Unfit For Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry

This book is devastating, and although a quick read, it is a sickening read. I went through various opinions about Kerry as the evidence unwound: coward, narcissist, fantasist, and eventually settled on psychopath. It's well-researched and the evidence leaves you nowhere to turn. Why did he refuse to allow the reprinting of "The New Soldier"? Why did he pretend to throw away his medals? Why did a man who thinks the entire US army was one war crime machine turn around and run as a war hero? O'Neill and Corsi have all the answers, and they fit. John Kerry (AKA) "Boston Strangler" is a dangerously self-absorbed man, and we are all but chess pieces to him and men like him. As a side note, it's interesting just how much braver reporters were show more in 2004, or perhaps it was Kerry's long history in politics that couldn't be so easily avoided as a certain Constitutional scholar's was. show less

I was not expecting too much from this book, as it is old news from the 2004 presidential election. Published as a means of showing the disregard of Kerry to slander veterans as a means to political office this book did not play a large role in his loss in the general election. In the media, the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth were dismissed as embittered drunks and baby killers.
At 200 pages it is very short and the main author is a Naval Academy Graduate and now attorney. John O’Neill took command after Kerry left his command of PCF 94. Kerry’s Vietnam Swift Boat combat tour of four months enabled him enough time to win 3 Purple hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star. That’s good work. That’s almost unheard of to most Vietnam show more combat veterans.
Very well written and the authors do not delve into exaggerated speculations or personal vitriol. The book looks at Kerry’s own words an compares them to other published accounts by Kerry himself or authoritative records such as the FBI surveillance reports, books, or journalist’s news articles.
This book is still worth reading as it makes sense to see why Obama would pick Kerry for his Secretary of State. Kerry’s personal ideas fit perfectly with Obama’s view of American global involvement.
In any case, Kerry always seemed to have been a social climber and wanted to use his military service as a springboard to political office. This in itself is not unusual among some veterans and even praiseworthy most of the time. The Swift boaters had a major problem when Kerry accused all Vietnam veterans of war crimes and that he himself had been complicit while he was there (presumably at the same time as he was earning military medals).
The book refutes all of Kerry’s claims about his and the United States’ war crimes (crimes against humanity for which there are no statute of limitations).
Kerry was a Yale grad and attempted to avoid being drafted in 1966, so once his deferment to study in Paris was denied, he enlisted in the US Naval Reserves, status “inactive.” The Tet Offensive was in 1968 and marked the point at which doubts arose in the media’s coverage and in the minds of US politicians.
I learned much from this book and it was not a sleazy attempt to tar Kerry with blatant falsehoods. The media tried to ignore the claims by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth each of whom affixed their complete names to the appendix of the book. show less

The viewpoint is obviously biased, so it is hard to tell the complete legitimacy of the complaints. I would be far more interested in reading something provided by a third party in between the anti-Kerry vets and the Kerry side. Biased or not, though, it is obvious there are many people with very strong feelings against Kerry, and it doesn't seem as though those feelings are completely unfounded.

It's possible that this book cost John Kerry the 2004 election. If it did, it's a testament not to the truth of the matters asserted in this book, but rather to the power of the book to sway public opinion. Gutenberg would be proud.

Case 14 shelf 5

http://btripp-books.livejournal.com/9341.html