Due to the timing of its publication, Unfit for Command could be dismissed as the sort of controversial, loaded book typical in a presidential election year: Either courageous and necessary, or untruthful and malicious, depending on one's political point of view. Filled with interviews of men who served in Vietnam at the same time as John Kerry, the book poses the following question: "Why do an overwhelming majority of those who commanded or served with John Kerry oppose him?" (Note that the issue of "service" has sparked investigation into its definition--in other words, just how close was the interaction between Kerry and those cited in the book during Kerry’s Vietnam tour of duty?) The charges leveled against Kerry in this book are severe and include filing false operating reports; lobbying for and receiving three Purple Hearts for minor wounds, two of which were self-inflicted; receiving a Silver Star under false pretenses; offering false confessions of bogus war crimes in both print and testimony; and recklessness in the field, including the burning of a village without cause or direct order. The book also claims that Kerry left Vietnam after serving just four months instead of the usual one year tour and that he returned home and accused his fellow soldiers of atrocities without offering any evidence, endangering POWs in the process. It is debatable whether the book will change any minds, or votes. Instead, readers will likely reach one of two conclusions: Either John Kerry grossly misrepresented his military service or the authors are spinning the interviews that they conducted for ulterior motives. There is a third option, however; readers will further investigate both sides of the debate, and by doing so, may reach conclusions independent of partisan extremes. --Brian Neff

From Publishers Weekly
"What sort of combination of hypocrite and paradox is John Kerry?" ask the authors in this heated critique of the Democratic presidential candidate’s Vietnam–era military service and antiwar activism. O’Neill, a lawyer and swift boat veteran, and Corsi, an expert on Vietnam antiwar movements, argue that Kerry misrepresented his wartime exploits and is therefore incompetent to serve as commander in chief. Buttressed by interviews with Navy veterans who patrolled Vietnam’s waters, some along with Kerry, the book claims he exaggerated minor injuries, self-inflicted others, wrote fictitious diary entries and filed "phony" reports of his heroism under fire—all in a calculated quest to secure career-enhancing combat medals. They also maintain that Kerry, whom they call a "moral coward," committed atrocities that alarmed his peers and superior officers during his four-month tour of duty. Yet his activities on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War clearly raises the authors’ hackles the most, and they present Kerry’s post-war actions as additional, damning evidence of his "total unfitness," claiming that his testimony against the war "caused more deaths and prolonged the war in Vietnam by undermining support at home and contributing directly to a Vietnamese Communist victory." The battle that lies at the heart of this book is the decades-old feud between antiwar veterans and their my-country-right-or-wrong counterparts. The authors’ conservative take on the war is palpable: the U.S. military failed to unleash "massive, indiscriminate bombing" to force North Vietnam’s capitulation; the conflict was a struggle against communism, not a civil war; and the dissenting soldiers undermined homefront morale. Consequently, this overwrought and repetitive polemic seethes with a resentment that compromises the otherwise eyebrow-raising testimonies. Further, without access to Kerry’s full military and medical records, the authors rely heavily on 35-year-old recollections and recent Kerry biographies by Douglas Brinkley and a Boston Globe reporting team. Those looking for a thorough, unbiased investigation into Kerry’s wartime record would do best to wait for more objective, methodical chroniclers who have access to the relevant documents.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
A shocking indictment of John Kerry by some of the men who knew him best.

From the Publisher
Find out why John Kerry is Unfit for Command as told by the men who served with him Unfit for Command reveals a John Kerry you don't know-the true John Kerry that his political image-makers are trying to hide. But the veterans who served with him know better, and in Unfit for Command, they tell their story, including: * How all three of John Kerry's Purple Hearts were for minor injuries, easily treated with band-aids, not requiring a single hour of hospitalization * How captured Americans were tortured in North Vietnamese prisons for not endorsing John Kerry's false testimony-before the United States Senate-about alleged American war crimes * How John Kerry carried a typewriter and an 8-mm home movie camera with him to Vietnam so he could record his own exaggerated version of his war exploits and film staged reenactments of his "combat actions" to advance his political career * Why John Kerry's photograph hangs in a place of honor in the Vietnamese communist "War Remnants Museum" in Saigon Want to know the real John Kerry? Read Unfit for Command-and prepare to be shocked.

From the Inside Flap
John Kerry, War Hero? Guess again. John O'Neill was the naval officer who took over John Kerry's swift boat in the muddy waters of Vietnam. What he learned convinced him-and convinced the majority of veterans who served directly with Kerry-that John Kerry was and is unfit for command at the lowliest rank in the Navy, let alone as commander in chief of the United States. In this stunning new book, John O'Neill and his coauthor Dr. Jerome Corsi (an expert on the anti-Vietnam War movement) have interviewed dozens of veterans who served with Kerry and have meticulously documented a shameful record of betrayal and deception on the part of John Kerry. In Unfit for Command you'll learn: * How two of John Kerry's three Purple Heart decorations resulted from self-inflicted wounds, not suffered under enemy fire * Why John Kerry's third Purple Heart "fanny wound" was the highlight of his much touted "no man left behind" Bronze Star * How John Kerry turned the tragic death of a father and small child in a Vietnamese fishing boat into an act of "heroism" by filing a false report on the incident. * How John Kerry entered an abandoned Vietnamese village and slaughtered the domestic animals owned by the civilians and burned down their homes with his Zippo lighter * How John Kerry's reckless behavior convinced his colleagues that he had to go-becoming the only swift boat veteran to serve only four-months in Vietnam * How as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, John Kerry attended a meeting where plans were discussed to assassinate prominent United States Senators who supported the war * How Kerry met secretly with communist delegates at the Paris Peace Conference during the Vietnam War, and why some believe he violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and federal law Based on detailed interviews with Swift Boat veterans who served in Vietnam with John Kerry and on recently released FBI surveillance reports of John Kerry's anti-war activities, Unfit for Command is a shocking indictment of a politician who slandered his fellow veterans, danced on the edge of treason, and has shamelessly exaggerated his own war service for political ends

About the Author
John O'Neill served in Coastal Division 11 in Vietnam and took command of PCF 94, John Kerry's swift boat, after Kerry's departure. Outraged by Kerry's anti-war slanders against his fellow veterans, O'Neill faced Kerry in a famous debate on the Dick Cavett Show in 1971 refuting Kerry's accusations of rampant American war crimes in Vietnam. A graduate of the Naval Academy, and from a Navy family, O'Neill is a lawyer in private practice in Houston. Jerome Corsi received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and is an expert on political violence and the anti-war movement in the United States. The author of many articles and books, he lives in {TK}.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Adding to the outcrop of politically charged manifestos in the 2004 election campaign, this highly controversial tome trumpets a very specific agenda: discrediting the military record of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War. The book, written by longtime Kerry adversary and fellow Vietnam Navy vet John O'Neill -- who interviewed Navy men who served concurrently with Kerry on other Swift Boats -- charges Kerry acted irresponsibly in combat, did not deserve his medals, and betrayed Vietnam vets with antiwar activities. These claims have generated a huge maelstrom of countercharges and news reports over assertions that none of the damning testimony comes from men who actually served on the Swift Boat commanded by Kerry and that O'Neill dismiss the many laudatory accounts from the men who served under Kerry's command. Amid this swirl of charges and countercharges, one thing seems certain: This inflammatory book is sure to generate a firestorm of publicity.

FROM THE PUBLISHER