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

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

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0895260174 ISBN 13: 9780895260178

Publisher: Regnery, 2004

Synopsis

"What sort of combination of hypocrite and paradox is John Kerry?" ask the authors in this heated critique of the Democratic presidential candidate’s Vietnam era military service and antiwar activism. O’Neill, a lawyer and swift boat veteran, and Corsi, an expert on Vietnam antiwar movements, argue that Kerry misrepresented his wartime exploits and is therefore incompetent to serve as commander in chief. Buttressed by interviews with Navy veterans who patrolled Vietnam’s waters, some along with Kerry, the book claims he exaggerated minor injuries, self-inflicted others, wrote fictitious diary entries and filed "phony" reports of his heroism under fire all in a calculated quest to secure career-enhancing combat medals. They also maintain that Kerry, whom they call a "moral coward," committed atrocities that alarmed his peers and superior officers during his four-month tour of duty. Yet his activities on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War clearly raises the authors’ hackles the most, and they present Kerry’s post-war actions as additional, damning evidence of his "total unfitness," claiming that his testimony against the war "caused more deaths and prolonged the war in Vietnam by undermining support at home and contributing directly to a Vietnamese Communist victory." The battle that lies at the heart of this book is the decades-old feud between antiwar veterans and their my-country-right-or-wrong counterparts. The authors’ conservative take on the war is palpable: the U.S. military failed to unleash "massive, indiscriminate bombing" to force North Vietnam’s capitulation; the conflict was a struggle against communism, not a civil war; and the dissenting soldiers undermined homefront morale. Consequently, this overwrought and repetitive polemic seethes with a resentment that compromises the otherwise eyebrow-raising testimonies. Further, without access to Kerry’s full military and medical records, the authors rely heavily on 35-year-old recollections and recent Kerry biographies by Douglas Brinkley and a Boston Globe reporting team. Those looking for a thorough, unbiased investigation into Kerry’s wartime record would do best to wait for more objective, methodical chroniclers who have access to the relevant documents.

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: Regnery
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0895260174
• ISBN 13: 9780895260178
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224