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Swift boat crew member glad to see nominee (Kerry) fighting back
Chicago Sun-Times ^ | August 20, 2004 | SHAMUS TOOMEY

John Kerry was "way too much of a gentleman" when he let attacks on his Vietnam War record go unanswered, a former swift boat mate said Thursday while
praising Kerry's decision to fight back.

"I talked to him on Monday. It's eating him up," said Jim Wasser, now an electrician in Kankakee. "He said, 'This is hurting me. It's tearing me up.'

"I know the real John Kerry. And John Kerry is proud of what's he's done," Wasser said. "He waited too long. I'm glad he finally came out. I'm proud of him."

Wasser, an unpaid Kerry campaign worker who spent six weeks on the rivers and canals of Vietnam with the presidential hopeful in the late 1960s, was among the
local Vietnam veterans who have anxiously awaited Kerry's response to ads run by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The ads claim Kerry exaggerated his
combat record to win medals.

Wasser said that from what he witnessed, Kerry's wartime record is legitimate. Soldiers speaking out against Kerry were on separate swift boats and not close
enough to know what they're talking about, Wasser said.

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."

Contributing: AP

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