A Swift Boat Kick in the Teeth.I can find only one place in Matt Welch's "A Swift Boat Swift Boat is another term for a Fast Patrol Craft. Swift Boat Veterans For Truth is the original name of the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth. Swiftboating Kick in the Teeth" (November) where Welch actually addresses something he found to be untrue in the swift boat vets' claims: "For instance, in the original commercial, military doctor Van O'Dell said, 'John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star Bronze Star n. A U.S. military decoration awarded either for heroism or for meritorious achievement in ground combat. Noun 1. .... I know, I was there, I saw what happened.' In fact he wasn't there, neither when Kerry was wounded nor when he gave his account of the incident." If Welch is such a great chaff chaff 1. chaffed hay; called also chop. 2. the winnowings from a threshing, consisting of awns, husks, glumes and other relatively indigestible materials. separator, what are his sources for this statement? Did Van O'Dell ever change his claim? Welch has a Maureen Dowdish ellipsis A three-dot symbol used to show an incomplete statement. Ellipses are used in on-screen menus to convey that there is more to come. in there. What did he cut out from what Van O'Dell said? Welch never addresses the most damning claim of the swift boat vets, that Kerry behaved traitorously after returning from Vietnam. His statements on the record to Congress are an excellent illustration of a drunken (on the possibility of power) sailor in a bar reporting something he has "heard," not what he has witnessed. That these statements were used by North Vietnamese North Vietnam A former country of southeast Asia. It existed from 1954, after the fall of the French at Dien Bien Phu, to 1975, when the South Vietnamese government collapsed at the end of the Vietnam War. It is now part of the country of Vietnam. on our POWs is a matter of record as well. Luke Granfield Iowa City, IA Matt Welch replies: Luke Granfield is correct, and I am in error. Van O'Dell was there; I mixed him up with swift boater Louis Leston, who was not. I regret the foul-up. |
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