Thursday August 5, 2004
 
Dear John & Doves...
 
Brother Joe Hoyle made some comments regarding the video and book released by
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and John Kerry and I'd like to correct some inaccuracies:
 
First of all, Joe made the statement that "Bush has managed to march out a small
group of his own swiftboat Kerry detractors" and that is untrue. The Swift Boat Veterans
group are not affiliated in any way with the Bush-Cheney campaign. In fact, the primary
author of "Unfit For Command - Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry", i.e.
Mr. John E. O'Neill, refused (up until this year) to get involved in any way whatsoever in
the political campaigns of John Kerry's opponents.  O'Neill actually debated Kerry on the
Dick Cavett Show in 1971, and while O'Neill was encouraged to do so by President Nixon,
it was widely reported (this was probably before Joe's time) that Nixon was taken aback
when O'Neill stated that not only was he a registered Democrat, but that he had actually
voted for Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Mr. Nixon's opponent. Thus, the suggestion that this
is some sort of partisan attack on Mr. Kerry is unwarranted.
 
Second, Joe stated that "Kerry people have hired investigators to check out these guys,
and the report was that a lot of those guys was never in Vietnam at all!" That is inaccurate
at the least, and a blatant falsehood at the worst.  Each and every statement made in the book
by O'Neill & Corsi is backed up by irrefutable military records.  What I believe Joe may be
getting confused about is John Kerry's involvement in the bogus "Winter Soldier" affair in
which all sorts of claims about war crimes and atrocities were made, many of those claims
made by individuals who were NOT in Vietnam at all - and those statements were parroted
by Kerry before Congress - claims I might add, that were never proven whatsoever.
 
Third, Joe invokes what would be termed "anecdotal evidence" based upon his encounter
with his friend Mark Yunker, and states that he (Joe) "doesn't believe" that Kerry served
with 250 men while in Vietnam. Quite frankly, unless Joe was there, he isn't in a position
to know that for a fact. Perhaps Joe needs to just read the book with an open mind and
then see if his anecdotal evidence is supported by the actual documented record.
 
Fourth, Joe said "Mark [his friend] really didn't want to be there, which was quite unlike the
John Kerry types who volunteered to be there", and that too - is inaccurate as it regards
Kerry - Kerry himself stated to the Boston Globe in a past interview that he sought coastal
patrol duty in a Swift Boat because he perceived it as low risk and not really "part of the
war". Joe may not be aware that prior to Kerry shipping out to Vietnam, he had actually
sought permission from his local draft board to study for a year in Paris, so as to avoid
going to Vietnam, a request turned down by his draft board.  Joe suggests that Kerry was
a "gung ho" guy who was disliked by his peers - that too, is a distortion - Kerry was in some
ways TOO gung ho, because he was reprimanded by his commanding officers on more than
one occasion for being trigger happy and shooting the daylights out of coastal areas without
cause, Steve Gardiner, who served ON PCF-94 (Kerry's boat) stated that Kerry was careless,
put his crews (and other crews) in danger, and that Kerry was indecisive and a risk to both
U.S. forces and non-combatants on the shore. But more often than not, Kerry was interested
more in going back to recent sites of gunplay and re-shooting the scenes with a Super-8 movie
camera, all in the interest of building himself a historical record of heroism.  His awards are, in
fact - questionable - he is the ONLY Swift Boat officer to receive three Purple Hearts, two Bronze
Stars and a Silver Star in less than four months, without having spent ONE day in sick bay or any
medical facility, and he is the ONLY Swift Boat veteran to leave the war zone after only four months.
 
There is a reason for that too.  Kerry's fellow officers and commanding officers pushed him out -
they considered him a loose cannon who was going to do more harm than good, because Kerry
was irresponsible and prone to "shoot first and ask no questions later", and he had his own agenda
which was to build and burnish his credentials for future political purposes.  When Kerry went for
"treatment" for the first of his questionable wounds, the doctor stated that he removed an extremely
small piece of metal with forceps (tweezers), no stitches were required, and he issued Kerry a
BAND-AID, and that Kerry's fellow crew members were joking that Kerry was going to be the "next
JFK from Massachusetts", while doctors see hundreds upon hundreds of patients, one does not
forget something like that.
 
Now Joe refers to the man who Kerry "saved" as being some kind of 'smoking gun', and that begs
the question - why would Joe (or anyone) choose to give complete credence to the words of that
one individual, but dismiss the words of dozens of other veterans who have spoken up to state the
truth about John Kerry's conduct during his four month tour of Vietnam?
 
By the way, there were only four references for a "Yunker" in the Navy Logs (http://lonesailor.org),
none of which had service in the Vietnam theatre of operations, likewise there were no references
to any "Yunkers" in the Vietnam era in Army records.  Perhaps the name was spelled incorrectly Joe?
 
"And you shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free"
 
Regards,
 
John Russell