Kerry's swift boat mate speaks on candidate's Vietnam servic

Posted on Tue, Jul. 27, 2004
Kerry's swift boat mate speaks on candidate's Vietnam service
By Dana Hull
Knight Ridder Newspapers

BOSTON - Veterans are everywhere this week, jamming hotel ballrooms, speaking to state delegations and fanning out across this historic city to pump up support for Sen. John Kerry.

Veteran support is widely seen as the secret weapon that turned Kerry's floundering campaign around in Iowa in January, and campaign strategists hope to repeat that tactic in swing states in the next 100 days.

The Rev. David Alston of Columbia, S.C., now an ordained Baptist minister and nuclear fuel-plant worker, served with Kerry on Swift boats on the Mekong River for four months in Vietnam. On Monday night he electrified the Democratic National Convention when he spoke about Kerry's Vietnam experience.

"He never lost his cool," Alston said. "I was only 21, running on fear and adrenaline. Lieutenant Kerry always took the time to calm us down, to bring us back to reality, to give us hope, to show us what we truly had within ourselves."

Alston was one of hundreds of veterans in Boston to support Kerry, who won a Silver Star, a Bronze Star for valor and three Purple Hearts. He was the first of several Kerry crew mates to offer prime-time testimonials.

"I stand before you," Alston told the delegates, "only because almighty God saw our boat safely through those rivers of death and destruction by giving us a brave, wise and decisive leader named John Kerry."

An estimated 1,500 veterans - many of them elderly and disabled - gathered earlier in the day at a hotel for the first veterans caucus at a national political convention.

Men who served with Kerry on Swift boats during Vietnam, his "band of brothers," stood onstage with retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark and former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, an Army veteran who lost both legs and part of an arm in Vietnam.

Clark battled Kerry for veteran support during the Democratic primaries and folded his tent when it became clear that Kerry had a virtual lock on the nomination. Since then, the former NATO commander has been a tireless campaigner for the man he once derided for being a mere lieutenant.

"That flag behind the band of brothers on that stage - that flag is our flag," said Clark, repeating a popular line from his former stump speeches to thunderous applause. "We served under that flag, we fought under that flag and we've seen men buried under that flag. And no John Ashcroft, Tom DeLay or Dick Cheney is going to take that flag away from us."

Not all veterans back Kerry. Some still are bitter about his testimony against the Vietnam War as a young veteran. Some who served with him have started a small group called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" to campaign against him.

But veterans at the Democratic convention said they could be a powerful force in the Kerry campaign.

"We started the pendulum swinging in Iowa," said Del Sandusky, a Clearwater, Fla., resident who was the captain of one of Kerry's boats during Vietnam. "We started pushing hard in Iowa, and we blindsided Howard Dean and the other candidates. They didn't have a clue that we were coming."

Sandusky said that there are 1.8 million veterans in Florida, but only 600,000 of them are thought to be Democrats. Most are independents or Republicans. Sandusky's group hopes to sway independents and even some Republicans.

"The formula worked in Iowa, and it's going to work again," said Sandusky. "And now we're going to start appearing more with (vice presidential candidate John) Edwards."

There are 25 million veterans in the United States, and they are a key constituency in Southern and Southwestern states such as Arizona, North and South Carolina and Florida.

"So many veterans are saying `I voted for Bush in 2000 and I'll never do it again,'" said John Hurley, the national director of Veterans for Kerry. "We're replicating Iowa already."

Some of Kerry's former crewmates plan to visit the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans and other veterans' service organizations this week.

On Wednesday, Cleland will teach veterans how to organize in their home states. Cleland also will introduce Kerry on Thursday night.

The focus on veterans is designed in part to show that the Democrats are strong on national security. But it's also meant to prove to voters that Kerry, who is often described as aloof, is one of the guys. Reporters who regularly cover the Kerry campaign say he visibly relaxes when surrounded by his band of brothers.

"It's clear that the Kerry campaign is running Lt. Kerry for President and not Sen. Kerry," said Peter Feaver, a political scientist at Duke University and a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve. "They are doing everything possible to highlight the four months that Kerry served in Vietnam and downplay the 19 years that he served in the Senate."

Most polls show that Bush still enjoys a strong lead among veterans and military families. But Feaver said there is some evidence that Kerry has begun to bite into that lead.

Still, not all veterans are certain they will vote for Kerry, even those who oppose the Iraq war.

Kelly McCluskey, 77, who fought in World War II and participated in a Veterans for Peace rally on the Boston Commons Sunday afternoon, said he feels Kerry has not spoken out forcefully against the Iraq war and that he had preferred anti-war Democratic primary candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

"If it was 1973, Kerry would have my vote in a minute," said McCluskey, recalling Kerry's vociferous anti-war stand then. "But now he's turned into a politician."
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(Hull reports for the San Jose Mercury News. Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondents Anna Griffin of The Charlotte Observer and Lauren Markoe of The (Columbia, S.C.) State contributed to this report from Boston.)