Swift Justice By Russ Vaughn

Bold John sailed forth in his faux scow,
Till the Swiftees fired across his bow;
And legions of irate attorneys,
Could not defend Cambodian journeys,
Nor stories of his fabled hat,
So voters sensed they smelled a rat.
And while the networks denied them prime,
The Swiftees surely got their time.

While John screamed it was all a smear,
O’Neill came across sincere,
And forced Big John to duck the press,
To run, to hide from his specious mess.
But relentless those old Swiftee guys,
They bit, hung on, exposed his lies.
These brave old warriors once again
Stood for their country, for their kin.

They made us all look one more time
At the traitor who’d charged them with crime,
And gave false witness to their deeds
For nothing more than political needs.
It’s a smear proclaimed the New York Times
Those liars all committed crimes.
Chris Matthews raged, foamed at the mouth,
Still the turncoat’s campaign headed south.

So the Swiftboat Veterans’ charges stuck
And made poor John a sitting duck.
He had no answers, no glib replies,
To cover up his treasonous lies;
That made us think, our minds aware,
The Swiftees had some truth in there;
What if he’d faked his combat valor,
Were all those medals tinged with pallor?

Dan Rather would not pay them heed,
But still the Swiftees made John bleed.
The mainstream pundits called them liars;
But no lefty slant could staunch these fires.
The blazes that these Swiftees set
Were burning John Boy’s ass you bet;
And those Swiftboat fires just burned away
Till they fried John’s ass on election day.

Now all you heroes on that Wall
Take solace seeing Kerry fall.
This scheming pol who stained your name
Has been denied his claim to fame.
The Swiftees stood and did their best,
Denied the traitor his life’s quest.
You can rest in peace our honored kin
Your honor restored by honorable men.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Other Russ Vaughn poems can be found in the sidebar here.