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

O'Neill, John E; Corsi Phd, Jerome R

ISBN 10: 0786183276 ISBN 13: 9780786183272

Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, 2004

Synopsis

In their book, Unfit for Command, John O'Neill and coauthor Jerome Corsi bring together the words of more than two hundred Navy veterans who served with Kerry and who feel it their duty to tell why John Kerry is unworthy of the presidency. In 1971, John O'Neill, the officer who took over John Kerry's swift boat in Vietnam, returned home from Vietnam only to realize that the man he served with, John Kerry, had become a leader of the radical group Vietnam Veterans against the War and was slandering his fellow veterans as war criminals. O'Neill debated John Kerry on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971, successfully demolishing Kerry's accusations against his fellow troops in Vietnam. Find out why John Kerry is unfit for command, as told by the men who served with him.

About this title

Review:

Due to the timing of its publication, Unfit for Command could be dismissed as the sort of controversial, loaded book typical in a presidential election year: Either courageous and necessary, or untruthful and malicious, depending on one's political point of view. Filled with interviews of men who served in Vietnam at the same time as John Kerry, the book poses the following question: "Why do an overwhelming majority of those who commanded or served with John Kerry oppose him?" (Note that the issue of "service" has sparked investigation into its definition--in other words, just how close was the interaction between Kerry and those cited in the book during Kerry’s Vietnam tour of duty?)

The charges leveled against Kerry in this book are severe and include filing false operating reports; lobbying for and receiving three Purple Hearts for minor wounds, two of which were self-inflicted; receiving a Silver Star under false pretenses; offering false confessions of bogus war crimes in both print and testimony; and recklessness in the field, including the burning of a village without cause or direct order. The book also claims that Kerry left Vietnam after serving just four months instead of the usual one year tour and that he returned home and accused his fellow soldiers of atrocities without offering any evidence, endangering POWs in the process.

It is debatable whether the book will change any minds, or votes. Instead, readers will likely reach one of two conclusions: Either John Kerry grossly misrepresented his military service or the authors are spinning the interviews that they conducted for ulterior motives. There is a third option, however; readers will further investigate both sides of the debate, and by doing so, may reach conclusions independent of partisan extremes. --Brian Neff

From the Publisher:

Find out why John Kerry is Unfit for Command as told by the men who served with him

Unfit for Command reveals a John Kerry you don't know-the true John Kerry that his political image-makers are trying to hide. But the veterans who served with him know better, and in Unfit for Command, they tell their story, including:

* How all three of John Kerry's Purple Hearts were for minor injuries, easily treated with band-aids, not requiring a single hour of hospitalization
* How captured Americans were tortured in North Vietnamese prisons for not endorsing John Kerry's false testimony-before the United States Senate-about alleged American war crimes
* How John Kerry carried a typewriter and an 8-mm home movie camera with him to Vietnam so he could record his own exaggerated version of his war exploits and film staged reenactments of his "combat actions" to advance his political career
* Why John Kerry's photograph hangs in a place of honor in the Vietnamese communist "War Remnants Museum" in Saigon

Want to know the real John Kerry? Read Unfit for Command-and prepare to be shocked.

About this edition

• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0786183276
• ISBN 13: 9780786183272
• Binding: Audio CD