>That's me sticking my neck out. From what I have read and saw, John Kerry is still considered a war hero. Swiftboat controversy aside, if nothing else, he had the guts to serve when many others didn't don't, including the US Commander in Chief.
As I remember it being presented during the election, Kerry requested swift boat duty at a time when the swift boats weren't doing very much and he was languishing as an undistinguished junior officer on a frigate.
"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."
Shortly after his transfer, swift boat duty became much more interesting. When he received his third qualifying wound, the "war hero" took advantage of the policy allowing him to request a non-combat assignment. That would be in contrast to the non-war hero people who get wounded and do whatever they can to return to their units.
Bush did allegedly inquire into the possibility of active service in Vietnam but was turned down (wrong plane, insufficient hours).
