Then eight words appear on the screen -- "Here's what those men think about John Kerry" -- and the allegations begin. They include comments such as: "John Kerry betrayed the men and women he served with in Vietnam," and "He lacks the capacity to lead."
Many in the Swift boat group seem to be motivated as much by anger about Kerry's protest activities as they are about his actions in combat. In their affidavits, several write about Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
In his April 1971 statement to the Senate panel, Kerry cited Vietnam atrocities that had been alleged by his group of antiwar veterans. And in blunt rhetoric, he questioned government policy that widened the toll among soldiers and civilians: "We learned the meaning of free-fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed cheapness on the lives of Orientals."
In the anti-Kerry ad, former Navy Lt. Cmdr. George Elliott, one of Kerry's immediate commanders, says: "John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam."
In his affidavit, Elliott said that when Kerry returned from Vietnam, he was "comparing his other commanders and me to Lt. Calley of My Lai, comparing the American armed forces to the army of Genghis Khan, and making similar misstatements."
Joe Ponder, a Swift boat crewman who did not serve on either of Kerry's two boats, says in the ad that Kerry "dishonored his country." In his affidavit, Ponder says he was badly wounded in an ambush in Vietnam. But "the greatest wounds I have ever suffered were from John F. Kerry, who dishonored my country, my honor and my friends by falsely charging the United States Army Forces with war crimes, claiming that all of us, living and dead, were war criminals."
Although these are powerful statements, they are not entirely accurate.
In his Senate testimony, Kerry did liken some American actions to Genghis Khan's. But he did not mention Elliott by name, nor did he mention his Navy superiors. And he did not claim that every soldier was a war criminal. Rather, he cited atrocities described by veterans who opposed the war. Kerry has acknowledged that, at times, he used a poor choice of words as a young man protesting the war, but he has continued to insist that atrocities were committed.
