Kerry and Bush have been running neck and neck in recent polls

NEW YORK, August 22 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The race to the White House gets frenzied as Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and incumbent George W. Bush have shifted the attention now to Vietnam veterans, who represent 20 percent of the eligible votes.

With the two candidates running neck and neck in key polls, Kerry found himself on the defensive as he took pains in refuting apparently Republican-driven campaign to cast doubt on his Vietnam record.

A recent ad shows a group of Vietnam veterans accusing Kerry of betraying US forces by opposing the war after he returned home and of lying to get at least two of his five medals, including the Silver Star.

After a new CBS poll showed Kerry's support among veterans slipping since the Democratic convention, the Kerry campaign filed a complaint Friday, August 20, with the Federal Election Commission, alleging the Swift Boat Veterans are coordinating their ads with the Bush campaign.

His campaign further gave reporters a flyer it said was obtained at a local Bush re-election headquarters in Florida, which trumpets the presence of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth at a pro-Bush rally.

But Kerry let out a sigh of relief Saturday, August 21, when William Rood, a journalist at the Chicago Tribune, who, like Kerry, commanded a Swift boat during the war, broke a 35-year silence about his service in the controversial conflict to defend the Democratic candidate.

“Kerry's critics, armed with stories I know to be untrue, have charged that the accounts of what happened were overblown,” Rood said in a first-person account of the February 28, 1969, mission in which Kerry won the Silver Star.

“Their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there,” Rood wrote in the Tribune.

‘We Are at War’

A frame grab shows part of the controversial ad with veteran Ken Cordier speaking

Attending back-to-back fundraisers late Saturday in ritzy beach communities outside New York City that raised $2 million for his White House bid, Kerry hit out at the Republican smear campaign, urging Bush to denounce the ad.

He said the ad is a bid to sabotage what he called growing voter support for his strategy to fight the war on terror.

“We're at war,” Reuters quoted Kerry as telling reporters.

“But this is a different kind of war from any kind of war we've fought before, and it's because in the last months they have seen me climbing in America's understanding that I know how to fight a smarter and more effective war, that's why they are trying to attack,” he said.

“That's why they are attacking my credibility. That's why they've personally gone after me.”

Kerry, a former Navy lieutenant, received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for his Vietnam service, which is central to his challenge to Bush as the country confronts terrorism and other threats.

Bush spent the war in the United States serving in the Texas Air National Guard. Some Democrats accuse Bush of going absent without leave, citing gaps in his attendance record.

The latest ad selects quotes from Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.

In the ad, Kerry says, “They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads," “randomly shot at civilians,” and “razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Kahn.”

The ad does not include Kerry's preface, in which he said he is reporting what others said at a Vietnam veterans conference.

Instead, a swift boat group member refers to the statements as “accusations” Kerry made against Vietnam veterans.

Kerry has said he regrets some of the comments but stands by his protests.