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Unfit For Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry Hardcover – Illustrated, August 15, 2004

by John E. O'Neill (Author), Jerome R. Corsi (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 2,686 ratings
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"What sort of combination of hypocrite and paradox is John Kerry?" ask the authors in this heated critique of the Democratic presidential candidate’s Vietnam–era military service and antiwar activism. O’Neill, 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 Vietnam’s 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 fire—all 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 Kerry’s 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 Vietnam’s 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 Kerry’s 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 Kerry’s wartime record would do best to wait for more objective, methodical chroniclers who have access to the relevant documents.
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  1. Print length
    224 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Regnery
  4. Publication date
    August 15, 2004
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0895260174
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0895260178
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Due to the timing of its publication, Unfit for Command could be dismissed as the sort of controversial, loaded book typical in a presidential election year: Either courageous and necessary, or untruthful and malicious, depending on one's political point of view. Filled with interviews of men who served in Vietnam at the same time as John Kerry, the book poses the following question: "Why do an overwhelming majority of those who commanded or served with John Kerry oppose him?" (Note that the issue of "service" has sparked investigation into its definition--in other words, just how close was the interaction between Kerry and those cited in the book during Kerry’s Vietnam tour of duty?) The charges leveled against Kerry in this book are severe and include filing false operating reports; lobbying for and receiving three Purple Hearts for minor wounds, two of which were self-inflicted; receiving a Silver Star under false pretenses; offering false confessions of bogus war crimes in both print and testimony; and recklessness in the field, including the burning of a village without cause or direct order. The book also claims that Kerry left Vietnam after serving just four months instead of the usual one year tour and that he returned home and accused his fellow soldiers of atrocities without offering any evidence, endangering POWs in the process. It is debatable whether the book will change any minds, or votes. Instead, readers will likely reach one of two conclusions: Either John Kerry grossly misrepresented his military service or the authors are spinning the interviews that they conducted for ulterior motives. There is a third option, however; readers will further investigate both sides of the debate, and by doing so, may reach conclusions independent of partisan extremes. --Brian Neff

From Publishers Weekly

"What sort of combination of hypocrite and paradox is John Kerry?" ask the authors in this heated critique of the Democratic presidential candidate’s Vietnam–era military service and antiwar activism. O’Neill, 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 Vietnam’s 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 fire—all 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 Kerry’s 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 Vietnam’s 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 Kerry’s 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 Kerry’s wartime record would do best to wait for more objective, methodical chroniclers who have access to the relevant documents.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Regnery; Illustrated edition (August 15, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0895260174
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0895260178
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 2,686 ratings

About the authors

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  1. Jerome R. Corsi

    Jerome R. Corsi

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    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D. is the Founder and CEO of CorsiNation.com.

    My next book, to be published in January 2020, is COUP D'ÉTAT: EXPOSING DEEP STATE TREASON AND THE PLAN TO RE-ELECT PRESIDENT TRUMP.

    In March 2019, Dr. Corsi published SILENT NO MORE: HOW I BECAME A POLITICAL PRISONER OF MUELLER'S "WITCH HUNT."

    His previous New York Times bestselling books, published in March 2018, was KILLING THE DEEP STATE: THE FIGHT TO SAVE PRESIDENT TRUMP.

    From 2004-January 2017, he worked as a Senior Staff Reporter for WND.com.

    From 1968-1981, he worked at universities where he conducted research on federally funded grants.

    In 1981, he published “Terrorism as a Desperate Game: Fear, Bargaining, and Communication in the Terrorist Event” in Journal of Conflict Resolution, a mathematical game-theoretical model for predicting the outcome of terrorist events. This resulted in a top-secret clearance by the State Department’s Agency for International Development, where he joined a team of psychiatrists and psychologists to develop a hostage-survival training program for State Department officials stationed overseas.

    For 25 years, beginning in 1982, Dr. Corsi worked with financial institutions, insurance companies, and mutual funds in the United States and abroad, specializing in the development of third-party marketing firms working with banks to develop retail financial planning services selling annuities and mutual funds to investment and retirement customers.

    Since 2004, Dr. Corsi has published over 25 books, six of which were New York Times Bestsellers, including two #1 New York Times best-sellers. Dr. Corsi graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Political Science and Economics from Case Western Reserve University and received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.

    Working for WND.com for 12 years, starting in 2004, Dr. Corsi obtained press credential to cover the U.S. Congress in Washington, as well as many presidential speeches in events in the second term of President George W. Bush and during the two terms of President Barack Obama. In 2012, the Secret Service cleared Dr. Corsi to fly as “traveling press” on GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s airplane for the last three weeks of the presidential campaign.

