You are correct sir.
Posted on 10/02/2004 11:27:16 PM PDT by freespirited
"T his is Latch."
That's how Roy Hoffmann opened the calls, with a name he hadn't used in 35 years, a name the man at the other end of the line last heard crackling over a radio receiver in Vietnam.
He called all the men who'd been under his command there, finding their names in old mimeographed records and photos once stored in his attic and now spread all over his second-floor office.
"Latch, remember me?" he would say, transporting them back to those days on the Swift boats, the patrols in the Mekong Delta or even the middle of a firefight, when "Latch" had a habit of checking in from headquarters on the radio.
They had become bus drivers and lawyers and cotton farmers, retired or heading in that direction. Some remembered him by other names, Red Rooster or Smiley or Mad Dog Hoffmann. All of them remembered him.
"Before that call I hadn't thought for 30 minutes about Vietnam in 30 years," says George Elliott, a retired naval officer tending his garden in Delaware.
Now here was Hoffmann, calling out of the blue, asking, "Have you read the book?" Just like that -- "the book." And Elliott knew he must be talking about historian Douglas Brinkley's book "Tour of Duty," describing John Kerry's time as a Navy officer in Vietnam. It was about them, too, after all.
Did he think it was accurate, Hoffmann wanted to know. Did it do them justice?
The results of Hoffmann's one-man crusade are now infamous, this year's version of the campaign mudfight -- was Bill Clinton a draft dodger? did Dan Quayle buy drugs? -- one of those nasty stories that pop up in the political season, with bit players dredging up thin allegations about a candidate's past.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Guess what the handle for Kerry was!
I think it was Boston Strangler.
You are correct sir.
The big lie in this piece appears to be the tie to the SwiftVets group. I wish I knew how to ping Oregon freepers to see whether anyone knows more about this McCall angle.
Who do you believe? The 250+ Swift Vets that support Hoffmann, or the 16 that support Kerry.
250 republicans and 15 rats?? in the swift boat fleets. i guess all the rats went north...
Funny - No one has yet to discredit even ONE of the main claims laid out in the book Unfit fit Command. Instead even the press just continues to repeat the 'these are all lies" as the response from John F'n Kerry.
Thin allegations?
Thin allegations?
Thin allegations ????????
I believe someone needs an education, Tonk.
That was quite a hit piece. Why doesn't the Washington Post just take the whole front page for KERRY FOR PRESIDENT?
BUT they're not biased.
The Dan Quayle smear was made by a convict in prison. Yet the media gave that liar more deference than they ever did for the Swift Boat veterans. Very telling.
So was this *seared* into your memory, Mr. McCall, just like your hero John Kerry?
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