Five Minutes vs. Five Years: Interview With Swift Boat Vet George Elliott
** Dean's World Exclusive ** ** Must Credit Dean's World **
I was pleased recently to have an in-depth conversation with retired US Navy Captain George Elliott. We talked about his career in the military and his involvment in the group known as Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth.
The retired Captain Elliott served for decades with the U.S. Navy and won a number of combat and non-combat citations, most of which he is (as I discovered) reluctant to talk about let alone brag about. I also had the pleasure of speaking a few times with his lovely wife, who was helpful in making sure I got our transcribed interview right. --Dean
Dean's World: Thank you for talking to me, Captain Elliott. Can you give me some basic details on when and where you served?
George Elliott: Well I graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1959. I went into the academy directly after High School here in Delaware and served at many different stations over the next 26 years as a commissioned officer, retiring in 1985 with a rank of Captain.
Dean's World: How long were you in Viet Nam?
GE: From August of 1968 through July of 1969.
DW: How long did you know Kerry?
GE: He served at my command at An Thoi--Coastal Division 11---well there were 5 days in December wherein I barely knew he was there, then he returned in January 1969 and departed on the 26th of March. Actually I don't know the exact date but I use the date of 26th of March because that is the last day my fitness report covers him.
DW: But you did know him personally then obviously.
GE: Oh yes.
DW: Are you receiving any sort of compensation for your activities against Senator Kerry?
GE: No, absolutely not. I'm... we've had some of our hotel rooms and bills paid when we've gone to Washington, but I've made a personal committment to donate to the organization whatever I think my expenses are, and a little more.
DW: So you make nothing at all?
GE: Absolutely nothing.
DW: What do you do for a living?
GE: I'm currently retired. I worked for about 10 years after I retired from the United States Navy and now I am a volunteer in my small town of Lewes, Delaware. I'm a member of the Rotary Club, was president of the Lewes Historical Society for seven years and am now a member of the board of directors of a maritime museum here in Lewes. It is a lightship--the former Boston Lightship. I also play a little golf--but certainly not for a living!
DW: How about politics? Do you have much background in politics?
GE: I've avoided it like the plague, but I vote every election.
DW: Are you a Republican?
GE: No I'm not. I'm registered as an independent voter and have never voted a straight ticket in my life that I recall. I have not always voted for one party or the other on the national ticket--presidents, senators, congressmen, so forth.
DW: Is it true that you campaigned on behalf of Senator Kerry in the 1990s, and if so, why are you involved in this effort against him now?
GE: "Campaign" is the wrong word. In 1996 a Boston Globe reporter named, Warsh I believe it was, in 1996, he wrote an article that very strongly implied that John Kerry, in the Silver Star incident, had simply executed a wounded Viet Cong soldier. In Warsh's words, he had isssued a "coup de grace," which we found deeply offensive. So, with several members of John Kerry's crew, Admiral Zumwalt and Captain Adrian Lonsdale and I went to speak out against accusations of war crimes by the Navy.
We went to Boston to support Kerry in this accusation of a war crime. It was as much to defend the Navy and my outfit as it was to stand with John Kerry. This was a specious inference and we couldn't let it stand. It had very little to do with politics in my view.
In my opening remarks at the press conference on the piers down at the old Boston Navy Yard in Massachussetts, my remarks were, "I am not here to support Senator Kerry, I am here to support Lt(jg) Kerry." And I made that distinction for two reasons. First I didn't want anyone to think I was a carpetbagger there to inject myself into a campaign in Massachussetts, and second I wanted to make it clear that I was there to defend the Navy against accusations of war crimes.
DW: Were you aware of what Kerry said about war crimes in his testimony before Congress in the early 1970s?
GE: Absolutely. At that time I think most of us considered that in the past. As long as John Kerry was a Massachussetts Senator we had no, I had no reason to interject myself into any campaign he was running or not running.
DW: I've also been asked why it is you guys took 30 years to come forward with your allegations against the Senator. Do you have any response to that?
GE: Absolutely I have a response. First of all as I just said, when Kerry was a politician in Massachussetts, representing Massachussetts, we had no stake in that game. Now that he wants to be Commander In Chief, we have a big stake in the game. His actions over the years were despicable and dishonorable. It's now a national position that he's seeking.