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  2. John E. O'Neill

    John E. O'Neill

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    Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
2,686 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Kelly
5.0 out of 5 stars I was an independent until I read up on Kerry's record
Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2004
Verified Purchase
I'm not registered as either republican or democrat and recently I've tried to read up on the factual accounts and not mere opinions and arguments about the Kerry swiftboat controversy before formulating my own opinion. While I'm not wholly satisfied with every policy and strategy adopted by Bush, I try to be fair and look at the context of the post-9/11 reality that serves as the backdrop to all his actions and policies. I abhor the actions of those among my friends and coworkers who have actually admitted that they will vote democrat this fall regardless of which democrat is running. They're admitting to voting AGAINST Bush and not voting FOR another candidate, which seems a bit irresponsible and irrational to me.

Before long I found myself rather intrigued by Kerry and his Vietnam credentials. After all, his main campaign theme so far has been his many medals and his sacrifice in Vietnam. Forgive me for being uninformed but, for a long time (since before the presidential primaries), all this talk about Kerry's record in Vietnam and his many medals made me automatically assume that he was in combat for a substantial period of time. After all, if he amassed about half a dozen medals, the average person would assume he spent a significant period of time earning that recognition.

I was frankly shocked to find out recently that he served in combat for about 4 months. I was sure they meant 4 years and perhaps with at least 2 of those 4 years spent being tortured at the Hanoi Hilton or recuperating at a hospital after surgery. So when I ascertained with my own research that he really served only 4 months, I began to look at his Vietnam service more closely.

At about the same time I began to hear about how he had fudged on the subject of whose medals he threw over the fence in the early 70s--and whether they were HIS medals vs. HIS ribbons or OTHER VETS' ribbons/medals. I think most people on this forum know what his answers were, which he offered on various talk shows, including Meet the Press with Tim Russert. And I also think that most reasonable people, regardless of their political persuasions, will have to agree that Kerry has been less than truthful about this medal/ribbon-throwing episode.

I became more suspicious about the veracity of Kerry's own assertions and senate testimony when Kerry's own campaign people recently tried to do damage control over the now-debunked Christmas in Cambodia incident, which Kerry said was "seared into his memory." Kerry and his campaign staff are now saying that he might have been confused as to the date and as to whether he really was in Cambodia--basically, about something that he asserted was "seared into his memory." That's downright embarrassing.

Believe me, I really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I could no longer do so unconditionally--even though I really wanted us to have a viable alternative to Bush. And then more recently, I began to see various Swiftboat Veteran ads on TV. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. My only thought was: Mr. Kerry, please sue these people for slander and libel to prove that none of these horrific allegations is true. It's been almost a month and he has done no such thing, other than express his indignation at the smear tactics employed by Bush and the Swiftboat Veterans, but I have yet to be able to see any incontrovertible proof that Bush had anything to do with either organizing the Swiftboat group or helping them spread "lies" about Kerry. (Besides, if those "lies" are not lies but the truth, what difference does it make if the republicans encouraged the Swiftboat vets to come forward, even assuming that the republicans did any such thing.)

Anyway, I thought I owed it to myself to do further research and take the time to read the book, rather than just go on what the press has been saying about the book. I'm really glad I did. I received the book a couple of days ago and went through it in almost record time. I simply couldn't put it down. If even half of the allegations in the book are true, I'm amazed at how Kerry and his campaign folks even have the gall to run for president. He should be lucky he's not a pariah. However, if any of the major allegations (filing falsified reports to obtain medals, serving as the Vietcong's advocate in the U.S. as well as in Paris, and smearing Vietnam vets and MIAs/POWs with false allegations of war crimes, etc.) is unsubstantiated, why won't he simply sue them? At the very least, why won't he simply fill out a form so the Navy can release his records to resolve all this mess once and for all? I simply don't get it. Even if he is not a litigious person by nature, he surely must realize that his run for the presidency is important to America and to himself enough to warrant suing to clear his good name. His not suing and his not releasing his complete service records leave me only one inescapable conclusion....

In closing, I'd like to say that, while I'm far from being 100% satisfied with Bush's performance, I cannot in good conscience vote a disingenuous, self-serving opportunist such as Kerry into the White House just because I don't like Bush. My vote--and that of all Americans--is way too sacred and important to waste on someone who has shown contempt and lack of support for our brave and self-sacrificing men and women on the front lines.

