Salon article on Demo Vets meeting

Cleland contrasted Kerry’s vow with Bush’s record. “You don’t create a shooting war and close veterans’ hospitals,” Cleland told the crowd. “You don’t avoid the war of your generation and then send another to die.”

Earlier in the event, one of Kerry’s Swift boat “brothers” vowed that, if Kerry called them for one last mission and said they were going to hell, “he’d have a full crew.”

Cleland took it one step further with harsh commentary on the incumbent and confident predictions for the future. “We’re not going to hell,” he said. “We’ve been to hell. Now we’re going to the White House.”