"Bush campaign ads using team"

[Occhidiangela]

I had the chance to serve with three senior officers who served in Viet Nam as junior officers commanding Swift boats. Two retired as Rear Admirals, one recently as a four star. (ADM Natter, who I only worked with for a very short op when he was a CO of a cruiser.) These men were well above average leaders in any case, having become destroyer and Cruiser Captains in due course, but if they are at all representative of the Swift Boat commanders throughout the theater of operations, even being half the officer that these men are would put an average Swift Boat commander in pretty good company. I wonder where is a "bell curve" Senator Kerry fell out. There are obviously folks who served with him who held him in high regard.

That said, commanding a Swift Boat is hardly the same as navigating the Ship of State through the rocks and shoals of global realpolitik! President Kennedy pulled it off reasonably well, but then, he was a different breed of liberal than Senator Kerry: a liberal who was also a devout anti-Communist, a pre 'Great Society' liberal.

Occhi