Tuesday, January 18, 2000
Section: EDITORIAL
Page: 13A
Illustration: Photo
[Jesse Ventura doll]

Bill Salisbury, Guest Columnist

Pioneer Press reporter Jim Ragsdale's Dec. 15 article, "Ventura was a true SEAL, say defenders," finally caught up with me in San Diego. I see I've been burned by a little St. Paul home cookin'.

Ragsdale's article fairly represents my position that Gov. Jesse Ventura deceives the public and insults the memory of real SEALS when he claims to have been a member of that elite U.S. Navy group.

However, apart from my quotes, Ragsdale chooses to let his readers hear only from three of Ventura's defenders - two of whom are not even SEALS. He does not quote from the SEALS in my article who also castigate Ventura for his deception. Consequently, the article unfairly makes me appear as a lone wolf howling in the Minnesota wilderness.

Ventura's defenders cited by Ragsdale include a writer who makes his living retelling often self-serving stories he's been told by SEALS and frogmen and a public-affairs weenie at the Navy's Special Warfare Command who gives not an official but a "personal" opinion that I'm splitting hairs.

The Navy p.r. man also makes the extraordinary claim that "a SEAL doesn't care if another SEAL hasn't been in combat." If that's so, then why all the medals SEALS and other military people wear to distinguish those who have been in combat from those who have not?

As a 16-year veteran of SEAL service that included tours as officer-in-charge of a SEAL Team 1 detachment in Vietnam, executive officer of SEAL Team 2 and commanding officer of UDT 11 (now SEAL Team 5, but I never say I commanded SEAL Team 5), I assure you SEALS care a great deal about who did and who did not see combat.

Finally, Ragsdale quotes Larry Bailey as calling me a "liar and hoaxter." Bailey's nose is out of joint because I condemn him as a sycophant who covers for Ventura. I also expose the deception foisted on the public in a TV biography of Ventura during which Bailey is inaccurately identified as Ventura's former commanding officer. Bailey never commanded an Underwater Demolition or SEAL Team.

The men Ragsdale chose not to quote who appear in my article include Dick Ray (Silver Star, Purple Heart); Ed Gill (Silver Star, Purple Heart); "Jake" (Silver Star, Purple Heart); Artie Ruiz (Bronze Star, Purple Heart). I also told Ragsdale that most of my information about Ventura as a frogman came from one of his commanding officers. (I declined to name the CO - not because he spoke on condition of anonymity, but because I wanted to spare him incessant demands for interviews.)

The CO gave me the UDT 12 cruise book, which was the source of photos that illustrate my article. The cruise book, which chronicles what UDT 12 did during its deployment, mentions Ventura (Jim Janos) only once: It notes Janos played basketball in the Philippines on the UDT 12 team. That’s it; nothing at all about combat action.

Ventura's former CO - who also was Bailey's boss - said Ventura had never been a SEAL and was wrong to claim otherwise.

After my article appeared, I was contacted by many, many old Frogs and SEALS who congratulated me on the expose. Chief among these was Ventura's friend and BUD/S classmate, Stan Antrim. (Antrim, unlike Ventura, went from BUD/S to SEALs and had no trouble making a combat deployment.)

Are the men I name above who join me in condemning Jesse "the Great Pretender" also liars and hoaxters, Larry?

Ragsdale wrote that I was taking most of the "pummeling" over the issue of whether Ventura had been a SEAL during the war. Add up the numbers and qualifications of those I identify as my supporters and compare them with the three people Ragsdale features. Who is being pummeled most by whom, Jim?

Bill Salisbury (no relation to the Pioneer Press reporter of the same name) is a writer, lawyer and former SEAL from the San Diego area. His article contesting Ventura's claims to SEALhood was published in the Dec. 2, 1999, San Diego Reader.