Swift and Cool Under Fire The men who exposed Lt. John F. Kerry are hanging tough
Macomber, Shawn
Swift and Cool -Under Fire he men who exposed Lt. John F. Kerry are hanging tough. BY SHAWN MACOMBER 1 3 EFORE THE MEDIA FUROR SURROUNDING THE CLAIMS OF SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH had even...
...But I would have questions about Kerry's loyalty and leadership if he were elected...
...We fought in the same firefights as Lieutenant Kerry, we patrolled the same canals, and we earned the right to step forward and set the record straight...
...Hurley told me Kerry wanted to meet with me, and when I made it clear that I had no interest in meeting Kerry, he said, 'If you're not with us you're against us,"' Gardner said...
...I've got no platform...
...Shawn Macomber is an American Spectator reporter...
...Then, after posing for a few pictures, he skipped out on a ceremony honoring Swift boat veterans who had died in Vietnam...
...So we're going to keep saying our piece...
...And as I recall, McCain-Feingold passed without so much as a whimper, and we are in complete compliance with that law...
...Believe it or not, they've faced down worse than packs of howling lawyers and whiny politicians in their time...
...Those were the folks who stood at attention during Kerry's grand entrance at the Democratic Convention in July...
...I'm in no way connected to the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, or any other party," he said...
...First he showed up with a camera crew to shoot scenes for his campaign commercials, creating a general nuisance...
...Look, if we're telling lies Kerry needs to step up to the plate and prove it...
...It is something I had to do...
...Van Odell was not alone...
...Imagine what Kerry put them through.' That pretty much put things in perspective, and my moment of doubt passed...
...This reluctance to jump into the dog-eat-dog world of political combat, several Swifties said, became harder to maintain as the stakes got higher...
...For others, the mere act of stepping forward was an end in itself...
...Everything else is white noise...
...And that doesn't sit well with me...
...This is not something I wanted to do," Odell said, after a short pause...
...It's frustrating...
...His phone rang constantly as one menacing crank caller after another dialed up to harass him...
...In the aftermath of the group's devastatingly effective television ads and a best-selling book, Unfit for Command, a distinct line has been drawn by the Kerry/Edwards camp as to which veterans who served with Kerry in Vietnam should be listened to and which should be ignored...
...Finally I just told him that I might be a Christian, but I would never forgive him for libeling all of us as war criminals...
...But judging by the fury rained down upon the more than 250 Swift veterans who stepped forward to talk about the less admirable aspects of Kerry's short time in Vietnam, Democrats might be a bit more careful what they wish for in the future...
...We're just asking people to consider both sides of the argument and make up their own minds from there...
...We're here to set the record straight about John Kerry and that's it...
...Hurley used the sort of black-and-white, unnuanced language against a war veteran that Democrats have so far been unable to muster with regards to Iraq or the War on Terror...
...BY SHAWN MACOMBER 1 3 EFORE THE MEDIA FUROR SURROUNDING THE CLAIMS OF SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH had even begun in earnest, Van Odell, a PCF gunner who served alongside John Kerry in Vietnam, was feeling the heat and power of the Democratic Party machine after speaking out...
...Our hope is that eventually the public will recognize that we're honorable people," Hoffmann continued...
...It wasgood old-fashioned American dissent, something neither major political party seemed particular enamored with...
...And what if John Kerry, despite their efforts, becomes Commander in Chief anyway...
...Others contend that until Douglas Brinkley's Kerry biography, Tour of Duty, hit bookstore shelves they had no idea of the degree to which Kerry was willing to bend the truth...
...The media weren't interested, caught up as they were in the gadgets and amenities of the newly unveiled Kerry campaign aircraft...
...But Kerry has only garnered the support of three of the 23 officers who served alongside him in Coastal Division 11, and more than 250 other veterans from that same division have stood up to counter Kerry's carefully scripted war hero monologue...
...But according to Admiral Hoffmann, that's neither here nor there for the group...
...If that is so libelous, why am I not in court...
...Kerry said he realized Hoffmann had been "unfairly maligned" in Tour of Duty...
...The media has spent far more time searching for discrepancies in our financing than considering the information we've brought to light," Admiral Hoffmann said...
