Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

The Virginian-Pilot has an article detailing the campaign of some of John Kerry's fellow swift boat veterans. (click "Ask Me Later" if you get the registration screen)Swift Boat Veterans for Truth boasts 250 members and they have this to say:

“We were there,” Plumly said. “We know what happened. And it wasn’t like he says it was.”

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say Kerry is a “turncoat” who exaggerated his military prowess in Vietnam, received medals for minor wounds, then accused those who served beside him of committing war crimes.

Triggered by Kerry’s appearance in Norfolk today, Plumly and three other Virginia “Swiftees” came forward Monday to be heard.

“He’s unfit to be commander in chief of the Armed Forces,” Plumly said, “much less, the leader of the American people.” [...]

Members span party lines, said Mike Solhaug, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters and a member of the group.

Solhaug, 59, from Virginia Beach, said politics have nothing to do with it.

“I’m concerned about this country,” he said. “That’s all I need to say.”

Solhaug, like others in the group, would love to see a Swiftee elected to the nation’s highest office.

But not this one.

“This is about judgement, truthfulness, loyalty and dependability,” said Roy Hoffmann, 78, a retired naval rear admiral who lives in Richmond. Hoffmann was in charge of swift-boat operations during Kerry’s tour from November 1968 to May 1969. “These are the tenets of command.

Kerry had none of them.” [...]

“He betrayed us,” said member Bill Collins, a Swiftee who serves as chairman of the board of supervisors of Sussex County. “Labeled us all baby-killers.”

For more than three decades, the men say, they bore the sting in silence, organizing only after “Tour of Duty” came out in January. The book, written about Kerry’s Vietnam experience, is based largely on his war diaries. The vets say it contains numerous errors and dramatizes Kerry’s service role. [...]

“He was arrogant,” Plumly said. “He despised authority. He always had something to say, like the kid in class who’s just got to raise his hand, right or wrong. We knew him as the guy who required constant supervision.”

It will be interesting to see if these guys get any traction in the mainstream media as November approaches.