Incident on the Bay Hap River and the Guns of August: The “Swift Boat Drama” and Counter-Narrative in the 2004 Election

Abstract

The “Swift Boat Drama” of August 2004 was a political counter-narrative contesting an action on the Bay Hap River for which Senator John Kerry was awarded the Bronze Star and his third Purple Heart. The message and timing of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth combined with uncritical media coverage to dominate the election in early August. When this coverage shifted, the group's counter-narrative lost much of its force. This essay suggests the importance of timing and message arrangement in the strategic use of and response to counter-narrative in political communication.

Keywords:

• 2004 Election
• Counter-Narrative
• John Kerry
• Message Arrangement
• Message Timing
• Negative Political Narrative
• Swift Boat Veterans For Truth
• Vietnam

Notes

In October, they became the Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth. In this essay, they are referred to as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Indeed, Brinkley (2004) began Tour of Duty with, “Every public life has a point of origin. For…John Kerry, that dramatic moment came [on April 22, 1971] in a committee hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington D.C.” (p. 1).

Because Kerry was wounded three times, he was able to leave Vietnam under the Navy's “Three Heart Rule,” which allowed sailors and marines injured in combat three times to transfer out of Southeast Asia. As stated in Unfit for Command (O'Neill & Corsi, 2004), “if Kerry faked even one [Purple Heart] he owes the Navy 243 additional days in Vietnam before he runs for anything” (p. 30).

They also released a public letter to Kerry, signed by 250 swift boat veterans professing their “collective judgment” that, upon returning from Vietnam, Kerry had “grossly and knowingly distorted the conduct of the American soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen of that war,” and had “withheld and/or distorted material facts as to your own conduct in this war” (“Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Forms,” 2004, para. 1) This letter called upon Kerry to “correct the misconceptions your campaign seeks to create as to your conduct while in Vietnam” (O'Neill & Corsi, 2004, p. 188). According to The Washington Post, most of the members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth “limited their involvement to signing [this] single letter,” and several who signed were “not convinced that Kerry [was] lying,” but they did “not like the candidate” and felt “deeply hurt by what Kerry did when he returned from battle” (White & Faler, 2004, p. A6).

Of the 10 surviving crew members from both boats Kerry commanded, only former gunner, Steve Garner, was not part of his campaign and, indeed, was a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Garner did not appear in the first ad, and did not serve with Kerry in any of the actions for which he was decorated. Garner said he believed that America “had that war won until John Kerry and Hanoi Jane Fonda stuck their nose in it” (Rowland, 2004, para. 22).

Thurlow refused to authorize the release of his Navy records. They were obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request and noted that his actions that day on the Bay Hap River “took place under constant enemy small arms fire which LTJG THURLOW completely ignored” (Dobbs, 2004b, p. A7). Thurlow maintained, in a telephone interview, that he “did not recall what the citation said” and that it was “with an ex-wife with whom he no longer has contact” (Zernike & Rutenberg, 2004, p. A17). He reiterated that there was no enemy fire and stated that he would consider his own Bronze Star “fraudulent” if that was the basis for his receiving it (Zernike & Rutenberg, 2004, p. A17). Odell's affidavit stated, “There was no fire.…Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star” (Zernike & Rutenberg, 2004, p. A1).

Further inquiry at the Naval Historical Center turned up other after-action reports initialed by “KJW” for incidents at which Kerry was not involved, and The Washington Post observed that it was “unlikely that [Kerry] would have been the source of information about enemy bullets flying around Thurlow” (Dobbs, 2004c, p. A15). Admiral Hoffman said that the numerical identifiers at the top of the form indicated that Kerry was its author. When confronted with the fact that the “numbers referred to the Swift boat unit, and not to Kerry personally,” Hoffman replied that his assertion was “not cast-iron” (Dobbs, 2004c, p. A15).

It also “didn't help the cause of the Swift Boat Veterans group that some of them, including their leader, retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman, were on the record praising Kerry for his service in Vietnam” (Galloway, 2004, para. 8); and another, Al French, admitted that he had “no direct knowledge of the events” he spoke of in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad (Wilgoren, 2004b, p. A21). The New York Times ran a full-page graphic entitled, “Connections and Contradictions,” which showed the pictures of five of the men who appeared in “Any Questions” (Zernike & Rutenberg, 2004, p. A17). It quoted what each man had said in the ad, and then illustrated how that statement was “undercut by military records or previous statements they have made supporting John Kerry” (Zernike & Rutenberg, 2004, p. A17).

William B. Rood, an editor at the Chicago Tribune, commanded one of the three boats on that mission. Rood had not spoken about his time in Vietnam, and “refused requests for interviews, including from his own newspaper” (Nakamura, 2004, p. A15). On August 22, Rood “broke a 35-year silence…to support Mr. Kerry's version of events” in a 1,750-word essay first-person article in the Chicago Tribune's Sunday edition (Rutenberg & Zernike, 2004b, p. A1). Rood stated that the “man Kerry chased was not the ‘lone’ attacker at the site as O'Neill suggests. There were others who fled. There was also firing from the tree line well behind the spider holes and at one point, from the opposite riverbank as well” (Rutenberg & Zernike, 2004b, p. A18). The Chicago Tribune said, “Rood's account was supported by military documents” (Nakamura, 2004, p. A15).

Executive Order 11016, which authorizes the Purple Heart, stipulates that it be awarded for any wound received “in any action against an enemy of the United States” (“Executive Order 11016,” 1962, para. 4).

As Zaladonis put it, “Me and Bill aren't the smartest, but we can count to three”; he was also “reasonably sure” they did not even have any M79 grenade launchers, and “100 percent certain that we didn't shoot them” (Zernike & Rutenberg, 2004, p. A17). The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's Web site was actually changed during August to accommodate the claim that Schachte was on the boat. On August 2, 2004, the Web site (http://www.swiftvets.com) said that Kerry was on the “foam-filled skimmer craft with two enlisted men” (“John Kerry's First Purple Heart,” 2004a, para. 1). It was “updated” on August 30 to say that the boat was “under the command of Lt. William Schachte. The two officers were accompanied by an enlisted man who operated the outboard motor” (“John Kerry's First Purple Heart,” 2004b, para. 1).

During the 2008 election, Kerry told The Boston Globe that he would use “his unique experience to defend the Democrats from the same kind of ‘swift boating’ tactics that Republican operatives used to help sink his presidential campaign” (Bender, 2008, para. 3). To quickly respond to unfounded accusations concerning their nominee—that he was a Muslim or that his wife had used the term “Whitey”—the Obama campaign established a Web site called fightthesmears.com (Thomas, 2008, p. 85).

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George N. Dionisopoulos

George N. Dionisopoulos (PhD, Purdue University, 1984) is a professor in the School of Communication at San Diego State University, California.