During the war, Elliott gave Kerry high marks in fitness reports and recommended Kerry for the Silver Star and the Bronze Star. "John was one of 50 young officers who performed extremely well," Elliott said in an interview in May. "I wrote his fitness report, and I stand by that."
But in his affidavit, Elliott backed away from the Silver Star nomination he wrote for Kerry in 1969. Kerry won the award for chasing down and killing a wounded Viet Cong guerrilla who had confronted his boat with a grenade launcher.
In his affidavit, Elliott questioned Kerry's actions, suggesting he might have shot the guerrilla in the back. Elliott was not present during the action, and there have been no credible eyewitness accounts affirming his version.
Kerry's Swift boat mates have long insisted that Kerry's action was appropriate and saved their lives.
A day after the ad appeared, Elliott said in an interview with the Boston Globe that he regretted signing the affidavit and that he believed Kerry still deserved the Silver Star. Then he issued a second affidavit standing by his first sworn statement, saying he had been misquoted by the Globe.
But in his second affidavit, Elliott also admitted, "I do not claim to have personal knowledge as to how Kerry shot the wounded, fleeing Viet Cong."
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There are three other allegations raised by the anti-Kerry group -- questioning his first Purple Heart, his Bronze Star and a Christmas Eve mission to the Cambodian border.
The awarding of Kerry's first Purple Heart has been challenged by a former surgeon at the Navy base at Cam Ranh Bay. "I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury," Dr. Louis Letson said in the television ad.
In a Times interview in May, the retired Alabama doctor said he recalled administering treatment to Kerry for a flesh wound incurred on Dec. 2, 1968.
Kerry had been on a mission in a "skimmer" boat north of Cam Ranh Bay. Noticing Viet Cong on a beach, Kerry fired on the guerrillas. Two crewmates, Bill Zaladonis and Pat Runyon, have confirmed that they also fired on the fleeing guerrillas.
That same night, Jim Wasser, who was stationed on a boat near Kerry's and who would later serve on Kerry's Swift boat, heard a radio report from Kerry's boat that "someone had a slight wound."
