Text 1677, 69 rader
Skriven 2004-09-01 06:56:26 av Stan Hardegree (1:379/1.2)
Ärende: Swifties
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August 31, 2004
Senator John Kerry
901 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005

Dear Senator Kerry:

As you prepare for your address before the American Legion in Nashville,
Tennessee, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth encourages you to use this opportunity
to clarify your actions in Vietnam and your statements about your fellow
Veterans and shipmates when you returned home. Since you have made your
four-month tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of your campaign, we respectfully
insist that you be truthful. The public is owed a full and honest accounting of
your actions. Veterans are owed an apology from you and an acknowledgement that
there was no basis in fact for the accusations you made against them.

We urge you to:

1. Apologize for your conduct once you returned from Vietnam. Your exaggerated
testimony before the US Senate; the blanket indictment of your fellow veterans;
throwing away medals and ribbons; all of these actions dishonored America and
the armed forces. Your rhetoric and actions were not only wrong, they aided the
enemy and brought great pain to POW's, veterans and their families.

2. Clarify the conflicting accounts involving the Bay Hap River incident of
March 13, 1969 (Bronze Star and 3rd Purple Heart). You have now described three
different versions of this incident. In the first version of this incident
presented during the Democrat National Convention, you stated: "No man left
behind," suggesting to the American people that you alone stayed on the river
to rescue Mr. Rassmann. Later, when forced to acknowledge conflicting
eyewitness testimony from fellow swift boat veterans, you said that your boat
left the scene to return moments later to retrieve Jim Rassmann from the water.
Yet, in another version of the same incident discovered in the Congressional
Record, you reported that your boat struck a mine and Rassmann fell off the
boat. Mr. Kerry, please explain to your fellow veterans and the American people
which version is the truth.

3. Affirm that the injuries for which you received your purple hearts never
required any medical treatment beyond perhaps a bandage and that, in all
instances, these injuries were self-inflicted and came from your own weapon.
Further, that if any of these purple hearts were falsely awarded, that you
would not have been eligible to leave Vietnam after serving only four months.

4. Acknowledge what your own biographer is now saying, that the Christmas in
Cambodia claim is "obviously wrong," that you were never in Cambodia over
Christmas or any other time during your brief, four-month tour in Vietnam and
that your statements before the United States Senate in 1986 were false.

If you undertake these steps we will be satisfied that the American public has
been sufficiently apprised as to these aspects of your career, and we will
discontinue the media advertisements you have sought so fervently to silence.

Please know that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are eager to close our own
personal chapters on Vietnam and instead focus on the war we're currently
fighting-the ongoing war on terrorism. In the absence of full public disclosure
and a public apology, we will continue efforts to carry our message to an
ever-expanding base of grassroots supporters.

Senator Kerry, we want to get Vietnam behind us. But, we can only do so if the
truth is told.

We respectfully await your reply.

Sincerely,

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

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 * Origin: Bill Clinton - only elected president ever impeached (1:379/1.2)