Wednesday, September 08, 2004
By MICHAEL C. BENDER
The Daily Sentinel
A former Navy Swift boat commander who served with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry told a Mesa County crowd Tuesday the Vietnam veteran’s record proves he is fit to lead a nation.
“It really isn’t the Vietnam experience,” Wade Sanders told the crowd of about 70 gathered at Mesa County Democratic Party headquarters on Tuesday. “It’s any time in your lives that you’ve been tested. As commander-in-chief, when John Kerry says ‘we will never go to war because we want to, we will only go to war because we have to,’ he understands the suffering behind it. He has seen the blood; he has seen the costs; he knows what the price is. ‘W’ doesn’t have a clue.”
Sanders, a former Coloradan now living in California, served 26 years in the Navy, including five months with Kerry in Vietnam.
He has been campaigning for Kerry since December.
Sanders ridiculed the recent attacks on Kerry by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, calling the group “Swift Boat Veterans for Lies.”
He repeatedly referred to Republican President George W. Bush as “W,” and one time called him the “coward from Crawford.”
“John Kerry has a peerless record beyond reproach,” Sanders said.
http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/epaper/editions/wednesday/9_8_Sanders_supports_Kerry_WWW.html