Gil Zemansky, 60, knows why John Kerry spoke out against the war in Vietnam.

“I was career Navy. I was in and out of Vietnam for three years,” said Zemansky, who lives in Lawrence. “When I got out, I was disenchanted, too. I had dealt with too many people who were more concerned about covering their rear ends than with getting the job done. I’d seen how the Navy and Army were being run, and I didn’t like it.”

Mustered out in 1971, Zemansky didn’t protest the war.

“For a long time,” he said, “I didn’t tell anybody I’d been over there. If asked, I’d answer a direct question, but it wasn’t something I’d bring up in a conversation. Vietnam wasn’t something you talked about.”

It is now, and Zemansky, a 1965 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, is ready to talk.

An active member of Veterans for Kerry, Zemansky spoke at an Aug. 13 “Bush Truth Squad” rally in Sioux City, Iowa. The event was aimed at countering claims Kerry has exaggerated his war record. Bush appeared in Sioux City the next day.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but I turned out to be the main speaker,” Zemansky said.

He said he did not know and had not met Kerry. But while serving in Vietnam, Zemansky was a senior adviser to South Vietnamese River Patrol Division 61. He spent his last year there on river patrol boats.

“They were called a Mark IIs,” he said. “It was like the boat in the movie ‘Apocalypse Now.'”

Zemansky

Kerry’s boat, Zemansky said, was different. “Ours was designed for river patrols, his was for coastal patrols.”

At the rally, Zemansky lashed out against Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the group’s ads accusing Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, of lying about his war record and betraying fellow veterans by later protesting the war.

“I said what they’re doing doesn’t have anything to do with the truth. It’s a smear campaign,” Zemansky said, adding, “I said I agreed with Sen. John McCain, who called the ads dishonest and dishonorable.”

Zemansky’s comments were reported in the Sioux City Journal and Des Moines Register newspapers.

The self-employed hydrologist said he was asked by the Democratic National Committee to speak at the rally. He was not paid.

“They said they might want me to do it again, and I said I would,” Zemansky said.

But while he’s willing, but he’s not comfortable.

“I’m a scientist, an engineer,” Zemansky said. “I like technical facts. I do not like being in part of a public scene, but this is something I think I have to be involved in. This is the most important election in my adult years.”

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