handle the way he said it right, evidently, but no matter how he said it (whether he was referring to George Bush or to American soldiers) it would contain more than a smidgin of truth.

And it would not be unpatriotic, just realistic.

Kerry should know, being a politician, that it is dangerous to state any truth openly on a media outlet without sugar-coating it so it doesn't offend anyone. ;-)