-- By Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann, USN, (Ret.)
When Sen. John Kerry, who returned from Vietnam to accuse his fellow soldiers of regular and despicable atrocities, decided to run for president
as a ‘war hero,’ Swift Boat Veterans for Truth came together to raise
awareness of his activities during and following his time in Vietnam. Our
group includes 17 of Kerry’s contemporary swift boat officers in Vietnam,
more than 60 frontline unit members who were yards away from him in combat
and more than 150 other Swift Vets who support their accounts. It is the
firmest conviction of these men that John Kerry is not fit to be commander
in chief. Mr. Kerry’s record reveals a long pattern of flip-flopping on his war
experiences and using his time in the service as leverage for political
gain. For instance, on numerous occasions, including during a speech on the
floor of the U.S. Senate, he claimed to have spent Christmas Eve of 1968 in
Cambodia. But Kerry was never in Cambodia – and he knows that.
In response to the case put forward by our group, John Kerry’s spokespeople
have been forced to backpedal, saying he was often somewhere “between”
Cambodia and Vietnam. While they still claim without proof that Kerry
crossed the border on “one occasion,” they have conceded that he was not
there on Christmas.
John Kerry has also now provided three separate, and contradictory, accounts
of how he received a Bronze Star for rescuing a fellow soldier from the
river after a mine exploded under another boat with which they were
patrolling. In the first version of this incident presented during the
Democrat National Convention, he stated: "No man left behind," suggesting
to the American people that he alone stayed on the river to rescue Mr.
Rassmann. Later, when forced to acknowledge the eyewitness testimony of
seven fellow swift boat veterans, Kerry said that his boat actually did
leave the scene, only to return later to retrieve Jim Rassmann from the
water. And yet, in the version of the story told during his time in the
Senate that appears in Congressional Record, Kerry reported that his boat
struck a mine and Rassmann fell off the boat.
Kerry’s campaign also maintains that hostile fire from automatic weapons and
rifles from both banks for 3.1 miles continued throughout the rescue. They
make this claim despite that fact for the approximately 85-minute duration
of the rescue of the crippled boat and its crew, no other boats or people
were hit by small-arms fire as they operated in a river that was only 75
yards wide.
Kerry’s campaign has also made much of the three Purple Hearts he received
for wounds suffered in Vietnam. However, at least two of these Purple
Hearts were awarded due to accidental self-inflicted wounds. On two
occasions, Kerry incurred minor shrapnel wounds from his own grenades that
went off too close to him. Of course, in Kerry’s version of the story they
first self-inflicted wound came from enemy fire and the second was as a
result of the aforementioned mine explosion that severely damaged a boat –
not his – with which he was patrolling.
Finally, John Kerry has also distorted the details of his actions in killing
a Viet Cong attacker that led to Kerry receiving the Silver Star. Kerry
claims to have leapt ashore after an ambush, killed an enemy with a rocket
launcher and then led an assault party to rout the remaining enemy.
In truth, Kerry’s boat was not even the first to confront the enemy. An
army unit on another swift – commanded by Doug Reese, a Kerry supporter –
actually reached the beach first and confronted the VC. This account is
even confirmed by Mr. Michael Medeiros, a member of Kerry’s crew and one of
his “Band of Brothers.”
In fact, after Kerry beached his boat no resistance remained other than a
lone Viet Cong youth who attempted to flee with a wounded leg while carrying
a rocket launcher. Kerry chased this individual and shot him as he fled.
The American people have been confronted with evidence that calls into
question John Kerry’s honesty and his fitness for office. If a man will
alter the truth about his service to the nation and uses sacred national
icons such as medals awarded for valor to bolster his political fortunes,
how can Americans trust him to command the Armed Forces of the United
States?
Admiral Hoffmann is the founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
http://horse.he.net/~swiftpow/article.php?story=20040914100045440