Buck,
First off, I would like to profoundly thank you for your military service during such a turbulent time in our Nation's History. It's clear that you served honorably and heroically. From reading your post, I would empathetically agree with the reasons for your bitterness towards Sen. Kerry.

You are right in the sense that most people can't relate to being a soldier under the extreme conditions you endured. I for one, being a veteran during a relatively peaceful time, certainly am not able to.

However, I would tend to agree with Henry in regards to questioning the military pasts of both candidates. Yes Kerry did make his military service an issue in his campaign, but to a lesser extent so did Bush.

Although I do find that Kerry's postwar activities were questionable, the mere fact that Bush had difficulties fulfilling his cushy Air Guard obligations tends to equally annoy me.

In my humble view, niether candidate served as admirably as you did, Buck. In fact, from what my father told me about the infastructure of the Air Guard and service in general at the time, they didn't even come close.

I just find the Swift Boat for Truth gentleman to be rather farcical. They consist of people with an agenda mostly motivated by their anger over Kerry's post-service protest of the war, and their own skewed ideology.

The group is for the most part funded by long-time Republican donors, and their leaders have a history of radical partisanship. Many have completely contradicted their own past statements in their complaints about Kerry.

Their methods are completely different; rather than presenting facts, they present alleged eyewitness stories from people who didn't know Kerry particularly well and didn't serve on his boat. Their stories conflict with those of all of Kerry's actual crewmates and official Naval records.

These are unqualified, biased people making things up to smear Kerry, and the only "evidence" they give is their word. To me this reeks of a conflict of interest! The president did in fact condemn the negative ads they produced as well.

With all due respect Buck, I wouldn't suscribe to their rubish anymore than I would a flawed CBS story. While I deeply admire and appreciate the contributions you made to keep all of us free, we should attempt to stick to the issues affecting us today.