Who Is John Kerry?

[thedrifter]

Human Events Exclusive:
Vietnam Vets Organization Blasts Kerry in New TV Ad

HUMAN EVENTS has obtained a copy of a scorching new television advertisement addressing Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's record in Vietnam that has been produced by Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth. The group is a non-partisan "527" organization whose membership is limited to former military officers and enlisted men who served in Vietnam on Navy Swift Boats or affiliated commands. The group says, "Senator Kerry misrepresented his own actions and those of his fellow officers and men." Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is chaired by Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman, USN (ret), and includes on its steering committee John O'Neill,...



http://humaneventsonline.com.edgesui...video_wmv.html


Ellie

[enviro]

Awesome

[thedrifter]

Kevin McCullough
Radio Talk Show Host, Syndicated Columnist, and past recipient of the Tesla and Marconi Awards

Wednesday, August 4, 2004

KMC EXCLUSIVE: Kerry was asked to leave Vietnam

MEDIA MAY REPRODUCE AUDIO WITHOUT PERMISSION - PLEASE CREDIT: "The Kevin McCullough Show - Salem Communications/New York"

JOHN KERRY'S FORMER COMMANDING OFFICER ADMITS TO "KEVIN MCCULLOUGH SHOW" TODAY THAT HE ASKED KERRY TO LEAVE FOLLOWING THE ISSUANCE OF THIRD PURPLE HEART.

~5:40pm~ EST
HEAR THE ACTUAL AUDIO: Lt. Thomas Wright admitted to me on the air today several exclusive and revealing looks at the Vietnam service of John Kerry.

Wright's first claim was that as his former commanding offcier, Wright frequently had to confront Kerry over willful disobedience to orders aboard Swift Boat patrols.

On frequent occasions Wright stated that Kerry would randomly fire at "things he thought were moving" along the shoreline. Wright stated that the protocol was only to fire when the unit was receiving hostile fire. Wright explained that part of the Swift Boat patrol's goal was to develop contacts with non-combatants living along the rivers being patrolled.

Wright pointed out that firing on the people you were meant to develop contacts with generally worked against the goals.

Wright also points out that when confronted about his defiance of patrol rules, Kerry would make claims of not hearing the orders, knowing the protocols or "thinking that he saw something".

Wright's boldest claim was that after Kerry had in fact received his third purple heart, Wright along with two other ranking officers basically flat out asked Kerry to leave Vietnam. The reason being his behavior continually put the group in greater vulnerability and danger.

According to Wright, Kerry claimed he would not leave, "but was out of there by morning."


http://kmclive.com/


Ellie

[thedrifter]

With pals like Dean, Kerry's in trouble
By Boston Herald editorial staff
Tuesday, August 3, 2004

We have one question for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry: Why is Howard Dean [related, bio] still associated with your campaign?

Dean's comments over the weekend, insinuating that the Bush administration was playing politics with the latest terror threat, should not only be harshly criticized by Kerry, it's reason enough to demand Dean stop campaigning for the Kerry/Edwards ticket.

``How much of this is real and how much of this is politics?'' Dean said on CNN Sunday. ``Every time something happens that's not good for President Bush [related, bio] he plays his trump card, which is terrorism.''

Dean didn't bother to reconcile his vile accusation with the fact that senior intelligence officials have said much of the detail of the planned attacks on financial centers had been gathered in ``the past 36 hours.''

``There may be more to come,'' according to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. But officials decided, ``We better get out with what we know now.''

And why would that be? To step on a purported post-convention bounce for Kerry? How blinded by partisan cynicism can Howard Dean be?

The information outlined by federal officials Sunday included these security specifics about the New York Stock Exchange, CitiGroup Center, Prudential Financial, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund: Security camera placement, pedestrian traffic, structural features that might ``prevent the buildings from toppling down,'' and the degree of incline of entrances to underground garages.

The level of detail is chilling to the bone. It would have been a total dereliction of duty for federal officials not to share that information immediately.

Sen. Joe Lieberman said, ``I don't think anybody who is in their right mind would think the president or the secretary of homeland security would raise an alert level and scare people for political purposes. That's outrageous.''

