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A passage from, Unfit for Command.

***On March 15, 2004, Admiral Hoffmann's telephone rang again. Once again, the caller was John Kerry. Kerry had clinched the Democratic nomination, and he knew that Hoffmann was organizing Swiftees to bring out the truth about him, his exaggerated military record, and his antiwar lies that had slandered his fellow veterans. Kerry made the admiral an offer: If you will back off and drop your efforts, I will ensure that my biography, Tour of Duty, which I know is unfair to you, will be changed to make it accurate in a revised edition. Here is my secretary's number - you can get me anytime.

The offer from the Democratic presidential candidate was an attempt to flatter Hoffmann, a warrior whose coin is not power or wealth, but honnor--an honor deeply impugned by Kerry's book. Hoffman, after all, is a wounded survivor of the amphibious assault at Wonson, Korea, where his minesweeper still lies below the frigid waters of Wonson Harbor. Kerry knew that winning Hoffmann over to his side would thwart the Swiftees' efforts to discredit him. Hoffmann told Kerry that he and the vast majority of his shipmates could never forgive him for his defamation of our Navy and other U.S. Armed Forces by his slanderous and undocumented accusations of unspeakable atrocities in Vietnam before the U.S. COngress in 1971, his leadership in the VVAW, and his association with the traitorous Jane Fonda and others of her ilk. Surprisingly, Kerry responded by simply saying that he "was expressing his conviction."

If Admiral Hoffmann were truly a butcher whose conduct "sickens" John Kerry to this day, an impression one could easily gain from reading Tour of Duty, then why did Kerry offer to change inaccuracies he knew were in Tour of Duty in exchange for Admiral Hoffmann and the Swiftees ceasing their activities? In emails on May 3, 2003, and on May 7, 2004,trying to dissuade Swiftees from joining Admiral Hoffmann, Wade Sanders referred to the group as "bitter drunks," something the sailors involved deeply resented. Moreover, Sanders referred to Joe Ponder, a seriously disabled Swiftee who cried when talking about Kerry's charges, as "a whining crybaby."*** - pages 68-69