Posted on 08/23/2004 12:23:48 PM PDT by meandog
Journalist Breaks Silence to Defend Kerry Against Swift Boaters
By E&P Staff
NEW YORK A Chicago Tribune metro editor who commanded a boat alongside John Kerry in Vietnam broke a 35-year silence on Saturday to say that stories told by Kerry's "Swift Boat" detractors are untrue.
William Rood wrote on the newspaper's Web site, and in an article published Sunday, "There were three swift boats on the river that day in Vietnam more than 35 years ago -- three officers and 15 crew members. Only two of those officers remain to talk about what happened on February 28, 1969.
"One is John Kerry ... who won a Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other."
Rood had long refused interviews, but Saturday he declared, "It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there."
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have sought to undermine Kerry's record in TV ads and a bestselling book.
In the Chicago Tribune article, Rood said Kerry urged him to go public, but he added, "what matters most to me is that this is hurting crewmen who are not public figures and who deserved to be honored for what they did."
It was a very difficult decision for Rood to write the first-person account, Tribune Managing Editor James O'Shea said in an interview Sunday morning on WBBM-TV in Chicago.
"Bill came to us Wednesday (Aug. 18) after receiving a call from Senator Kerry," O'Shea said. "He had refused to speak about it publicly, even with our own Tribune reporters. He didn't want to become embroiled in a political campaign."
But Rood told Tribune editors that he believed the recent ads from other Swift Boat veterans of the Vietnam war "was tarnishing the reputations" of all those involved in the disputed Feb. 28, 1969, incident on the Dong Cung tributary of the Bay Hap River.
"We will respect your silence,'' O'Shea said he told Rood. "If you don't want to express yourself, that's OK. You can just go your way and be a metro editor." But O'Shea also told him, "if you are going to talk about it, I want you to write about it in the Chicago Tribune and not in a competing publication."
The Tribune has no axe to grind in the dispute between Kerry and his critics, O'Shea said: "This is one person's account of what happened, and we feel we owe it to the readers to share it with them."
It sickens me to hear extremists such as Rush and Sean denigrate Kerry's Vietnam record as much as it does Michael Moore and Bill Mayre denigrate Bush's Air National Guard Service...and isn't it ironic that NONE of the far right or far left loudmouth's never served one day in uniform?
Kerry has lied so often it's hard to know where to start.
Let the guy defend this:
Another Kerry lie was exposed by the Boston Globe in April 2004:
The Kerry campaign removed a 20-page batch of documents yesterday from its website after The Boston Globe quoted a Navy officer who said the documents wrongly portrayed Kerry's service. Edward Peck had said he -- not Kerry -- was the skipper of Navy boat No. 94 at a time when the Kerry campaign website credited the senator with serving on the boat. The website had described Kerry's boat as being hit by rockets and said a crewmate was injured in an attack.
But Peck said those events happened when he was the skipper. The campaign did not respond to a request to explain why the records were removed.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1197480/posts
At some point, we need to get off what did or didn't happen in Vietnam, 35 years ago, and start focusing on Kerry's record in the U.S. Senate.
Is this about February 28th or March 13th? I'm going to have to buy the book.
"and isn't it ironic that NONE of the far right or far left loudmouth's never served one day in uniform?"
Did I miss something? Why... I thought ALL of those 250 plus Swiftboat vets against sKerry were actually vets who knew him well and went on missions with him. Are they now just loadmouths?
His vote in the 106th Congress to stop the Social Security Lock Box Act is a good starting point.
Both Kerry and Edwards voted against that Bill.
Where is the url to the article?
The Bush/Cheney ad released today does just that--focus on K's Senate record.
If there are any specifics, refutations of earlier accusations by Swift Vets for Truth in this article, I haven't seen them. Just blanket statements, and no actual evidence. What is not true? Seems like Kerry's allies cannot afford to talk specific facts, and must rely on obfuscation and bluster. I am not surprised.
I think that's great. Kerry built this swift boat mess himself by pounding his chest about his Vietnam service. Now he's being pounded by fellow vets. It frees the Bush campaign up to focus on the relevant issues of Kerry's 20-year record in the Senate.
Kerry & Rood in the pic of them together says volumns about sKerry. He looks like a total doofus with that rocket launcher, one glance tells you he has no idea which end to point toward the enemy.
Every time I a see a lefty geek strutting around posing like he is a gun person, it shows me what an arse hole he is.
Remember Buba Klintoon (I too am a gun owning hunter) doing that perp walk with his limp duck by the neck, he looked like, "This how Monica handles other limp ....", well I digress, but the point remains made.
You can always spot a phony, why, well, because they are always phony.
Kerry didn't go with the idea of serving his country. He went the idea of serving himself.
If you knew the SBVT were right on most of their charges, would that change your mind? Is he honorable automatically because we are not allowed to question military service at all? Does that give a free pass to the current military personnel who abused prisoners? Is Kerry's anti-war testimony relevant? Does it matter that he is the one who brought the subject up? Should the Vets ads be removed and their book banned by the gov't?
So, you want this entire campaign to be about Kerry in Vietnam....
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