Howard Dean is a fool and worse, he's a dangerous fool. Fortunately, Democratic primary voters saw that. Doesn't the man who touted his own judgment and experience at the Democratic National Convention last week see it, too? We've yet to hear a peep out of John Kerry [related, bio] denouncing Dean's comments. And that, too, is outrageous.

http://news.bostonherald.com/opinion...99&format=text


Ellie

[Sparrowhawk]

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THU AUG 04, 2004 10:14:25 ET XXXXX

VETS CHARGE: KERRY KILLED FLEEING TEEN; LIED FOR MEDAL

Slaughters Animals, Burns Down Tiny Village

**Exclusive**

A veterans group seeking to deeply discredit Democrat John Kerry's military service will charge in the new bombshell book UNFIT FOR COMMAND:

"Kerry earned his Silver Star by killing a lone, fleeing, teenage Viet Cong in a loincloth."

"And if Kerry's superiors had known the truth at the time, they would never have recommended him for the medal."

The book also claims to detail how Kerry personally ordered the slaughter of small animals at a small hamlet along the Song Bo De River.

MORE

The book, set for release next week, hit #1 on the AMAZON hitparade after the DRUDGE REPORT revealed details of the book -- a book the Kerry camapign believes is the"the dirtiest of all dirty tricks ever played on a candidate for the presidency."

The Kerry campaign is planning to vigorously counter the charges and will accuse the veteran's groups of being well-financed by a top Bush donor from Texas.

The vets have launched a blistering new TV commercial questioning Kerry's honor and calling him a liar.

MORE

George Bates, an officer in Coastal Division 11, participated in numerous operations with Kerry. In UNFIT FOR COMMAND, Bates recalls a particular patrol with Kerry on the Song Bo De River. He is still "haunted" by the incident:

With Kerry in the lead, the boats approached a small hamlet with three or four grass huts. Pigs and chickens were milling around peacefully. As the boats drew closer, the villagers fled. There were no political symbols or flags in evidence in the tiny village. It was obvious to Bates that existing policies, decency, and good sense required the boats to simply move on.

Instead, Kerry beached his boat directly in the small settlement. Upon his command, the numerous small animals were slaughtered by heavy-caliber machine guns. Acting more like a pirate than a naval officer, Kerry disembarked and ran around with a Zippo lighter, burning up the entire hamlet.

Bates has never forgotten Kerry's actions.

MORE

UNFIT FOR COMMAND, DRUDGE has learned, claims Kerry "earned his Silver Star by killing a lone, fleeing, teenage Viet Cong in a loincloth."

ARE THE VETS TELLING THE TRUTH?

"They hired a ******* private investigator to dig up trash!" charged a top Kerry adviser traveling with the senator late Tuesday. "This is pay for play... How low can they go?"

Kerry supporters are comparing the effort by the veterans to the Arkansas State troopers tell-all against Bill Clinton.

MORE

John O'Neill, co-author of UNFIT FOR COMMAND, believes that "Kerry's Star would never have been awarded had his actions been reviewed through normal channels. In his case, he was awarded the medal two days after the incident with no review. The medal was arranged to boost the morale of Coastal Division 11, but it was based on false and incomplete information provided by Kerry himself."

According to Kerry's Silver Star citation, Kerry was in command of a three-boat mission on the Dong Cung River. As the boats approached the target area, they came under intense enemy fire. Kerry ordered his boat to attack and all boats opened fire. He then beached directly in front of the enemy ambushers. In the battle that followed, the crews captured enemy weapons. His boat then moved further up the river to suppress more enemy fire. A rocket exploded near Kerry's boat, and he ordered to charge the enemy. Kerry beached his boat 10 feet from the rocket position and led a landing party ashore to pursue the enemy.

Kerry' citation reads: "The extraordinary daring and personal courage of Lt. Kerry in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire were responsible for the highly successful mission."

Here's what O'Neill and the Swiftees say: "According to Kerry's crewman Michael Madeiros, Kerry had an agreement with him to turn the boat in and onto the beach if fired upon. Each of the three boats involved in the operation was involved in the agreement." O'Neill writes that one crewman even recalls a discussion of probable medals.

