Man refutes candidate's critics
By Alex Katz, STAFF WRITER
OAKLAND --
ON THE LAST DAY of February 1969, rifle-toting Mike Medeiros found himself running through the Vietnamese jungle, following a young Lt. John Kerry, who was chasing a teenage Viet Cong soldier armed with a grenade launcher.
It was a fairly typical day for Medeiros, a San Leandro native who served for seven intense and bloody weeks on a Navy swiftboat commanded by the then-25-year-old Kerry, now the Democratic nominee for president.
Medeiros, who still lives in San Leandro, was the rear gunner on Kerry's boat, a 50-foot aluminum craft with no armor and noisy diesel engines.
"The element of surprise was never with you," Medeiros, 56, said last week. "You'd go up a river and get ambushed and shoot it out with the enemy. There were only one or two occasions we went up a river and didn't get shot at."
Medeiros is on active duty in the U.S. Army as a staff sergeant -- he's helping to train National Guard units on their way to Iraq at Ft. Bliss,
Texas -- and cannot directly endorse any candidates.
But he and his crew mates showed up on stage with Kerry last month at the Democratic Convention in Boston.
Medeiros describes Kerry in Vietnam as daring and highly competent, and said recent allegations by a group of Vietnam veterans who question Kerry's record are "totally false."
Kerry "always led from the front," Medeiros said. "He was always the first one off (the boat). He was just dedicated, and he wanted to accomplish something."
The anti-Kerry group, called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, recently put out a television advertisement in campaign battleground states accusing Kerry of lying to get medals, including the Bronze Star. The ad shows vets who say they served with Kerry and question his honesty.
However, none of the swiftboat vets in the ad actually served on Kerry's swiftboat. The group's major backers and many members are closely tied to the Republican Party, according to several news reports.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth also say they hold a grudge against Kerry because of his 1971 testimony before the U.S. Senate about reports of war crimes by U.S. troops in Vietnam.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a prisoner of war in Vietnam, called the group's ad "dishonest and dishonorable," and urged President Bush to denounce it. A Bush spokesman has refused to do so.
"My personal opinion is (the anti-Kerry ad) is totally politically motivated," Medeiros said. "It's a real shallow attempt to defame a guy because they didn't like his political stance in 1971."
A leader of the anti-Kerry group, longtime Kerry antagonist John O'Neill, is co-author of a new book accusing Kerry of winning the Silver Star after shooting a fleeing Viet Cong soldier in the back.
Medeiros, who was with Kerry during the shooting, says that's not how it happened.
On the day of the now-famous incident, Medeiros said the swiftboat, PCF-94, was heading upriver when it ran into an ambush. Rockets were flying out of the jungle, and Kerry "made a decision to put the boats in and get these guys," Medeiros said.
Kerry's boat happened to hit the shore right in front of an enemy soldier holding a grenade launcher. The soldier started running, maybe to get enough distance to be able to fire his weapon at the boat, Medeiros said.
Kerry's forward gunner managed to hit the guerrilla, who appeared to be a teenager, according to reports on the incident. Although he was hit in the leg, the guerrilla kept running with his weapon, which could have done serious damage to the boat and the sailors on board.
Medeiros remembers Kerry jumping off the boat to give chase.
"I saw him running down this trail after this guy, and I followed him," Medeiros said. "Just as I rounded a corner behind him, (Kerry) shot the guy."
Kerry won the Silver Star, even though beaching boats to engage the enemy was a highly unorthodox tactic in the Navy.
"It was almost heresy for a Navy boat to beach itself and for people to get off," Medeiros said. "I'm not sure if anybody had done it before we did it or not."
Retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman, chairman of the anti-Kerry group, "sat in a nice, fairly safe rear echelon area (during the war) and hardly ever left it," Medeiros said. "He's kind of a pugnacious little guy. He was very gung ho, but he never got a chance to do anything."
Hoffman and George Elliott, one of the vets in the recent attack ad, gave Kerry glowing performance reviews during the war. Elliott, Kerry's commanding officer in Vietnam, has praised Kerry's courage, and told the Boston Globe that Kerry's Silver Star medal was "well deserved."
Medeiros grew up in the East Bay in a blue-collar family with a military tradition. His father was a World War II veteran who worked as a janitor, bus driver and plumber for the San Leandro school district.
The family was solidly Democrat. Medeiros' grandfather kept a photo of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the basement. Medeiros' father inherited the photo and hung it in the garage.
While still in high school, Medeiros signed up for the Navy reserves. He later volunteered for duty in Vietnam on a river boat. He had experience with boats growing up and wanted to see what was actually happening in the war.
When Medeiros' first swiftboat officer was wounded, Kerry took command of PCF-94.
"We liked him immediately," Medeiros said of Kerry. "He was really warm. To some people he seems standoffish, but to us he's great."
Although Medeiros is now a big supporter of Kerry, he said he understands why some veterans were angry when Kerry protested against the war and testified about atrocities by American soldiers.
Medeiros says he "was still very hawkish" after returning from Vietnam. On PCF-94, Medeiros' nickname had been "Duke," because he was the most pro-war, the most John Wayne-like.
While buying books for classes at San Jose State University, Medeiros saw his former commander's name on the cover of a book called "The New Soldier," a 1971 collection of photos and articles co-authored by Kerry and other Vietnam veterans against the war.
At the time, Medeiros said he was upset by Kerry's stance against the war.
But "I subsequently found out (Kerry) was totally right in his contentions," Medeiros said.
Medeiros ended up dropping out of San Jose State to support his family, just one class shy of graduation. He was a Navy reservist for years, and worked at the former Alameda Naval Air Station until it closed in 1997.
He later joined the National Guard and ended up guarding a military base in Arizona after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Medeiros, a ballroom dancing enthusiast, said he has never been involved in politics outside of his work with Kerry. He has three adult children in the East Bay, and his wife is a dentist in Oakland.
The crew of PCF-94 drifted apart after the war but met up again years later to help one of Kerry's Senate re-election campaigns, Medeiros said.
"We all said, 'If you run for president we'll campaign with you,'" Medeiros said. "We've all become pretty fast and close friends."
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