Former commander backs Kerry, Bush supporter had role in ad

3.30pm

PITTSBURGH - A journalist who commanded a boat alongside John Kerry in Vietnam broke a 35-year silence on Saturday and defended the Democratic presidential candidate against Republican critics of his military service and integrity.

William Rood of the Chicago Tribune said the tales told by Kerry's detractors are simply untrue.

"There were three swift boats on the river that day in Vietnam more than 35 years ago -- three officers and 15 crew members. Only two of those officers remain to talk about what happened on February 28, 1969," he wrote in a story on the newspaper's website.

"One is John Kerry ... who won a Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other."

Before now, Rood refused all interviews, wanting to put memories of war and killing behind him.

"But Kerry's critics, armed with stories I know to be untrue, have charged that the accounts of what happened were overblown," he wrote.

"It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there," he added.

Kerry, a former Navy lieutenant, is a decorated Vietnam veteran. His war service is essential to his challenge to President Bush as commander-in-chief as America faces terrorism and other threats.

Increasingly, veterans opposed to Kerry and allied with Bush, led by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, have tried to undermine Kerry's record and credibility.

Many are bitter that after returning from Vietnam, Kerry became one of the war's most prominent critics.

COUNTERATTACK

After a new CBS poll showing Kerry's support among veterans slipping since the Democratic convention, the Massachusetts senator counterattacked.

On Friday, he accused the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth of collaborating with the Bush campaign and asked the Federal Election Commission to force the group to withdraw its ads.

The Bush campaign has denied any such collaboration.

On Saturday, the Bush campaign said Ken Cordier, a Vietnam veteran who worked with it on veterans issues, would no longer do so after appearing in a Swift Boat Veterans for Truth commercial.

Cordier did not tell the campaign about his involvement in the ad, a campaign spokesman said.

Bush spent the war in the United States serving in the Texas Air National Guard. Some Democrats accuse Bush of going absent without leave, citing gaps in his attendance record.

In the Chicago Tribune article, Rood said Kerry urged him to go public with his account.

While "I can't pretend those calls had no effect on me ... what matters most to me is that this is hurting crewmen who are not public figures and who deserved to be honoured for what they did," Rood wrote.

Members of Kerry's swift boat crew have played a prominent role in his campaign, appearing at the Democratic convention.

AGGRESSIVE AND UNUSUAL

In the February 1969 operation, Rood said Kerry came under Viet Cong rocket and automatic weapons fire and devised an aggressive and unusual attack strategy praised by superiors.

In their book, "Unfit for Command," John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi accuse Kerry of exaggeration and said his attack on the ambush displayed "stupidity, not courage."

"The only explanation for what Kerry did is the same justification that characterises his entire short Vietnam adventure: the pursuit of medals and ribbons," they alleged.

O'Neill issued a statement on Saturday saying Rood's criticism of "Unfit for Command" was "extremely unfair" and "an obvious political move." He said he had tried to interview Rood for the book, but Rood did not return phone calls.

Rood said ambushes were common, but the difference was that Kerry, in tactical command of the operation, had talked to Rood and other commanders about not responding as they usually did.

"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-caliber machine guns on the attackers and beaching the boats," Rood said.

He said the first time they took fire Kerry ordered a "turn 90" and the three boats roared in on the ambush.

The plan worked. "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," Rood said.

Rood said then-Capt. and now retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the task force commander, congratulated the three boats, saying the tactic of charging the ambushes was a "shining example of completely overwhelming the enemy."

Hoffmann, who has since become a Kerry critic, now says what the boats did showed Kerry was impulsive to a fault.

- REUTERS