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yellowwing
08-10-04, 11:30 PM
http://www.ywg-web.com/images/kerreycrew.jpg
PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) 94 crew in March 1969, from left, Gene Thorson, David Alston, Thomas Belodeau, Del Sandusky and John Kerry.

Gene Thorson, ]By: Matt Neznanski, Staff Writer Ames Tribune (Iowa) July 19, 2004 (http://www.amestrib.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12393982&BRD=2035&PAG=461&dept_id=238101&rfi=6[/url)
Tribune: What do you do for the campaign?
Thorson: It's not just meeting with him...We (go) around talking to different groups. My main push is talking to veterans. I started here in Iowa, went to New Hampshire. I went to Tennessee, Kentucky, Virgin-ia, Georgia. So I've done some traveling.

David Alston, "In the toughest of situations, Lieutenant Kerry showed judgment, loyalty and courage," ]By: Bloomberg July 29, 2004 (http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=afcbTDsUiiNg&refer=top_world_news[/url)

Thomas Belodeau "I was part of that crew. I was with John when he won two of his three Purple Hearts in Vietnam," Belodeau said during a Statehouse rally in 1984. "John Kerry was a man of courage and conviction." www.lowellsun.com/Stories/0,1413,105~4746~2283563,00.html+%22Thomas+Belodeau %22&hl=en (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:nvHPeqZp2qMJ:]By: By JASON LEFFERTS, Sun Staff July 20, 2004

]By: By Stephen Braun, Los Angeles Times
August 8, 2004 (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04221/357838.stm[/url) The loyal band of Navy crewmen and gunboat officers who bonded with Kerry 35 years ago now campaign for him as a trusted fighter. "He got us psyched up to go out on patrol every day even though he needed it as much as we did," said Del Sandusky, one of Kerry's gunboat helmsmen.

NOT PICTURED
Gene Thorson '"These assertions are garbage," said Gene Thorson, who was part of Mr. Kerry's crew on PCF 94, one of two boats Mr. Kerry commanded during his time patrolling the Mekong Delta. ]By: Bill Sammon and Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES (http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040805-115811-6900r.htm[/url)

Not Pictures SBVT
Retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann, chairman and co-founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth:
May 6: "Hoffman acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to discredit Kerry's claims to valor and said that although Kerry was under his command, he really didn't know Kerry much personally." (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

August 4: "I knew him well enough to know him," Hoffman said. 'He's the most vain individual I've ever met - aloof and arrogant." (Scripps Howard News Service)

August 5: Hoffman said, "We were on the same operations, we were operating within 25-50 yards of him all the time, and for them to suggest we don't know John Kerry is pure old bull." (The New York Times)

August 5: In response to Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) denunciation of the ad, Hoffman "said they respected McCain's 'right to express his opinion and we hope he extends to us the same respect and courtesy, particularly since we served with John Kerry, we knew him well and Sen. McCain did not.'" (Associated Press)

August 5: Hoffman said, "I knew him well, because I operated very closely with him and, uh, many of the operations, uh, most of the operations were-were conducted with multiple boats" - a dramatic shift from admitting no personal knowledge of Kerry three months earlier; it went unchallenged by his host. (ABC Radio's Sean Hannity Show)


More of Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann:
From the May 28 edition of FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes:

COLMES: Roy, your group claims to be nonpartisan, but indeed, Merrie Spaeth, who as the spokesperson for your group, is a Republican operative. Clearly, this is an attempt to make sure Kerry doesn't become president. So it seems disingenuous to think that you don't have a political agenda.

HOFFMANN: Well, we do not have a political agenda. We -- we are actually made up of Republicans and Democrats.

Our thesis is just simply that Kerry is not fit to be the commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States. If you review his book, his biography, "Tour of Duty," by Douglas Brinkley, you'll see that he is -- very definitely has a bias against the military and there are all types of outrageous exaggerations...

COLMES: Well, I didn't get that from Doug Brinkley's book, but I want to put up on the screen something that was quoted in the "Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel" [5/6/04] about you just recently.

It said, "Hoffmann," meaning you, "acknowledged that he had," meaning you, "had no firsthand knowledge to discredit Kerry's claims to valor and said that although Kerry was under his command he really didn't know Kerry much personally."

Now if that's true, what gives you any credibility now in the heat of a presidential campaign to come after him?

HOFFMANN: Well, I can tell you that I did not know Kerry personally. I didn't ride the boat with him. But I was on many combat missions with boats in the same group against the same enemies at the same time, and I know enough about Kerry to feel very confident that he is not qualified.


Dr. Louis Letson: Dr Letsoo's claim that Kerry's scratch has been dimished by the fact that Letson was not the signatory Medical Officer. Hey Docs, how often does someone else sign off on someone elses medical treatments? Zero!

yellowwing
08-10-04, 11:39 PM
Are you going to believe the apparatchuk party line, KERRY HATES AMERICA, or the blood of those that were actually with him in that war in Vietnam. Close enough to sense each other's stench of fear sweat?

ivalis
08-11-04, 04:51 PM
Wng, don't confuse the wing nuts w/ the facts.

Bush pulled this same crap w/ McCain in S. Carolina.

Tell the same lie often enough it becomes the truth to the sheep.