"What sort of combination of hypocrite and paradox is John Kerry?" ask the authors in this heated critique of the Democratic presidential candidates Vietnamera military service and antiwar activism. ONeill, a lawyer and swift boat veteran, and Corsi, an expert on Vietnam antiwar movements, argue that Kerry misrepresented his wartime exploits and is therefore incompetent to serve as commander in chief. Buttressed by interviews with Navy veterans who patrolled Vietnams waters, some along with Kerry, the book claims he exaggerated minor injuries, self-inflicted others, wrote fictitious diary entries and filed "phony" reports of his heroism under fireall in a calculated quest to secure career-enhancing combat medals. They also maintain that Kerry, whom they call a "moral coward," committed atrocities that alarmed his peers and superior officers during his four-month tour of duty. Yet his activities on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War clearly raises the authors hackles the most, and they present Kerrys post-war actions as additional, damning evidence of his "total unfitness," claiming that his testimony against the war "caused more deaths and prolonged the war in Vietnam by undermining support at home and contributing directly to a Vietnamese Communist victory." The battle that lies at the heart of this book is the decades-old feud between antiwar veterans and their my-country-right-or-wrong counterparts. The authors conservative take on the war is palpable: the U.S. military failed to unleash "massive, indiscriminate bombing" to force North Vietnams capitulation; the conflict was a struggle against communism, not a civil war; and the dissenting soldiers undermined homefront morale. Consequently, this overwrought and repetitive polemic seethes with a resentment that compromises the otherwise eyebrow-raising testimonies. Further, without access to Kerrys full military and medical records, the authors rely heavily on 35-year-old recollections and recent Kerry biographies by Douglas Brinkley and a Boston Globe reporting team. Those looking for a thorough, unbiased investigation into Kerrys wartime record would do best to wait for more objective, methodical chroniclers who have access to the relevant documents.
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From the Publisher
Find out why John Kerry is Unfit for Command as told by the men who served with him
Unfit for Command reveals a John Kerry you don't know-the true John Kerry that his political image-makers are trying to hide. But the veterans who served with him know better, and in Unfit for Command, they tell their story, including:
* How all three of John Kerry's Purple Hearts were for minor injuries, easily treated with band-aids, not requiring a single hour of hospitalization
* How captured Americans were tortured in North Vietnamese prisons for not endorsing John Kerry's false testimony-before the United States Senate-about alleged American war crimes
* How John Kerry carried a typewriter and an 8-mm home movie camera with him to Vietnam so he could record his own exaggerated version of his war exploits and film staged reenactments of his "combat actions" to advance his political career
* Why John Kerry's photograph hangs in a place of honor in the Vietnamese communist "War Remnants Museum" in Saigon
Want to know the real John Kerry? Read Unfit for Command-and prepare to be shocked.
From the Inside Flap
John Kerry, War Hero? Guess again.
John O'Neill was the naval officer who took over John Kerry's swift boat in the muddy waters of Vietnam. What he learned convinced him-and convinced the majority of veterans who served directly with Kerry-that John Kerry was and is unfit for command at the lowliest rank in the Navy, let alone as commander in chief of the United States.
In this stunning new book, John O'Neill and his coauthor Dr. Jerome Corsi (an expert on the anti-Vietnam War movement) have interviewed dozens of veterans who served with Kerry and have meticulously documented a shameful record of betrayal and deception on the part of John Kerry.
In Unfit for Command you'll learn:
* How two of John Kerry's three Purple Heart decorations resulted from self-inflicted wounds, not suffered under enemy fire
* Why John Kerry's third Purple Heart "fanny wound" was the highlight of his much touted "no man left behind" Bronze Star
* How John Kerry turned the tragic death of a father and small child in a Vietnamese fishing boat into an act of "heroism" by filing a false report on the incident.
* How John Kerry entered an abandoned Vietnamese village and slaughtered the domestic animals owned by the civilians and burned down their homes with his Zippo lighter
* How John Kerry's reckless behavior convinced his colleagues that he had to go-becoming the only swift boat veteran to serve only four-months in Vietnam
* How as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, John Kerry attended a meeting where plans were discussed to assassinate prominent United States Senators who supported the war
* How Kerry met secretly with communist delegates at the Paris Peace Conference during the Vietnam War, and why some believe he violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and federal law
Based on detailed interviews with Swift Boat veterans who served in Vietnam with John Kerry and on recently released FBI surveillance reports of John Kerry's anti-war activities, Unfit for Command is a shocking indictment of a politician who slandered his fellow veterans, danced on the edge of treason, and has shamelessly exaggerated his own war service for political ends
About the Author
John O'Neill served in Coastal Division 11 in Vietnam and took command of PCF 94, John Kerry's swift boat, after Kerry's departure. Outraged by Kerry's anti-war slanders against his fellow veterans, O'Neill faced Kerry in a famous debate on the Dick Cavett Show in 1971 refuting Kerry's accusations of rampant American war crimes in Vietnam. A graduate of the Naval Academy, and from a Navy family, O'Neill is a lawyer in private practice in Houston.
Jerome Corsi received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and is an expert on political violence and the anti-war movement in the United States. The author of many articles and books, he lives in {TK}.
