Check this out: Swift boat crew member glad to see nominee (Kerry) fighting back***.... Kimo Williams, a Vietnam vet and executive director of the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum in Chicago, said he's been waiting for Kerry to fight back but that exaggeration was part of the culture in Vietnam. "You'll hear this from any veteran who is upfront about it: When we were there, we were always trying to find ways to take advantage of our situation," he said. "So when I look at John Kerry and the situation he was in, it's easy for me to say, 'OK, he may have done that.' But I don't see anything wrong if Kerry not so much falsified it but exaggerated it to make sure he got his Purple Heart."
Other local veterans are far more skeptical and say they will never forgive Kerry for joining the anti-war movement when he got back to the United States.
"I'm a Democrat, but without a doubt, I'm voting for Bush," said Thomas Maher, a Vietnam vet from Mount Greenwood who has never voted Republican in a presidential race. "If everything he did in Vietnam was totally correct, God bless him. . . . But you don't speak out against your own country."
Dennis Rombola, a Streamwood bus driver who was a gunner on Army helicopters in Vietnam, said he just doesn't believe Kerry.
"I got hit by some shrapnel and never took a Purple Heart," Rombola said. "To me, I think Kerry's a phony."