To Understand and Debunk the Smear Boat Vets

[DoBotherMe]

you will need to read, "Tour of Duty." Not only are these guys angry about Lt. Kerry's plea in 1971 to get American troops out of VN to save their lives, they are also angry about Douglas Brinkley's pointed reporting of how the Sealords mission was conducted out of Coastal Squadron 11 and 13. Elliot, Horne, Shumadine, Thurlow, etc.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-08-kerry-vets_x.htm
The group's chairman and founder, retired rear admiral Roy Hoffmann, says the veterans were angered after reading historian Douglas Brinkley's book about Kerry's service, Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War. Hoffman says the biography is "replete with gross exaggerations, distortions of fact and outright lies."

As for waiting until a news conference this May to come forward, Hoffmann says, "When (Kerry) was in Massachusetts, that was Massachusetts' problem." Things changed, he says, "when he announced his candidacy to be the commander in chief."

Brinkley accuses the group of "a smear campaign." He interviewed at least seven of the men, some of whom he portrays harshly. Hoffmann, the Navy's top swift boat commander in Vietnam, is described in the book as "blood-thirsty" and "egomaniacal."

"Tour of Duty," is a classic. I recommend it if you really are interested in knowing about the 44th President of the U.S. Dana ; )

[Fovea]

1. I wouldn't want to be these guys knocking Kerry.

They have long memories, these navy guys, and carry a grudge like an event in Athens.


My sister's old boyfriend packed it in on a swift boat.
This duty was like pulling a little red wagon full of gold bars down the streets of East St. Louis at midnight, protected by a poodle.

A lot of these guy's weapon of choice was a Remington 12Ga. pump. That tells you quite a bit all by itself.