- A US officer who commanded a swift boat alongside John
Kerry in Vietnam has broken a 35-year silence to condemn the presidential
candidate's detractors.
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- William Rood, now a journalist on the Chicago Tribune,
said in an article he could not keep silent after seeing TV ads aimed at
discrediting Mr Kerry.
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- "It's... harder and harder for those of us who were
there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue," he wrote.
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- Mr Rood defended a controversial Kerry tactic of charging
ambushers.
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- During a Viet Cong rocket and gun attack in February
1969, Mr Kerry led his boat and two others - including Mr Rood's - at the
enemy.
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- A recent book, Unfit for Command, condemns the tactic
as "stupidity, not courage" but Mr Rood said it had been praised
by their task force commander as a "shining example of completely
overwhelming the enemy".
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- The BBC's Dan Griffiths reports from Washington that
despite Mr Rood's dramatic testimony, there is no sign of the row going
away.
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- On Saturday, Mr Kerry's campaign issued an internet advertisement
claiming that the group behind the ads, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT),
were co-ordinating their work with the Republican Party.
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- Silver star
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- SBVT accuse Mr Kerry of embellishing his war record for
electoral gain - a charge denied by the Kerry campaign.
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- "There were three swift boats on the river that
day in Vietnam... three officers and 15 crew members," said Mr Rood.
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- "Only two of those officers remain to talk about
what happened... One is John Kerry... who won a Silver Star for what happened...
I am the other."
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- The journalist said Mr Kerry, the tactical commander,
had asked his fellow officers to join him in charging the enemy in the
event of an ambush - a common occurrence at the time.
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- "We agreed that if we were not crippled by the initial
volley and had a clear fix on the location of the ambush, we would turn
directly into it, focusing the boats' twin .50-calibre machine-guns on
the attackers and beaching the boats," he said.
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- "We routed the ambush, killing three of the attackers.
The troops, led by an army adviser, jumped off the boats and began a sweep,
which killed another half dozen VC, wounded or captured others."
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- 'Loose cannon'
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- Mr Rood quoted his task force commander, Rear Adm Roy
Hoffmann, as congratulating the three boats and praising the tactic at
the time.
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- However, Mr Hoffmann, now a Kerry critic, said earlier
this year that Mr Kerry's action had shown him to be a "loose cannon".
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- "He was aggressive, but vain and prone to impulsive
judgement, often with disregard to specific tactical assignments,"
the retired admiral said in May.
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- © BBC MMIV http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3587750.stm
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