Roy F. Hoffmann | |
---|---|
Nickname(s) | "Latch" |
Service/ | United States Navy |
Rank | Rear Admiral |
Rear Admiral Roy F. "Latch" Hoffmann, U.S. Navy (retired) (1925-2022) was Chairman of the former Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, established May 4, 2004, in opposition to John Kerry's candidacy for U.S. President, and which disbanded on May 31, 2008. As a naval officer, he patrolled the Mekong Delta on swift boats during the Vietnam War. [1]
Hoffmann attended the University of Notre Dame. He was commissioned through the Naval ROTC program on June 1, 1946. [2]
In an article for Salon, Joe Conason described Hoffmann as "a cigar-chomping former Vietnam commander once described as 'the classic body-count guy' who 'wanted hooches destroyed and people killed.'" [3]
His awards included the Legion of Merit, Purple Heart, World War II Victory Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and Vietnam Service Medal.
Following his retirement from the Navy, he was a port director in Milwaukee, Wisconsin before being removed from the post. [4]
Hoffmann claimed he got involved with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth after reading Douglas Brinkley's book Tour of Duty, which, among other things, detailed Kerry's Swift Boat duty in Vietnam; he told The Washington Post , "I couldn't bear that someone was betraying us and being a dastardly liar. If I can be any more plain than that, I don't know." [5]
In 2009, the Admiral Roy F. Hoffmann Foundation ceased operations. [6]
Elmo Russell "Bud" Zumwalt Jr. was a United States Navy officer and the youngest person to serve as Chief of Naval Operations. As an admiral and later the 19th Chief of Naval Operations, Zumwalt played a major role in United States military history, especially during the Vietnam War. A decorated war veteran, Zumwalt reformed United States Navy personnel policies in an effort to improve enlisted life and ease racial tensions. After he retired from a 32-year navy career, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for the United States Senate.
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Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, formerly known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), was a political group of United States Swift boat veterans and former prisoners of war of the Vietnam War, formed during the 2004 presidential election campaign for the purpose of opposing John Kerry's candidacy for the presidency. The campaign inspired the widely used political pejorative "swiftboating", to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The group disbanded and ceased operations on May 31, 2008.
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Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry is a 2004 book about then U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi published by Regnery Publishing. The book was released at the time that ads by Swift Vets and POWs for Truth were being aired on U.S. television.
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During John Kerry's candidacy in the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, a political issue that gained widespread public attention was Kerry's Vietnam War record. In television advertisements and a book called Unfit for Command, co-authored by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), a 527 group later known as the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, questioned details of his military service record and circumstances relating to the awarding of his combat medals. Their campaign against Kerry's presidential bid received widespread publicity, but was later discredited and gave rise to the neologism "swiftboating", to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. Defenders of Kerry's service record, including former crewmates, stated that allegations made by SBVT were false.
The term swiftboating is a pejorative American neologism used to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The term is derived from the name of the organization "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" because of their widely publicized—and later discredited—campaign against 2004 U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry.
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