DW: The Boston Globe's Michael Kranish accused you of changing your story on Senator Kerry, and claimed you retracted part of your accusations. Can you tell me about that incident?
GE: Yes. When Michael Kranish called that day he had my affidavit which was required to be signed in order to get the book published and to get the commercials on the air. And he referred to a phrase in that affidavit where I said that I was never informed that he had simply shot a wounded Viet Cong in the back. Now those words "shot in the back," those words sort of stuck in my craw because it was reminiscent of Warsh's words that all he had done was execute a Viet Cong. That was the sole issue I had. Quite frankly it was a true statement even with that in there. I was never informed he had simply shot a wounded Viet Cong in the back. But again the phrasing had the harshness of a war crime.
However, if you read Kranish's own interview with John Kerry as published in the Boston Globe, or the biography of John Kerry by "the reporters who knew him best," on page 102 you will read in Kerry's own words in describing the events of that day, and there is no way any rational person could conclude that John Kerry did anything other than shoot a fleeing man in the back.
DW: And that would be a crime?
GE: No, absolutely not. Even given that. This is a combat situation, the man was armed and the fact that he was shot in the back has nothing to do with anything other than the tragedies of combat, at least for that guy and his family. It is not a war crime.
DW: Wait. As I read the Kranish piece (Editor's Note: The referenced interview may be read here on the Boston Globe web site), Kerry specifically denies shooting the guy in the back.
GE: Kerry says "He was running away with a live B-40, and, I thought, poised to turn around and fire it." Now, unless the man was running backwards and poised to turn around I conclude there is no way a rational person could conclude that John Kerry did anything other than shoot a fleeing man in the back.
I had read the Boston Globe biography of John Kerry and the incident did not register at the time. However, Michael Kranish took my words and implied that I said it was a mistake to sign the affidavit against Kerry. But that's not what I was talking about, and Kranish knew at the time that there should have been no concern about those words because he had written them himself.
Like I said, being a cagey reporter he had no obligation to tell me that and he didn't when he wrote his story.
Now the story that he wrote, the words that he has in the story that are in quotation marks, those are words that I said. So I was not misquoted. What he did however is, following the words in quotations, he has reached conclusions that misrepresented my feelings and they are not quotations or words that I said. Those are his conclusions. That's what I took issue with, they in fact did not reflect my true feelings.
DW: I'm still a little confused.
GE: He took words that I actually said, put them in quotations, they were all correct. For example, in his story Kranish goes all the way back to 1996. One of the sentences in his story was something like "The affadavit also contradicted earlier material.... saying that Kerry acted properly and deserved the Silver Star." Now that is a true statement. But that does not contradict the fact that there has been a lot of information to come to light since then to shed new light on that action.
This is the same argument that people have used against me when they bring up that I wrote a decent fitness report for Kerry in 1969 and now have changed. Certainly it would change given what's been published...and other things that have since been disputed.
Brinkley's book Tour of Duty brought an awful lot of things to light that people who served with Kerry had no idea about.
DW: I've heard it suggested that you and others are merely being manipulated and misled by a group of big-money Republicans. What do you think of such allegations?
GE: Well I have spoken in public several times, I have had several interviews, I have had calls and talked to reporters on many occasions. I have never had anyone ever tell me what to say. I am told by our steering group members that yes, we have received some fairly large donations on occasion but those donations come with a caveat from us, "look this is our campaign, this is what we're saying, we are not taking any words from you. We'll create our ads and do everything ourselves." And I believe those guys. I don't believe we need anyone to tell us what to say. We are all saying what we believe.
I would also tell you that we now have over 100,000 individual contributions via the internet through our web site. Those are not 100,000 big money Republicans. These are people whose average donation is somewhere in the 60 to 70 dollar range. John O'Neill said once on television we would certainly take some of George Soros' millions if he'd like to send some our way.
DW: Do you endorse everything in John O'Neill's book about the Senator? For example, specifically in chapter 4, the book accuses him of more or less murdering a child in Viet Nam.
GE: The Sampan Incident? Sir, I can put you in touch with the man who actually pulled the trigger on that child that night. He's now one of our members. His name is Steve Gardner. His testimony of the event is the basis for that part of the book, and I believe O'Neill characterizes it as a tragedy, but it was also a false report that John Kerry submitted about that incident.
