Kerry’s Swift Boat Vets: Aye, Matey, T’is Mutiny!

Bob Newman

There’s dissention in the ranks and the smell of mutiny on deck as a parade of Vietnam veterans who served with and/or knew John Kerry in Vietnam come forward to denounce him as a leader, officer and veteran. This situation has helped becalm Kerry’s already some say foundering campaign warship, which got little if any boost from the Democratic National Convention and which also got about the same result from Kerry’s selection of John Edwards as his vice-presidential running mate.

Kerry’s latest headache is followed by frustrating events like Shove-It-Gate, Sandy Berger’s light-fingers episode in the National Archives, and Kerry’s voting to send the United States to war and then voting to not authorize funds earmarked to buy those troops weapons and equipment for that war.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, founded in May 2004, consists of hundreds of Vietnam veterans who served in Swift Boat units there. This group has released an anti-Kerry ad in which a host of vets, some saying they knew Kerry personally and others saying they served with him and saw him in action, call him a liar, a fraud and an all-around untrustworthy officer.

This annoys Kerry because far more of his fellow Swift Boats vets have lined up against him than have signed up for him. It doesn’t help matters when only two of the officers in Kerry’s division, out of twenty-some-odd men, endorse him for president. Nor does it help when the rear admiral who was Kerry’s boss vehemently says Kerry is unfit to be our commander in chief. And when a superior officer of Kerry’s steps up and says one of Kerry’s Purple Hearts was bogus, i.e., it was a miniscule (fixed with a Band-Aid) self-inflicted wound that Kerry got in a “firefight” that involved no enemy fire whatsoever, that isn’t good, either. (According to this officer, Kerry improperly fired a grenade at some Vietnamese he thought were the enemy. The grenade hit too close to Kerry and a tiny piece of shrapnel nicked him. No enemy were involved in the incident. Kerry asked this superior officer to put him in for a Purple Heart, but the officer refused. But Kerry somehow ended up with the medal anyway. Some vets have insinuated Kerry put himself in for the medal, but that is unproven.)

Sen. John McCain, also a Vietnam veteran but who never served with Kerry, is calling the ad “dishonest and dishonorable.” Many vets want to know why McCain thinks this way, as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did serve with Kerry. Why are these vets the bad guys if they served with Kerry and have a different opinion of him?

What do I think of Kerry’s medals? I have not and will not form an opinion, because I was not there. No veteran who did not serve with Kerry should say a damn word about Kerry’s medals. And the Bush campaign is right not to comment on Kerry’s medals. But these other vets who served with Kerry and who now oppose him have the right to voice their opinions, and McCain is wrong to attack and degrade them simply because their opinions differ from his.

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Bob Newman, a decorated, retired US Marine, is co-host of "Redmond & Newman http://www.khow.com/hosts/redmond_newman.html on 630 KHOW in Denver. His “Global Positioning Statement,” a daily insider’s update on the war on terror, is carried by various Clear Channel radio stations from coast to coast. A ground-combat veteran, “Gunny Bob” is the director of international security & counterterrorism services for The GeoScope Group and is the military & terrorism columnist for The Denver Daily News.

bobnewman@clearchannel.com