So who thought this whole Vietnam thing was a good idea for Kerry anyway?
Here is a timeline of the Kerry campaign for the month of August, collated by Chris Lynch. I think the term everyone is searching for is 'unmitigated disaster'.

I think Bob Dole sums things up effectively:

"One day he's saying that we were shooting civilians, cutting off their ears, cutting off their heads, throwing away his medals or his ribbons. The next day he's standing there, 'I want to be president because I'm a Vietnam veteran."

"Maybe he should apologize to all the other 2.5 million veterans who served. He wasn't the only one in Vietnam,"

More from Kerry, trying to 'help' I guess:

KERRY: "... in '92, I said to all the swift guys that I wasn't talking about the swifties [in the Winter Soldier testimony], I was talking about all the rest of the veterans."