Vietnam veterans defend "decorated war hero" John Kerry over service record by The Guardian /Channel News Asia /Associated Press. 9:04am 21st Aug, 2004   USA: A Republican group of Vietnam veterans financed by a major George Bush contributor is running an ad campaign claiming Democrat presidential challenger Senator John Kerry's account of his military record is false. But not one of these veterans ever served with him. John Kerry, a former Navy lieutenant, received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for his Vietnam service. George Bush spent the war in the United States serving in the Texas Air National Guard.    22.08.2004    “Vietnam vet springs to Kerry's defense”. (Channel News Asia)    William Rood, a journalist at the Chicago Tribune, who, like John Kerry, commanded a Swift boat during the Vietnam war, broke a 35-year silence about his service in the controversial conflict to defend the Democratic candidate.    "Kerry's critics, armed with stories I know to be untrue, have charged that the accounts of what happened were overblown," Rood said in a first-person account of the February 28, 1969, mission in which Kerry won the Silver Star.    "Their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there," Rood wrote in the Tribune.    "There were three Swift boats on the river that day in Vietnam more than 35 years ago -- three officers and 15 crew members. Only two of those officers remain to talk about what happened on February 28, 1969," said Rood…"One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other," he wrote.    Aug. 21, 2004 (ABC News).    “Kerry calls on Bush to Halt Personal' Attacks by Critics of his Vietnam War Record”.    (The Associated Press)— Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Saturday night urged President Bush to "stand up and stop" what he called personal attacks on him over his combat record in Vietnam..    Earlier on Saturday, Kerry's campaign released a video comparing the controversy over Kerry's Vietnam service to attacks on John McCain during the 2000 Republican primaries. The video, sent via e-mail to supporters, says, "George Bush is up to his old tricks" and shows then-Texas Gov. Bush and Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain at a debate in February 2000. McCain, sitting next to Bush, says that when "fringe veterans groups" attacked him at a Bush campaign function, Bush stood by and didn't say a word. McCain says a group of senators wrote Bush a letter that said: "Apologize. You should be ashamed." McCain, also a Vietnam veteran, says Bush "really went over the line."    Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group funded in part by a top GOP donor in Texas, has been running ads featuring veterans who served in Vietnam at the same time as Kerry and question his wartime record. Those critics are being challenged by a Chicago Tribune editor who was on the Feb. 28, 1969, mission for which Kerry received the Silver Star. William Rood, 61, said he decided to break his silence about the mission because recent reports of Kerry's actions in that battle are incorrect and darken the reputations of veterans who served with Kerry.    "The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us," Rood said in a 1,700-word first-person account published in Sunday's edition of the Tribune. "It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there."    Rood said the allegations that Kerry's accomplishments were overblown are untrue and that Kerry came up with an attack strategy that was praised by their superiors. According to the Tribune, Rood's recollection of what happened that day in South Vietnam was backed by military documents.    Kerry also picked up support from Wayne D. Langhofer, who told The Washington Post he was manning a machine gun in a boat behind Kerry's and saw firing from both banks of a river as Kerry dived in to rescue Special Forces soldier James Rassmann, the basis for Kerry's Bronze Star…It quoted Langhofer as saying he was approached by leaders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth several months ago but declined to join them in speaking against Kerry..    Jim Rassman says he was one of the Senator's boat crew, who were shot at many times. "I was there. I saw it happen time after time, and one of those times when I got blown off his boat he came back for me," he said."I'm proud of this guy, I think the world of him. I want to have him at my back as President of the United States."    The Kerry campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, alleging the Swift Boat Veterans group is coordinating its ads with the Bush campaign. The Bush campaign has denied the claim.    18th August, 2004 (MoveOn.org)    According to the Washington Post, "A review of Bush's military records shows that Bush enjoyed preferential treatment as the son of a then congressman, when he walked into a Texas Guard unit in Houston two weeks before his 1968 graduation from Yale and was moved to the top of a long waiting list."    Then, between May 1972 and May 1973, he simply seemed to disappear. According to an in-depth study by the Boston Globe, there are no records available which indicate that he showed up for duty during that time. His commanding officer doesn't recall seeing him.    