Asgara, I found John O'Neil views documented on line in an interview about what really happened in respect to the boat incident, John says its not about Kerry being a democrat, but about Kerry's lies about his record, etc...
CBN.com - The Christian Broadcasting Network
INTERVIEW
Unfit For Command: Vietnam Vet Recalls Serving with John Kerry
August 12, 2004
CBN.com — The inflammatory John Kerry book, "Unfit for Command," by Swift Boat vet John O'Neill, is racing up the best-seller charts. Kerry supporters are accusing O'Neill and other Swift Boat veterans of being politically motivated. But the vets say John Kerry's lies about his record have driven them to act. Pat Robertson recently spoke with the controversial author about why he feels Kerry is unfit to be elected the future president of the United States.
PAT ROBERTSON: John, I want to ask you something about a picture that is hung in a museum in Saigon depicting foreign activists who contributed to the Communist victory over America. Is Kerry's picture in that exhibit?
JOHN O'NEILL: Amazingly, Pat, he was no hero in our unit. But he was a big hero to the North Vietnamese in their war museum in Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. They have a hall - it is like a Cooperstown [Cooperstown, New York - site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame] of bad guys. They have el Fatah and Fidel Castro, Mao Tse Tung, and right in the middle of it is a shrine to John Kerry. A guy from our unit discovered that when he was in Saigon on Memorial Day. Copies of those pictures can be obtained right in the book "Unfit for Command."
ROBERTSON: The American people don't seem to know that. What, is there blindness now?
O'NEILL: It appears to me that there is such a mass rush among the major media to try to elect John Kerry as president of the United States, that they no longer care about the truth. To us, we have people of all different kinds in our organization, and most of the people that served with John Kerry were not Republicans or Democrats. But we care a lot about the truth, because it is our unit and it's the life story of the people who lived and died with us. We know that he lied about that unit. He exaggerated wildly his own short experience in Vietnam.
ROBERTSON: There is a man named (Jim) Rassman who wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago, and he apparently was pulled out of the river by Kerry. Kerry got a Bronze Star for this action. He said there was fire coming from both sides of the river, that Kerry had been wounded, and an explosion blew up the boat, and Rassman went in the water. He said all of the boats left except Kerry's, and Kerry stayed to pick him up. What is your take on that story?
O'NEILL: It's turned the world turned upside down. What actually happened on that morning, March 13th, according to the officers of every other boat in the incident and many of the crewmen, is that the number three boat, the boat that Kerry was not on, was blown out of the water by a large mine. All of the boats closed on the number three boat, as we always would. We would stand and fight to the end. There was one exception to that. John Kerry fled the scene. In fleeing the scene, Rassman fell off of Kerry's boat. The other boats closed on the number three boat, saved the people who were knocked off of the boat in the water, saved the boat. And finally when it was evident that there was going to be no fire, Kerry finally returned and did the decent thing, and plucked Rassman out of the water, shortly before another boat did so, within 10 or 15 yards of another boat. But the story shown to the Democratic Convention that portrayed our guys as fleeing is just a calculated lie. It makes no sense because the number three boat that they all closed on had no engines; it couldn't flee, Pat. It just couldn't happen.
ROBERTSON: So you are saying that Kerry gunned his boat, and in that Rassman fell over the side? Is that what you say happened?
O'NEILL: I am saying exactly that. Rassman fell off of Kerry's boat. Kerry's boat fled the scene. It was the only boat to flee the scene. All of the other guys, as we always did, stood to fight, to save the survivors of the number three boat. There was no fire, as it turned out. They saved the survivors, and after it became evident there was no fire, Kerry returned. His story is the world turned upside down, according to the people involved in that incident.
ROBERTSON: He said on the floor of the United States Senate that he had spent Christmas in Cambodia, and this was in 1968. And he said he was amazed that President Nixon, who was not in office at that time, was claiming we were not in Cambodia, and he was taking fire from the Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge and other groups. Was any of that true?
O'NEILL: It is a total lie, Pat. This is one of his war crimes story. He made up the story that the U.S. Government had secretly ordered him into Cambodia on Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day of 1968 he sat there desolate, wondering how they could illegally do this, listening to President Nixon, who as it turns out, did not become president for a long time. Every person that I know of - Hundreds of people - will say that is a complete and total lie. It is a typical Kerry lie, because it is made up to libel up the chain of the command and portraying Kerry as sort of an involuntary guy engaged in war crimes. And if I am not telling you the truth, if John Kerry was in Cambodia in December 24th and 25th, sue me today, Pat. John Kerry, sue me today, because once again, it is a complete lie about our unit.
ROBERTSON: Where was he?
O'NEILL: He was down at SaDec (SaDec Province, in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam), Pat. In his biography entitled "Tour of Duty," all of a sudden, instead of being in Cambodia on December the 25th and 25th - as he had said more than 50 times in articles, and on the floor of the Senate - all of a sudden in his biography "Tour of Duty," he is 55 miles away, at a base, safely ensconsed in a base, writing a letter about sugar plums dancing in his head.
ROBERTSON: What do you think about the other people who are veterans? It seemed like the number of veterans who are going for him, his own men who were on that boat, seem to swear by him. Has he somehow twisted their minds on that?
O'NEILL: They were, first of all, out of all the veterans in our unit, a very small number. Seven or eight people who served directly with him, out of about 10. And then, another small number of other people supported him from our unit. But there are 250-plus that signed the letter that can be found on
SwiftVets.com | The Real Story on John Kerry's Military Service. A list of all their names, running from vice-admiral down to seaman, are contained in my book "Unfit for Command." The truth is, there are a very small number of people who support him. You'll find that some of those people were with him for as short a period of time as two days. The officers who served with him, 25 of them, two are dead. Out of the 23 living survivors who served with John Kerry day after day, operation after operation, 17 of them have condemned him. Seventeen of them indicated he was unfit to be the president of the United States. That's the truth, Pat.
ROBERTSON: You are being attacked for this book, I'm sure. I think there is a complaint before the FEC (Federal Election Commission) that this book was somehow funded contrary to the Campaign Finance Law. What are you going to do about that?
O'NEILL: They have so far had two large law firms send letters to 20 stations threatening suit if they carry our ad. Three different Kerry-related organizations filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission. None of that is going to silence us, Pat. We have 60 people who received the Purple Heart in Vietnam and nine who received the Silver Star. We bought that with blood and service in Vietnam, and when affairs of our unit are being discussed, it is integral to the First Amendment and integral to the ability of people to gain the truth, that we have the right to speak. One thing they can't do yet, Pat, is burn a book. They won't be able to burn this book.
ROBERTSON: It is looks like it is burning the records from amazon.com, and it was just released yesterday. It just came out, and ladies and gentlemen, you really ought to read this. "Unfit for Command." It is an explosive book, and it has pictures in here of all of the pictures we are talking about, including that war museum there in Saigon. You ought to find it interesting. And give it to your friends. John, thank you for so much for being with us today.
O'NEILL: One thing I'd point out is, any proceeds from my interest in the book are going to military-related charities. I am not making a dime off of the book.
ROBERTSON: Fantastic. John O'Neill, ladies and gentlemen, the author of "Unfit for Command." It is dynamite.
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