Doug Reese, a pro Kerry Army veteran, recounted what happened that day to O'Neill, "Far from being alone, the boats were loaded with many soldiers commanded by Reese and two other advisors. When fired at, Reese's boat--not Kerry's--was the first to beach in the ambush zone. Then Reese and other troops and advisors (not Kerry) disembarked, killing a number of Viet Cong and capturing a number of weapons. None of the participants from Reese's boat received Silver Stars.

O'Neill continues: "Kerry's boat moved slightly downstream and was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. . . .A young Viet Cong in a loincloth popped out of a hole, clutching a grenade launcher, which may or may not have been loaded. . . Tom Belodeau, a forward gunner, shot the Viet Cong with an M-60 machine gun in the leg as he fled. . . . Kerry and Medeiros (who had many troops in their boat) took off, perhaps with others, and followed the young Viet Cong and shot him in the back, behind a lean to."

O'Neill concludes "Whether Kerry's dispatching of a fleeing, wounded, armed or unarmed teenage enemy was in accordance with the customs of war, it is very clear that many Vietnam veterans and most Swiftees do not consider this action to be the stuff of which medals of any kind are awarded; nor would it even be a good story if told in the cold details of reality. There is no indication that Kerry ever reported that the Viet Cong was wounded and fleeing when dispatched. Likewise, the citation simply ignores the presence of the soldiers and advisors who actually 'captured the enemy weapons' and routed the Viet Cong. . . . [and] that Kerry attacked a 'numerically superior force in the face of intense fire' is simply false. There was little or no fire after Kerry followed the plan. . . . The lone, wounded, fleeing young Viet Cong in a loincloth was hardly a force superior to the heavily armed Swift Boat and its crew and the soldiers carried aboard."

DRUDGE learns from UNFIT FOR COMMAND that if Kerry's superior officers knew the truth, they would never have recommended the award:

"Admiral Roy Hoffmann, who sent a Bravo Zulu (meaning "good work"), to Kerry upon learning of the incident, was very surprised to discover in 2004 what had actually occurred. Hoffmann had been told that Kerry had spontaneously beached next to the bunker and almost single-handedly routed a bunkered force in Viet Cong. He was shocked to find out that Kerry had beached his boat second in a preplanned operation, and that he had killed a single, wounded teenage foe as he fled."

"Commander Geoge Elliott, who wrote up the initial draft of Kerry's Silver Star citation, confirms that neither he, nor anyone else in the Silver Star process that he knows, realized before 1996 that Kerry was facing a single, wounded young Viet Cong fleeing in a loincloth. While Commander Elliott and many other Swiftees believe that Kerry committed no crime in killing the fleeing, wounded enemy (with a loaded or empty launcher), others feel differently. Commander Elliott indicates that a Silver Star recommendation would not have been made by him had he been aware of the actual facts."

Developing....

[thedrifter]

Challenging Kerry on his Iraq vote
By Scott Ritter | August 5, 2004

WITH THE release last month of the report by the Senate Select Committee on intelligence and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, John Kerry was handed a gift that rarely occurs in a major political race: the chance to underscore a major failing on the part of an opponent. The committee found that there was no intelligence data to sustain President Bush's oft-cited reason for last year's invasion of Iraq -- the presence of WMDs and ongoing projects dedicated to their manufacture. Kerry said that the Bush administration had been "wrong, and soldiers lost their lives because they were wrong."

But Kerry failed to address that he was also wrong and that it was his leadership in the Senate that enabled President Bush to oversee the most flagrant abrogation of congressional constitutional responsibilities in modern time, the October 2002 vote to give Bush power to wage war against Iraq without assuring that there was a clear and present threat to the United States. It is Kerry's yes vote that calls into question the character of the man who wants to replace Bush in the White House.

When asked if he would agree with other Democratic senators who said they would not have voted to give Bush war powers authority if they had known about the lack of intelligence on WMD, Kerry let his vice presidential nominee, Senator John Edwards, speak for him: "I'm not going to go back and answer hypothetical questions about what I would have done had I known this." Kerry concurred with Edwards, adding, "The vote is not today, and that's it."

More than 900 American troops in Iraq are dead and more than 5,000 wounded as a result of that vote, numbers that are sure to go higher. Kerry cannot honestly say he was not aware of the paucity of verifiable intelligence concerning the existence of WMD in Iraq on the eve of war. I personally discussed this matter with Kerry in April 2000 and again with his senior staff in June 2002. I asked Kerry to allow me to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during its hearing on Iraq in July-August 2002 but was denied. Kerry knew that there was a viable case to be made to debunk the president's statements regarding the threat posed by Iraq's WMD, but he chose not to act on it.