...A bit of perspective: John Kerry has persuaded 13 men who served on Swift boats in the Mekong Delta to support him...
...We knew there was some personal and legal liability, but the decision was made that Kerry had gone public with claims we know not to be true, and SHAWN MACOMBER liability or not, we had a responsibility to our country to respond...
...To which Van Odell added, "Let's get beyond whatever connections we may or may not have and talk about Kerry's record...
...T HE FIRST TIME many swift boat veterans realized they were not alone in their feelings about John Kerry's candidacy was at the Swift Boat Veterans Reunion in Norfolk, Virginia, during the summer of 2003...
...After the election, whoever wins, I'm going to go on with my quiet life," Van Odell said...
...All he had to say for himself was that he hadn't meant the Swift boat guys, as if that made it any better, and that those were his 'convictions.'" Things snowballed...
...This group has no political expertise at all," Van Odell said...
...The ads connected with voters, and, arguably, had some impact on the polls...
...And my wife, who has had to put up with so much of this, said to me, 'This isn't hard...
...This Kerry as the grand warrior thing is 90 percent wrong, and it just galled the hell out of me, and I knew I wasn't alone," Hoffmann said...
...Several prominent members claim they would have voted for a Democratic nominee had it not been John Kerry, and the group's figurehead and coauthor of Unfit for Command, John O'Neill, openly acknowledges voting for Al Gore in 2000...
...Changing the subject from the uncomfortable issue at hand to a kill-the-messenger type rant is a tactic that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have become intimately familiar with...
...Now everybody—the media, John Kerry—was forced to take the Swifties claims seriously and respond...
...Those willing to travel the country with Kerry, making appearances on hisbehalf are, of course, welcomed heartily to the table of American political discourse...
...It's very much grassroots...
...The mainstream media coverage of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth may portray the group as a bunch of raving right-wing Bush partisans, but, in truth, it is hard to shoehorn the Swifties into that box...
...When Kerry was announced as the man "who may be the next president of the United States" by Master of Ceremonies Dan Daly, there was only a stinging silence...
...Eight of these men were crew members on Kerry's six-man boat at various times...
...OCTOBER 2004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 33...
...And when he regurgitated the whole damn war hero thing again, it just galled the hell out of me...
...Without a doubt, most of the group's current supporters and donors are Republicans...
...Look, I'm a career naval officer," Retired Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann said...
...At the Boston convention and elsewhere, vice-presidential nominee John Edwards has told crowds, "To really understand John Kerry you have to listen to those who served with him in Vietnam...
...That Kerry never spoke to the discrepancy he was being questioned about garnered scant attention...
...Political activism, for us, was always a big no-no...
...But when Kerry OCTOBER 2004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 31 SWIFT AND COOL UNDER FIRE announced his candidacy and then started winning primaries, a giant red flag went up for me...
...And they were there at the press conference...
...T HE SWIFTIES ARE UNFAZED and promise to keep running the ads through the election...
...John Kerry ran to the Federal Election Commission screaming bloody murder and George W. Bush called for an end to all 527 ads...
...The Swifties' cries were barely a murmur in the night...
...Yet, despite media inquiries throughout the years, most Swifties have kept their knowledge of Kerry's exaggerations and perfidy to themselves...
...I'm just a little ole guy from somewhere out in America, speaking on my own time...
...Odell, a quiet man with little interest in political activism, began to wonder if he could in good conscience sail his family into that storm of publicity...
...I just looked at how crazy things were getting all around me and I said, you know, `I don't think I can take it,'" Odell said...
...Imagine what those prisoners in Vietnam went through...
...I've served under presidents from FDR on and I never had a single question about their loyalty or dedication to the United States of America...
...Earlier this year, for example, when ABC News put Kerry on the spot with a taped interview he did in the 1970s that directly contradicted his current claims about whether or not he tossed his medals away at a 1971 protest, Kerry sputtered angrily about the whole episode being "a phony controversy instigated by the Republican Party," before complaining to an aide off-camera that ABC was "doing the work of the Republican 32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 2004 National Committee...
...30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 2004 SHAWN MACOMBER TT MAY HAVE BEEN lost in the back and forth recriminations of the 2004 campaign, but there is a price to be paid for coming forward to speak truth to power, and the men who make up Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are certainly paying it today...
