An unprecedented meeting of Vietnam war Swift Boat veterans was held Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, May 4th, to oppose Sen. John F. Kerry's candidacy for the presidency on the grounds that he was "unfit" to be Commander-In-Chief. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), led by Admiral Roy Hoffman (USN ret.), the former commander of Swift Boats operations in South Vietnam, joined nearly two dozen other Swift veterans in their opposition to Kerry's presidential ambitions.

Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, chief of naval operations in Vietnam, prophesied that John Kerry's career there would come back to haunt him.

The prophesy has come to pass.

In early 1971, I returned home from Vietnam with enough money for law school, a single civilian dress suit, and no interest whatsoever in politics. My sole purpose was to return to civilian life. Then I read a New York Times article written by Bruce Kesler, who had founded Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace to defend the honor of the brave American troops fighting and dying in Vietnam. I started to focus on the criticism of the war being leveled by John Kerry, a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War who had also been a Swift Boat commander in Coastal Division 11. Ironically, John Kerry and I served much of our time, a full 12 months in my case and an abbreviated 4 month tour in his, commanding the exact same six-man boat, PCF-44, which I took over after he requested early departure. I resolved to put on my only suit and use the money I had saved to seek out John Kerry and confront him on the topic of Vietnam.

James Zumwalt knows the importance of his name. Son of the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, the legendary chief of naval operations during the Vietnam War, and brother of Elmo Zumwalt III, the swift-boat skipper who died in 1988 as a result of cancer related to his exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, James Zumwalt knows that when he speaks, many listeners will hear not only his voice but those of his family.

So it was only after much thought that on May 4, Zumwalt, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, joined a group of former swift-boat officers and crew to sign a letter citing "substantive concerns" about former swiftie John Kerry's fitness to serve as commander-in-chief. The men, who called their group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, had several concerns. Some questioned parts of Kerry's service record. Others questioned his judgment. But all were united in one thing: their anger at Kerry's claim, dating back to his testimony before Congress in 1971, that Americans had committed atrocities in Vietnam that "were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

On May 4, some 20 representatives of the newly-formed group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth held a press conference in Washington to announce a public letter signed by hundreds of Vietnam veterans questioning Senator John Kerry's fitness to serve as Commander-in-Chief. 15 out of 23 of Kerry's fellow Swift Boat commanders from Coastal Division 11 have signed the letter, as have all officers in Kerry's own chain of command. The veterans' primary grievance is with Kerry's post-war claim that America's military routinely committed atrocities against Vietnamese civilians "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." To a man, the Swift boat veterans stated that they had neither witnessed nor participated in war crimes. The veterans also asked Senator Kerry to sign a simple form authorizing the complete release of his military records to the public.

In 1971, I debated John Kerry, then a national spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, for 90 minutes on "The Dick Cavett Show" [see transcript]. The key issue in that debate was Mr. Kerry's claim that American troops were committing war crimes in Vietnam "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." Now, as Sen. Kerry emerges as the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, I've chosen to re-enter the fray.