http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39683 ELECTION 2004 Controversy over Kerry's re-enacted war scenes DNC video uses home footage taken with future career in mind -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: July 28, 2004 2:45 p.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com While a swift-boat commander in Vietnam, Sen. John Kerry filmed re-enactments of combat which Democrats plan to use in the official video introducing their presidential nominee tomorrow night in Boston. A new book, "Unfit for Command," written by John O'Neill, who took over Kerry's swift boat, charges the Massachusetts senator "carried a home movie camera to record his exploits for later viewing,' according to the Drudge Report. The convention video is directed by a Steven Spielberg protégé, James Smoll. "Kerry would revisit ambush locations for reenacting combat scenes where he would portray the hero, catching it all on film," the book says. "Kerry would take movies of himself walking around in combat gear, sometimes dressed as an infantryman walking resolutely through the terrain. He even filmed mock interviews of himself narrating his exploits. A joke circulated among Swiftees was that Kerry left Vietnam early not because he received three Purple Hearts, but because he had recorded enough film of himself to take home for his planned political campaigns." The Boston Globe reported in 1996, noted Drudge, that the Kerry home movies "reveal something indelible about the man who shot them -- the tall, thin, handsome Naval officer seen striding through the reeds in flak jacket and helmet, holding aloft the captured B-40 rocket. The young man so unconscious of risk in the heat of battle, yet so focused on his future ambitions that he would reenact the moment for film. It is as if he had cast himself in the sequel to the experience of his hero, John F. Kennedy, on the PT-109." Thomas Vallely, a fellow veteran and one of Kerry's closest political advisers and friends, told the Globe, "John was thinking Camelot when he shot that film, absolutely." In his new book "Reckless Disregard," author Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson, details one of the claimed Kerry reenactments for film: "On February 28, 1969, now in charge of PCF 94, Kerry came under fire from an enemy location on the shore. The crew's gunner returned fire, hitting and wounding the lone gunman. Kerry directed the boat to charge the enemy position. Beaching his boat, Kerry jumped off, chased the wounded insurgent behind a thatched hutch, and killed him. Kerry and his crew returned within days, armed with a Super 8 video camera he had purchased at the post exchange at Cam Ranh Bay, and reenacted the skirmish on film." O'Neill, an attorney, is head of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an organization opposing Kerry's candidacy for president. As WorldNetDaily reported, O'Neill's organization stated last month Kerry was a "loose cannon" in Vietnam and is unfit to be commander in chief. After Kerry requested an early dismissal from Vietnam, O'Neill took over command of his boat. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth includes the entire chain of command above Kerry during his tenure in Southeast Asia, as well as enlisted men. More to come ...
