Have you seen Alston's speech?
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-27-2004/0002218466&EDATE=
BTW, wouldn't surprise me if he knew Kerry before January 29 though they served on different boats - just like the Swift Boat Vet officers knew Kerry. However, Alston's story specifically says he was with Kerry.
If the story is fake, I'd scratch it up to a head wound and some very convincing people 35 years later.
Ooooh, you just gave another (worse) possibility to this story.
I had figured that Altman was persuaded by the benjamins to lie for "his" skipper. What if Altman is NOT lying but had no memory of those times due to his head wound (entirely possible) and the Kerry camp has been "refilling" his memory holes? HOW CRUEL is that, to get a wounded vet to parrot false memories???