When George Bush appeared on "Meet the Press" in February, Tim Russert asked him if he would release "pay stubs, tax records, anything to show that you were serving during that period." Bush unequivocally replied, "Yeah." But he hasn't. In fact, the Associated Press -- representing most of the newspapers in the country -- has filed a lawsuit to obtain records which Bush refuses to release. In the lawsuit, the AP argues that a "significant, ongoing controversy exists over the president's military service during the Vietnam War." The AP also noted that a full release of Bush's war records would clarify "allegations that potentially embarrassing material was removed in 1997 from Bush's military file, when he was running for re-election as Texas governor."    August 19, 2004 (Sidney Blumenthal, The Guardian)    Before attending a rally to hear vice president Dick Cheney, citizens in New Mexico were required to sign a political loyalty oath approved by the Republican national committee. "I, [full name] ... do herby endorse George W Bush for reelection of the United States." The form noted: "In signing the above endorsement you are consenting to use and release of your name by Bush-Cheney as an endorser of President Bush."    Bush is campaigning at events billed as Ask President Bush. Only supporters are allowed in. Talking points are distributed to questioners. In Traverse City, Michigan, a 55-year-old social studies teacher who wore a Kerry sticker had her ticket torn up at the door. "How can anyone in the US deny someone entry?" she asked. "Isn't this a democracy?"    At every rally, Bush repeats the same speech, touting a "vibrant economy" and his leadership in a war where "you cannot show weakness". He introduces local entrepreneurs who praise his tax cuts. (More than one million jobs have been lost in his term.) Then Bush calls on questioners. More than one-fifth of them profess their evangelical faith or denounce gay marriage. In Niceville, Florida, one said: "This is the very first time that I have felt that God was in the White House." "Thank you," replied Bush. Another: "Mr President, as a child, how can I help you get votes?" In Albuquerque, he was told: "It's an honor every day when I get to pray for you as president." And this one: "Thank God we finally have a commander-in-chief." Others repeat attack lines on John Kerry's military record to which Bush responds with an oblique but encouraging "Thanks".    Bush's overriding strategy is to bolster his credentials as a decisive military figure and to impugn his opponent's manhood. In his latest TV commercial, he says: "We cannot hesitate, we cannot yield, we must do everything in our power to bring an enemy to justice before they hurt us again." But, according to the Washington Post, for the last two years he has uttered the elusive Osama bin Laden's name only 10 times, and "on six of those occasions it was because he was asked a direct question ... Not once during that period has he talked about Bin Laden at any length, or said anything substantive". At Ask President Bush events, he mentions 9/11 only to raise the threat of Saddam.    Vice president Cheney sneered at Kerry for even using the word "sensitive" with respect to counter-terrorism. Not one war was "won by being sensitive", mocked Cheney. Kerry, in fact, had called for fighting "a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history". Cheney's distortion is calculated to attempt to portray Kerry as somehow effeminate.    At the same time, a Republican front group of Vietnam veterans financed by a major Bush contributor is running an ad campaign claiming Kerry's account of his military record is false. But not one of these veterans served with him on his boat.    During the Vietnam war, Bush famously used his father's connections to get a posting as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard because it was filled with the sons of privilege. After refusing to submit to a routine drug test, he was suspended and never flew again. He got himself transferred to the Alabama National Guard, but didn't turn up for his tour of duty. Since then, he has withheld his full military records. Now he encourages smears that a genuine war hero has lied about his service and is a coward. But this is more than a case of projection. The more profound issue is not who served in Vietnam and who dodged. It is whether the president is a sovereign.    Since the birth of the US party system, presidential candidates have gone directly to the sovereign people to make their case. After the Democratic convention, Kerry traveled from New England to the northwest doing just that. Not one of the hundreds of thousands who attended his open-air rallies had to pledge allegiance to him, and he encountered organized Bush hecklers as part of the price. At his rallies Bush is a pseudo-populist. But these controlled environments reflect his deeper view of the presidency as sovereign, preempting democracy.    Floundering in the polls, without a strategy for Iraq, unwilling to say the name of Bin Laden, he is secure in the knowledge that the cheering multitudes have been selected. Ask President Bush has crystallized the underlying issue, framed succinctly by the greatest American poet of democracy, Walt Whitman, who wrote: "The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him."    (Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of salon.com)    © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
	Next (more recent) news item
	Next (older) news item