"If he's a war hero, why not release the missing information?" their thinking goes.
"Good question," Navy Lt. Paul Galanti says. "Everybody in this group wants to find out the truth about his service record. I think there's a lot more there."
Shot down over North Vietnam in 1967, Maj. Day suffered numerous injuries, managed to escape from his prison, walked for two weeks through the jungle eating live frogs before he was recaptured.
He then spent the next six years as a prison cellmate of John McCain, who would become a Republican senator, at the prison the Americans called, with bitter irony, the "Hanoi Hilton." Maj. Day's presence in the room is palpable. Even in a group of decorated war veterans, he stands out as a living legend.
The others sheepishly introduce themselves and are honored just to shake his still-firm hand.
"Kerry betrayed us by telling the people we were committing atrocities," Maj. Day says. "A man who does that is not fit to lead. It's impossible to let this man masquerade as a war hero and someone who has leadership. To imagine this guy who betrayed us becoming president and him being the leader of our armed forces is just unthinkable."
Standing next to the major, 57-year-old Jim Hoffman from Oshkosh, Wis., said Mr. Kerry was never a leader.
"He was an arrogant snob," said Mr. Hoffman, an engineman 2nd class on the swift boats, adding that he felt afraid and alone for many years, but now feels buoyed by his Swiftee peers and their mission.
Mr. Gardner says Mr. Kerry used to boast to his fellow servicemen that he would be the next JFK.
Says Sgt. LaCivita: "JFK must be rolling in his grave."
*******
I wonder what Col Day thinks about John McCain's behavior?
1. A person who is a coward, traitor, liar, opportunist or acts in an otherwise dishonorable fashion.
2. In military parlance, a person who recommends himself for awards based upon fictitious events. See 1. above.
3. A person who will always put his own well being before that of his fellow sailors and is thus not fit to lead.