As a lifelong Republican who voted for Bush, I have made it my personal goal to make sure that he does not survive his first term because of his decision to go to war with Iraq without any legitimate justification. However, I believe there are many people, especially disenchanted Republicans like myself, who even though we reject Bush are looking for a good reason to vote for Kerry. Bush's elective war with Iraq provides that reason, if only Kerry could find a way to separate himself from the Bush record that does not insult the intellect and integrity of the electorate.

Kerry claims he voted for the war resolution to give Bush the support needed to win over much-needed international support to confront Saddam. According to Kerry, Bush failed to do this. "With a new president," Kerry pronounced during his acceptance speech last week at the Democratic National Convention, "who strengthens and leads our alliances, we can get NATO to help secure Iraq. We can ensure that Iraq's neighbors like Syria and Iran, don't stand in the way of a democratic Iraq. We can help Iraq's economy by getting other countries to forgive their enormous debt and participate in the reconstruction."

However, a prerequisite for getting such support rests on the legitimacy of the conflict with Iraq. This legitimacy hinged on Saddam's possession of WMDs in violation of Security Council resolutions, a notion that has been totally discredited. Kerry can quibble about the hypothetical nature of looking back on his decision to vote for war, but one must question how Kerry plans to enlist support for a war that not only has been proven to be without justification but violates the very principles of international law one presumes would serve as the rallying cry for garnering international support to begin with.

Kerry needs to publicly reexamine the reasoning for his vote for war and articulate a clear strategy for Iraq that includes not only a plan for reengagement with the international community but also disengagement of American soldiers.

These are real issues that must be addressed directly if Kerry plans on winning the votes of the many Republicans who have been put off by the disingenuous nature of Bush's war in Iraq. To brush them off as hypothetical puts Kerry on the same hypocritical plane as President Bush when it comes to Iraq, something that will not endear him to the legions of crossover voters he needs to win the presidency.

Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, is author of "Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America."

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/edi...his_iraq_vote/


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Four months in Vietnam won't cut it
Ben Shapiro

John Kerry served in Vietnam.

And I couldn't care less.

I was born in 1984, over eight years after the end of the Vietnam War. The fact that John Kerry served in the Navy on a swift boat for four months means little to me, beyond the fact that I'm grateful for the service of any veteran -- even if that service was clearly an excuse to bulk up a resume.

John Kerry was anti-war before he ever set foot in Vietnam, so the idea that he became pacifistic only after seeing the horrors of war is baloney. In 1966, two years before Kerry entered the Gulf of Tonkin, he told his graduating class at Yale that "The United States must, I think, bring itself to understand that the policy of intervention that was right for Western Europe does not and cannot find the same application to the rest of the world."

In any case, I'm far more concerned with John Kerry's record since he got back to the United States. His record starts with stabbing in the back American soldiers who were still under fire. In 1971, he told Congress that American military members "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, (blew) up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam ... "

Hilariously, Kerry has attempted to build his 2004 presidential campaign on the idea that he was a famous war hero. Kerry infamously intoned upon reaching the stage at the Democratic National Convention: "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty." In his nomination acceptance speech, Kerry referred to his Vietnam service no fewer than eight times. He didn't refer to his 1971 testimony before Congress once.

But the fact remains that had Kerry not defamed American troops, he would be an obscure war veteran, not a presidential candidate. To ignore this essential element of Kerry's history is to overlook his opportunism. If experiencing enemy fire makes you a better president, being a selfish mercenary surely makes you a worse one.

Despite his encouragement to judge him by his record, during his acceptance speech, Kerry completely overlooked his tenure as Massachusetts lieutenant governor under Michael Dukakis. He explicitly mentioned his Senate service a grand total of one time and even then only mentioned three policies he pursued. This is a man obviously attempting to escape his record -- which is why he can only point to his four months of service in Vietnam.