...Hoffmann asked Kerry about a couple specifics in the book...
...Everybody ignores the arguments and goes for the smear...
...I called a few people, and we went through the pros and cons of putting together an organization to counter Kerry...
...I may not be a publisher, but I knew it would take more than two weeks to correct Tour of Duty, replete as it is with gross exaggerations, distortions of fact, contradictions and slanderous lies," Hoffmann said...
...For his part, Kerry did little to mend fences that day...
...I want them to know we served our country with honor...
...In an election season, what is anti-Kerry is, after all, inherently pro-Bush...
...I wanted those who will write our history to know that, whatever John Kerry told the world, we who served in Vietnam were not baby killers and war criminals...
...Of course, painting any and all dissenters as card-carrying members of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy is nothing new for Democrats or Kerry...
...Nevertheless, there are still ways to get around a hostile media in America...
...I'm not pushing any policy...
...Last I checked, free speech was still an American ideal, regardless of whether the Democrats and Republicans like it or not," Hoffmann said...
...On a recent episode of CNN's Crossfire Kerry spokesman Steve McMahon suggested that Kerry, despite having made his service the centerpiece of his campaign, was being "forced" to focus on Vietnam by "these sleazebags who just crawled out from under the rug...
...Sometimes the suggestion is not so polite...
...Hoffmann said he's taken an oath to his country he considers sacred and that he'd grit his teeth and salute...
...Odell's wife was often on the receiving end of this verbal brutality, and friends and family let him know that Democratic operatives and the media had been snooping around for dirt on him...
...By the time Unfit for Command hit the streets, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had such a high-profile that the book shot to the top of the New York Times best-seller list...
...Unlike Gardner, perhaps due to his rank and influence, Hoffmann received a much friendlier call in March from John Kerry himself...
...John McCain is a true hero and he can say what he wants about us, but that doesn't make him an expert on Lieutenant Kerry...
...Hoffmann contends that Kerry said he hadn't even read the book all the way through himself, but that if Hoffmann was willing to play ball with the campaign, Kerry would make sure the next edition due out in two weeks was corrected...
...Fine...
...More and more Swifties came forward...
...They just decided not to cover us...
...Other Swifties were receiving much more frightening calls, with threats of physical violence...
...Shortly after signing on with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Steve Gardner, the .50 caliber machine gunner who spent more time on Kerry's boat than any other crewmate, said he received a decidedly undiplomatic phone call from John Hurley, a Democratic activist, former war-protester, and current national director of Vietnam Veterans for Kerry...
...On May 4, 2004, the newly-minted Swift Boat Veterans for Truth held a press conference in Washington at which they publicly released a letter declaring John Kerry unfit for command...
...That's when we decided to buy television advertisements and put out the book...
...I knew that whatever lies Kerry was telling about his service in Vietnam, he wasn't fit to be Commander in Chief...
...He was thinking of bugging out...
...Most of the people who have come after us in a dishonorable way did not know Kerry back then...
...Those veterans who served alongside Kerry but do not believe he is fit to be Commander in Chief should stay home...
...I told him I wouldn't cooperate with his campaign under any circumstances, but he kept talking—I think he was trying to find out where I was going to attack him on this stuff...
...I've called him a traitor and a liar so many times on radio and television now...
...To him, keeping a man he sees as unfit to serve as Commander in Chief is not a partisan issue...
...Still the Kerry campaign and prominent members of the media insist on referring to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as Republican puppets of the Bush administration...
...The part of politics that has been very difficult for me to understand is how you can put the truth out there—with the proof and paperwork and everything—and the media won't pick up on it," Steve Gardner said...
...Kerry, after all, has used his Vietnam service as a selling point in every campaign he's run, save his unsuccessful first outing as an antiwar congressional candidate...
...o WHY are the Swifties coming out now, not at the beginning of Kerry's career, but at its apex...
...The response was immediate and deafening...
...More than anything, I came forward because I wanted the truth revealed for my kids and my grandkids, and for all the real heroes who didn't make it back...
...We got some radio and cable TV coverage, but we were absolutely shut out by the networks and the big-name newspapers," Hoffmann said about the group's decision to create a 527...
Vol. 37 • October 2004 • No. 8
