Swiftboating is a term used to describe the campaign waged by a group named "Swiftvets and
POW's for
Truth" against presidential candidate John F. Kerry. A swiftboat is a navy craft with a
shallow draft used in the Vietnam war (PCF - Patrol Craft -
Fast); It is armed with machine guns, usually from
two fixed points. It is the type of craft that Kerry served on in the Vietnam war.
Many (not all) of the swiftvets served with John Kerry and didn't believe he was presidential material. They went public with their beliefs. Among their claims was that Kerry gamed the system by receiving Purple Heart Medals for minor injuries in an effort to end his tour of duty. Kerry received three Purple Hearts in four months and shows no debilitating injury; which is most unusual. Moreover, he will not release his service medical records. The intersection of this data strongly suggests that the claims of the swiftboaters has a good foundation.
The petition from the Swiftboat Vets makes, among others, this claim against John Kerry:
". . .Upon your return from
Vietnam, you betrayed your fellow veterans by accusing them of engaging in horrendous war crimes. Through your post-war activities, and during Senate testimony viewed by the entire nation, you created and nurtured the
myth that American soldiers in
Vietnam were involved in such crimes on a daily basis, and that such activity was sanctioned by our commanding officers. Specifically, you stated that we: "had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly
shot at civilians, and razed villages in fashion reminiscent of
Genghis Khan."
The above is a matter of record.
But, this is the political arena. Swiftboating is defined by some as the unwarranted trashing of a good person's reputation. Those are the
people who like Kerry. Others
will define it as
truth coming forward about a person's character.
In the end, a person can fight a swiftboating claim against them by making all their records available for public viewing. For swiftboating to
work, it must be stonewalled and the
truth hidden. That's what Kerry did.
