Kerry, Vietnam and the Truth

For a war he opposed, John Kerry sure is getting good mileage out of his 134 days in Vietnam. He would have the American public believe that his military service not only prepared him, but entitled him, to be president. The question many Americans have, though, is what his Vietnam record really says about John Kerry.

There's no better place to start than this website: Swift Boat Veterans For Truth

This website was created by Kerry's fellow swift boat officers to accurately portray the John Kerry they knew. The details aren't very flattering. For example...

• So far as they are able to determine, Kerry was the only Swift sailor ever to leave Vietnam without completing the standard one-year tour of duty, other than those who were seriously wounded or killed...

• Kerry went to unusual lengths to obtain a Purple Heart after being turned down by his own commanding officer, due to the fact that Kerry had come under NO enemy fire, and the injury was due to his own negligence. Also, the military physician who treated Kerry's "wound" stated, "I’ve seen worse injuries from a rose thorn."

• Kerry's fellow Swift officer Thomas Wright, who served on occasion as the OIC (Officer in Charge) of Kerry's boat group, contradicts that claim. Wright reports that he "had a lot of trouble getting Kerry to follow orders," and that those who worked with Kerry found him "oriented towards his personal, rather than unit goals and objectives."

• Kerry has lied for 30 years about the nature of actions his and other swift boats took, their missions, and meetings with commanders.

Many of the men who served alongside Kerry in Vietnam write about the man and their feelings about his conduct during and after the war.

Robert Elder: "John Kerry went home and began his atrocious betrayal of all of us by attempting to rally the American public against all we were trying to do. He went in front of Congress and accused us of unspeakable crimes, and in one final act of disrespect for himself, threw away his own heroism by throwing his medals over the White House gate. Most of us in that picture, and most of the other Swifties, have borne the pain of that betrayal all these years."

John O'Neill: "We resent very deeply the false war crimes charges he made coming back from Vietnam in 1971 and repeated in the book "Tour of Duty." We think those cast an aspersion on all those living and dead, from our unit and other units in Vietnam. We think that he knew he was lying when he made the charges... he is totally unfit to be the Commander-in-Chief."

Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann, USN (retired): "His biography, 'Tour of Duty,' by Douglas Brinkley, is replete with gross exaggerations, distortions of fact, contradictions and slanderous lies. His contempt for the military and authority is evident by even a most casual review of this biography. He arrived in-country with a strong anti-Vietnam War bias and a self-serving determination to build a foundation for his political future. He was aggressive, but vain and prone to impulsive judgment, often with disregard for specific tactical assignments. He was a 'loose cannon.'"

Nearly all the people who knew him best in Vietnam, the people who know exactly what John Kerry was like under fire, refuse to support him. They use words like "unfit" and "bertayal" and "lying" when describing his character.

Go to the website and check into it for yourself. Make up your own mind. Ask yourself, is this the kind of leadership we need to fight the global war against terrorism? Is this the type man we need in charge of our miliatry? Do we really want a Commander-in-Chief that our own military won't like or respect?