Before this day's mission, though, Kerry, the tactical commander of the mission, discussed with Rood and Droz a change in response to the anticipated ambushes: If possible, turn into the fire once it is identified and attack the ambushers, Rood recalled Kerry saying. The boats followed that new tactic with great success, Rood said, and the mission was highly praised.
In the book "Unfit for Command," Kerry's critics maintained otherwise. Later in the war, O'Neill commanded the same swift boat Kerry had led. Rood recalled the fleeing Viet Cong was "a grown man, dressed in the kind of garb the VC usually wore. After the attack, the task force commanding officer, then-Capt. Roy Hoffmann, sent a message of congratulations to the three swift boats, saying their charge of the ambushers was a "shining example of completely overwhelming the enemy" and that it "may be the most efficacious [method] of dealing with small numbers of ambushers," Rood said.
In the official after-action message, obtained by the Tribune, Hoffmann wrote that the tactics developed and executed by Kerry, Rood and Droz were "immensely effictive [sic]" and that "this operation did unreparable [sic] damage to the enemy in this area. But more than three decades later, Hoffmann, now a retired rear admiral, has changed his story. Today he is one of Kerry's most vocal critics, saying the attacks against the ambushers 35 years ago call into question Kerry's judgment and show his tendency to be impulsive.
Rood challenges that criticism, recalling that the direction for the actions they took on the river that day came from the highest ranks of the Navy command in Vietnam. Asked for his response to Rood's account, O'Neill argued that the former swift boat skipper's version of events is not substantially different from what appeared in the book.
The account of the Feb. He said the congratulatory note from Hoffmann was based on the belief that Kerry was under heavy fire from the Viet Cong. But O'Neill claimed that "didn't happen. Attempts to reach Hoffmann for comment were unsuccessful. O'Neill said in a statement Saturday that, unlike Rood, most of the officers who served with Kerry do not support him. He called Rood's criticism of "Unfit for Command" "extremely unfair" and said Rood declined to be interviewed for the book he and Corsi wrote.
We are joined in that judgment by many Vietnam veterans who expressed similar views. In his eyewitness account, Rood describes coming under rocket and automatic weapons fire from Viet Cong on the riverbank during two ambushes of his boat and Kerry's boat.
Praise for the mission led by Kerry came from Navy commanders who far outranked Hoffmann. Rood won a Bronze Star for his actions on that day. The Bronze Star citation from the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, then commander of U. Naval Forces, Vietnam, singled out the tactic used by the boats and said the Viet Cong were "caught completely off guard. The war about the war between O'Neill and Kerry has raged for more than three decades.
O'Neill, who became a lawyer in Houston after returning from Vietnam, was recruited by the Nixon administration in to serve as a political counterweight to Kerry, who by then had left the military and was a vocal critic of the war. Rood acknowledged in his first-person account that there could be errors in recollection, especially with the passage of more than three decades.
His Bronze Star citation, he said, misidentifies the river where the main action occurred. That mistake, he said, is a "cautionary note for those trying to piece it all together. What military documentation exists and has been made public generally supports the view put forth by Kerry and most of his crewmates -- that he acted courageously and came by his Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts honestly.
This view of Kerry as war hero is supported by all but one of the surviving veterans who served with him on the two boats he commanded. None of the critics quoted in the ad actually served on the boats with Kerry. Some of them also have given contradictory accounts and offered conflicting recollections. But what actually happened about 35 years ago along the remote southern coast of Vietnam remains murky. Most of the documents offered by critics of the Democratic candidate are signed affidavits by 13 Swift boat veterans -- notarized memories of events that they say they witnessed from a boat or two away.
The Kerry campaign has launched a vociferous defense, denying the charges raised in the ad. A liberal independent organization is weighing in on the controversy with a new ad today, demanding that President Bush urge that the ad be taken off the air. The Bush campaign, for its part, says it has nothing to do with the Swift boat group attacking Kerry and has kept a distance -- neither endorsing nor denouncing the ad, which is airing in Ohio, Wisconsin and West Virginia. Kerry, long accused of hair-splitting and nuance in his political positions, has left himself open to criticism by giving subtly varying accounts over the years of his Vietnam service and postwar activism.
But his critics also have provided conflicting recollections. They give an opening for people who want to say Kerry was embellishing. Perry, a Texas homebuilder, was their biggest original financier. It already tops the Amazon. It is too soon to tell whether the claims are resonating with voters, but political observers say they could pose a serious risk for the Democratic candidate, particularly in such a close race. The anti-Kerry ad begins with footage of Sen. In his April statement to the Senate panel, Kerry cited Vietnam atrocities that had been alleged by his group of antiwar veterans.
In the anti-Kerry ad, former Navy Lt. Calley of My Lai, comparing the American armed forces to the army of Genghis Khan, and making similar misstatements. Kerry, who dishonored my country, my honor and my friends by falsely charging the United States Army Forces with war crimes, claiming that all of us, living and dead, were war criminals.
But he did not mention Elliott by name, nor did he mention his Navy superiors. And he did not claim that every soldier was a war criminal. Rather, he cited atrocities described by veterans who opposed the war. Kerry has acknowledged that, at times, he used a poor choice of words as a young man protesting the war, but he has continued to insist that atrocities were committed.
But in his affidavit, Elliott backed away from the Silver Star nomination he wrote for Kerry in Kerry won the award for chasing down and killing a wounded Viet Cong guerrilla who had confronted his boat with a grenade launcher.
Elliott was not present during the action, and there have been no credible eyewitness accounts affirming his version. A day after the ad appeared, Elliott said in an interview with the Boston Globe that he regretted signing the affidavit and that he believed Kerry still deserved the Silver Star.
Then he issued a second affidavit standing by his first sworn statement, saying he had been misquoted by the Globe. There are three other allegations raised by the anti-Kerry group -- questioning his first Purple Heart, his Bronze Star and a Christmas Eve mission to the Cambodian border. Louis Letson said in the television ad. In a Times interview in May, the retired Alabama doctor said he recalled administering treatment to Kerry for a flesh wound incurred on Dec.
Noticing Viet Cong on a beach, Kerry fired on the guerrillas. Two crewmates, Bill Zaladonis and Pat Runyon, have confirmed that they also fired on the fleeing guerrillas. According to a Boston Globe report on April 15, , union officials had expressed uneasiness with Kerry's candidacy because he had thrown his medals away.
Kerry acknowledged the medals he threw away were, in fact, another soldier's medals. He reportedly invited a union official home to personally inspect his Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, awarded for his combat duty as a Navy lieutenant.
In the Viewpoints interview, he made no mention of the ribbons or the medals belonging to another veteran. And in , Kerry again clarified his statement by saying he threw out ribbons he had been awarded for three combat wounds, but not his medals.
Eight years later in , Kerry said while he did throw out his ribbons, he didn't throw out his own medals because he "didn't have time to go home [to New York] and get them," he told The Boston Globe. Kerry's campaign Web site says he "is proud of the work he did to end the war. The Nixon Administration made John Kerry one of its targets and Republicans have been smearing him ever since. John Kerry threw his ribbons and the medals of two veterans who could not attend the event, and said, 'I am not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try to make this country wake up once and for all.
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