So the answers to at least one of my questions is 250 is not the correct number at all...

Columbus swift boat vet angry about letter
By LINDA HALSTEAD-ACHARYA
Of The Gazette Staff

COLUMBUS - Swift boat veteran Bob Anderson of Columbus is ticked.

It bothers him that Sen. John Kerry's swift boat history has become such a political hot potato. But he's even more irritated that his name was included - without his permission - on a letter used to discredit Kerry.

"I'm pretty nonpolitical," the 56-year-old Anderson said Tuesday. So, when he found out last week that his name was one of about 300 signed on a letter questioning Kerry's service, he was "flabbergasted."

"It's kind of like stealing my identity," said Anderson, who spent a year on a swift boat as an engine man and gunner.

The letter, which was posted on the Swift Boat Veter-ans for Truth Web site, claims the Demo-cratic presidential candidate has "grossly and knowingly distorted the conduct of the American soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen of that (Vietnam) war."

The letter also criticizes Kerry for trying to change his image from a critic of the war to a war hero.

"After reading the letter," Anderson said, "it kind of got under my skin. I had never come across a situation where someone used my name without my support or approval. It's not a very comforting feeling."

What's worse, he said, he disagrees with the letter.

"Had they asked me to use my name, I wouldn't have allowed them to," he said.

Anderson, a 1966 graduate of Chinook High School, describes himself as a naive Montana kid who was smacked by the reality of war soon after arriving in Vietnam in 1967.

"It's not a very pleasant way to grow up," he said.

He served on a swift boat about the same time Kerry did. However, the first time he met Kerry was during a reunion of swift boat vets in Norfolk, Va., in March 2003.

Anderson said he cannot dispute or verify Kerry's experience. In fact, he's forgotten much of his own.

"You remember the simple things," he said. "The rest is what you don't want to remember."

He does, however, support Kerry's right to state his opinion.

"We say we're protecting democracy. That's why we go to war. As Americans, we can have our opinions, right?"

Anderson can vividly recall the last day of 1969, when his boat was attacked.

"The thing I remember before we got hit was the grass dragging on the sides of the boat - the canals were so narrow," he said. "I can also remember the smell of napalm."

Anderson's boat was about the fourth boat back in a string of 10. He describes the scene as an Armageddon. Fellow swift boat sailor Bob Wedge was so badly wounded, Anderson doubted he would survive.

"That boat was like a slaughterhouse that day," he said. "He (Wedge) just about bled to death before we got a tourniquet on him and the chopper got him."

Wedge, who lost a leg, was flown home. Thirty-four years passed before the two met again. Now they find themselves on the same side of another conflict.

Wedge, 60, of Mesquite, Nev., said his name, too, was on the list - and he's mad.

"This is the fourth or fifth time someone has called me or e-mailed me in regard to signing this damn letter," he wrote in an e-mail to Anderson. "I don't agree with it and want no part of it and especially don't want my name on it."

Both men have tried to contact the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to have their names removed from the list. Neither have had any success.

"I can't seem to get a response when I reply to their e-mail," Wedge said.

"They come back undeliverable."

Anderson said he first learned about the situation last week when he received an e-mail from a third party. The e-mail, from a Tom Pyle, said Pyle had contacted a dozen men whose names showed up on the list. Of the dozen, three said they had not given permission, Anderson said.

"That leads me to believe that as many as 25 percent of the names are fictitious supporters of that group," he said.

Anderson does not know how the Swift Boat Vets for Truth got his name, but it appears exactly as it has appeared on rosters at swift boat vet reunions. He suspects the list was pulled from the Swift Boat Sailors Association, a nonpolitical, not-for-profit organization linking swift boat veterans.

The rest is here Billings Gazette