The Verdict of History

books:

	• Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry John E. O'Neill Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2004 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 3122 reviews view larger image
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Great Story

This book helped defeat John "Traitor" Kerry.

After I read this book, I donated $200 to the Shift Boat Vets.

John Kerry is a coward, liar, cheat and is certainly not a war hero.

Brian
Vietnam Vet.

better late than never

I was given this book a few years ago and finally decided to go through it. The bottom line is that this book gives the other side of the story on John Kerry's story. Since Kerry decided to use his short service in Vietnam as one of the cornerstones of his campaign, it is only fitting that both sides be told regarding his service. Then, it is up to the American people to decide which John Kerry is closer to reality.

The first part of the book is mostly he said-he said regarding Kerry's service. To me, it was hard to tell which accusations about Kerry in Vietnam were accurate and which were not since memories fade over so much time passing. Kerry's rapid accumulation of medals was very suspicious however. Putting that aside, the most shocking part of the book dealt with Kerry's anti-war activities to include his meetings with Vietnamese Communists in Paris while our soldiers were fighting and dying. His behavior was just not responsible and at a minimum, seditious. There is a way to oppose war without working against your country's military efforts and assisting the enemy. Kerry did not choose that route.

I found it especially interesting how Kerry's 2004 campaign bragged about his medals, while in 1971 he threw those same medals back. I guess it all depends on what is politically expedient at the time.

Thank you to the Swift Boat Veterans for presenting the other side of the story.

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The Verdict of History

Like a lot of conservatives, I purchased this book when it first came out, but unlike most of them I never got around to reading it straight through until a few weeks ago. Maybe at some level I wasn't sure the book's charges would stand up so I wanted to wait a while before investing the time.

Well, it has been almost four years, and what have we learned? When the book came out, John Kerry and his supporters claimed it was full of lies which they would shortly expose. Not ONE lie has been found, not ONE charge exposed as false. The best that anyone has been able to do is to argue that in a few cases honorable people could disagree about what the evidence shows: one of Kerry's Purple Hearts might not have been a phony, one of Kerry's combat stars might have been deserved. But that is pretty much it.

Some of this could probably be cleared up if Kerry would just execute Standard Form 180, authorizing the Defense Department to release all of his military records otherwise sealed by privacy regulations. President Bush had to execute one in order to disprove all of the lunatic accusations that he had somehow not fulfilled his service obligations, but Kerry never has and presumably never will, despite repeatedly promising to do so. One of the supporters of the SBVT, T. Boone Pickens, Jr., offered Kerry a one million dollar challenge after the election if he could disprove any of their charges. Kerry took him up on it but failed to do so. (Tellingly, Kerry supporters give as their reason that Pickens put some conditions on the challenge which they label as "reneging" on the deal. You'd think that if Kerry could expose any of these charges as lies, he'd be willing to do it for free, wouldn't you?)

What emerges is a sobering portrait of a man singularly unfit to hold any office of leadership and trust, much less POTUS. After failing to avoid military service, Kerry started out rather conventionally by determining to use his military service to advance his political ambitions, hardly the first time THAT has ever happened. But his inconstancy soon began to disturb his colleagues who never knew who was going to show up on the battlefield on a given day: the reckless glory hound or the overly cautious near coward. If Kerry could have settled on one persona for the duration, his peers and his commanders could probably have made good use of him because both personality types have served in every war, but Kerry's unreliablity made him a liability they could not long tolerate.

Then upon taking the hint to leave early, Kerry (in their eyes) betrayed them all by falsely accusing them of atrocities as he switched over to the anti-war side. (Even Kerry supporters will be relieved to learn that whenever his more excitable anti-war friends proposed assassinating pro-war politicians Kerry always voted against it.)

Still, time heals all wounds eventually, and it might have been possible for Kerry to have come to some sort of understanding with his once squadron mates, then bitter foes, if he had only had the sense, not to mention the decency, not to do ANOTHER 180 and attempt to win the White House by touting his "military service". That was just one turn too many for these men, and the rest is history.

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