DW: Do you intend to keep speaking out against Kerry if he is elected in November?
GE: Once it's over it's over. I have no reason to continue, the American people will vote and make their choice. I don't know that I---I would not continue to oppose a sitting American President if the people put him there.
DW: Has the Senator ever apologized to you for his statements about war crimes and atrocities supposedly committed everywhere with the full support of all levels of command in Viet Nam?
GE: Never.
DW: If he did apologize would you accept it?
GE: If he tried to apologize between now and the time of the election, no. Win or lose on the 2nd of November, if he were to stand up and apologize to me and the hundreds of thousands of other veterans that he has offended over the years, I would accept his apology.
DW: Do you think that anyone who protested the Viet Nam war was fink? Are you simply mad at Kerry for protesting the war?
GE: Of course not, of course not. Every American's born with the right to criticize their government. Even Jane Fonda, she didn't have to fight to earn that right, it's a birthright.
What is not a birthright is lying in order to support your protest. And there's absolutely no question in any of our minds that John Kerry lied when he was before Congress. There's no question that he met with the enemy in Paris. And these are things that he does not have a right to do.
DW: Would you use the word "treason" to describe any of that?
GE: No I wouldn't go that far, but in my own mind it comes damned close.
DW: Have you received much support from other vets not in your group?
GE: Absolutely. Not only vets but just ordinary people. Relatives of men lost in Viet Nam or family members who had someone who served. I have received important support from everywhere. A lot of people, not just the 100,000 who donated but the many who have supported us and continue to.
DW: How about harassment?
GE: I haven't had too much of that actually. A couple of radio interviews, you get call-ins that try to drown you out, but I wouldn't consider that harassment. A few pieces of mail, but as long as they sign their name you don't take it too criticially. They have their views.
There's a lot of letters on both sides in the newspapers, and some of those are very negative but many are factual and in support of us.
DW: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
GE: I don't know if this is the place to put this, but, there's one thing that concerns me very greatly, and that is the approach taken by what's currently known as the mainstream media. And I am not saying this to bash the mainstream media, but I think that if they continue to act in such a partisan way that it's not good for this country.
A free and unfettered press is an absolute necessity for this country to survive in the manner that was intended by the forefathers. But if the mainstream press continues acting in such a partisan way that they lose the support of a major part of the population, who is going to get us the real trut? Who is going to beat on the doors of congressmen and secretaries if various departments to answer the people's questions?
You see much of the population veering away from the three TV networks. Of course I don't believe everything on the internet but there's a part on there today about the ABC News director which, if it's even halfway true, it's very telling.
I have very grave concerns about the American people being able to trust what the mainstream media says unless something changes. Maybe our swift boat guys, maybe this will be a greater legacy, will be what we've exposed about the mainstream media than anything we've said about Senator Kerry. I'll give you an example. The closest example to our cause is the fact that CBS admits that they've been five years chasing down President Bush's national guard records. And they haven't spent five minutes trying to find John Kerry's records!
He has not released his records. The last I heard him say on the news was "I have released all the records I have in my possession." He always has a caveat for anything he says like that. But you will notice that one telling piece of paper that hasn't been released is the original writeup/recommendation for the Silver Star. He did release a recommendation that I wrote for the Bronze star. That's out there. The Silver Star recommendation is not there.
Even a reasonably competent news person would in my view ask "where is that?" It's as controversial as the bronze star. It's not there.
Where are his discharge papers? He has not put up a copy of his discharge from the naval reserve. That should have taken place in 1978 when his service in all forms was completed.
The press seems to have no interest in this.
They continue to call us liars when we mention these things. The facts in John Kerry's own words, as written in Tour of Duty from his own diaries, indicate to anyone who'd look at it twice can see that the third purple heart was a fraud. The shrapnel wound was admittedly from throwing a grenade into a bin of rice. They joked about getting shrapnel and rice into his butt. That's in his own book, Tour of Duty. So why are we liars to point it out? And why are reporters so interested in Bush's National Guard service but willing to call us liars when we've got eyewitnesses, sworn affidavits, and Kerry's own words backing us up? What is the world coming to if the people can no longer trust the press to tell them the truth and look at all candidates equally?
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