I hope I'm wrong about Kerry. I hope he'll release his records to set all this straight once and for all. But until he does, I now have a brand new--and negative--regard for him. And it makes me very sad. I feel like I've been had by Kerry. But at the same time I'm relieved that I took the time to read this book BEFORE the election and not AFTER. Thank you very much for allowing me to share these words with you.
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Daniel Jolley
5.0 out of 5 stars The title says it all, more effectively than I expected
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2004
Verified Purchase
I imagine that many folks on both sides of the political divide will agree with me when I say the upcoming 2004 election may be the most important Presidential election in American history - I believe the very future of America hangs in the balance. The American electorate needs to know who John Kerry really is. You can't get such information from the candidate himself, as he rewrites his own history every morning. Since the candidate has made his military service in Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign, we should do as he asks and examine his record very closely. That is exactly what the Swift Boat Veterans have done, in significant numbers. Many of these men served with John Kerry and witnessed many incidents that called his honor and integrity into question, and they (along with countless other Vietnam veterans) were sickened by Kerry's antiwar claims that they were all war criminals who committed atrocities daily. Anyone who reads this book will clearly see abundant reasons for these men to question Kerry's ability or right to serve as Commander-in-Chief. The Swift Boat Vets attack Kerry not out of personal vindictiveness (after all, they have silently seethed with anger at his actions for over thirty years) but out of a sense of duty to the country they served at war abroad and continue to serve at home today.

This book would never have been written had John Kerry taken the simple step of releasing all of his military records - the questions raised here about Kerry's conduct, service, and medals would likely find ready answers in those secret documents. Kerry himself sidesteps these questions to whine about his honor and integrity being unjustly attacked whenever you ask him a question about the very subject he asks the American people to examine. John Kerry's service to his country was an honorable thing, but the evidence offered in this book by a myriad of military soldiers and officers indicates that his conduct was less than becoming of an officer. Kerry's accounts differ greatly from the accounts of these Swift Boat Veterans, especially in terms of the three Purple Hearts Kerry received for very minor wounds very likely caused by his own hand. Many of these discrepancies are already well known by the American people. These are all valid questions that take up the first half of this book, but the most important subject the authors address is Kerry's anti-war activity back home.

My stomach churns to read the outrageous testimony of John Kerry regarding war crimes and atrocities committed by his fellows in Vietnam; I can't begin to imagine just how angry Vietnam veterans must be over these absurd charges put forth with no supporting evidence by Kerry. We now know that a number of the "veterans" making such charges in conjunction with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War simply made things up and that some of them never actually served in Vietnam. I am dumbfounded at the fact that this anti-war partisan is now posing as a war hero, especially given the clumsiness of Kerry's retreat from his protest activities to the time in which he realized his VVAW history had become a hindrance to his political aspirations. Kerry has told different accounts of numerous stories over the years. He threw his medals away, and then he didn't. He was not present at the infamous Kansas City meeting in which a policy of assassinating pro-war American senators was not only discussed but voted upon, and then he was - but he didn't remember anything about it. The list of Kerry's disturbing anti-war activities and his own changing accounts of them over the years is a long one - you can read all about it in these pages.

To me, the crux of the matter, one made perfectly clear in this book, is Kerry's treasonous behavior. By making outrageous claims of war crimes against his Vietnam brethren, he basically espoused the Communist line and became a hero to the North Vietnamese leaders. Numerous prisoners of war were forced to hear Kerry's assertions that they were war criminals; aiding and abetting the enemy barely begins to address such treachery. Kerry associated with groups affiliated with the Communist Party, as well - look no further than the VVAW's Al Hubbard (who also lied about serving in Vietnam). He is even memorialized with a photo in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. He attended a meeting in which a plot to assassinate American leaders was discussed, yet he never dutifully reported this to the authorities (or even admitted being there until the media proved that he was). Worst of all, he met with representatives of the North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong in Paris on at least one occasion (while he served in the Naval Reserves, no less) - this, I would argue, is absolute treason.

Obviously, the reviews of this important book will come down along partisan lines, but I would just ask anyone with an open mind to read this book for yourself. I don't see how any American, even the most partisan of Democrats, could possibly study the evidence of Kerry's conduct during and after the war and still think him worthy of being the Commander-in-Chief. Just as he demoralized Vietnam veterans over 30 years ago, he is demoralizing our brave troops in the field today. Let me close with this telling comment: John Kerry called Ho Chi Minh the George Washington of Vietnam.
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Top reviews from other countries

Yourpaled
5.0 out of 5 stars The REAL person behind the face
Reviewed in Canada on March 11, 2014
Verified Purchase
I've heard people cheat, but this book reveals the REAL John Kerry that noone ever imagined. His incompetence lives with him to this day. Unfortunately, look where he is and the damage he is doing to his own country.
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