Kerry believes Americans are children who will accept platitudes over substance, who will overlook 30 years of radical liberalism in favor of four months in Vietnam. We are not. Whether "help is on the way" or whether Kerry is campaigning for "a stronger America," Americans want real policy solutions, not tired one-liners. And merely hearkening back to Vietnam, when candidate Kerry led men into combat -- men whom he would later slander -- won't do the trick. Those voters within my general age range especially refuse to look back years before our births to find the last recorded example of Kerry's honorability.

It's much easier and much more accurate to examine Kerry's actions in the past few years. In fact, let's simply scrutinize the key point in Kerry's acceptance speech: "I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to."

The idea that elective war must be denounced is absurd. Yet Kerry reiterated this ridiculous idea, stating: "Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response."

Apparently, Kerry believes that only a direct attack on the United States justifies war, which would invalidate every major American military action since 1900 aside from World War II in the Pacific sphere and the Afghanistan war. In John Kerry's world, Americans have to die in Los Angeles or New York or Chicago or Washington, D.C., before the American military can defang the monster.

That solution is unacceptable. John Kerry can talk all he likes about avoiding military engagements around the world. But fighting abroad is certainly a better solution than watching as more American buildings become smoking rubble -- or standing by as millions die from the effects of a biological or dirty-bomb attack. No amount of posturing about service in Vietnam can justify Kerry's lack of a pre-emptive strategy. And I'm not willing to risk that a President John Kerry would prevent such an attack, just because he spent four months on a swift boat.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/b...20040804.shtml


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Any Questions?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Edwards: "If you have any question about what John Kerry is made of, just spend 3 minutes with the men who served with him."

Al French: "I served with John Kerry."

Bob Elder: "I served with John Kerry."

George Elliott: "John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam."

Al French: "He is lying about his record."

Louis Letson: "I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury."

Van O'Dell: "John Kerry lied to get his bronze star ... I know, I was there, I saw what happened."

Jack Chenoweth: "His account of what happened and what actually happened are the difference between night and day."

Admiral Hoffman: "John Kerry has not been honest."

Adrian Lonsdale: "And he lacks the capacity to lead."

Larry Thurlow: "When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry."

Bob Elder: "John Kerry is no war hero."

Grant Hibbard: "He betrayed all his shipmates ... he lied before the Senate."

Shelton White: "John Kerry betrayed the men and women he served with in Vietnam."

Joe Ponder: "He dishonored his country ... he most certainly did."

Bob Hildreth: "I served with John Kerry ...

Bob Hildreth (off-camera): John Kerry cannot be trusted."

Announcer: "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is responsible for the content of this advertisement."






http://www.swiftvets.com/script.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

"Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER THREE ~ THE PURPLE HEART HUNTER

"Many took exception to the Purple Hearts awarded to Kerry. His `wounds' were suspect, so insignificant as to not be worthy of the award of such a medal. That Kerry would seek the Purple Heart for such `wounds' is a mockery of the intent of the Purple Heart and an abridgement of the valor of those to whom the Purple Heart had been awarded with justification." --- WILLIAM FRANKE, Swift Boat veteran

A normal tour of duty in Vietnam was at least one year for all personnel. Many sailors, like Tom Wright (who would later object to operating with Kerry in Vietnam) and Steven Gardner (the gunner's mate who sat behind and above Kerry for most of his Vietnam stay and came to regard him as incompetent and dishonest), stayed for longer periods either because of the special needs of the Navy or because they had volunteered to do so. With very few exceptions in the history of Swift Boats in Vietnam, everyone served a one-year tour unless he was seriously wounded. One exception was John Kerry, who requested to leave Vietnam after four months, citing an obscure regulation that permitted release of personnel with three Purple Hearts. John Kerry is also the only known Swiftee who received the Purple Heart for a self-inflicted wound.

None of Kerry's Purple Hearts were for serious injuries. They were concededly minor scratches at best, resulting in no lost duty time. Each Purple Heart decoration is very controversial, with considerable evidence (and in two of the cases, with incontrovertible and conclusive evidence) that the minor injuries were caused by Kerry's own hand and were not the result of hostile fire of any kind. They are a subject of ridicule within our unit. "I did get cut a few times, but I forgot to recommend myself for a Purple Heart. Sorry about that," wrote John Howland, a boat commander with call sign "Gremlin."1

Moreover, many Swiftees have now come forth to question Kerry's deception. "I was there the entire time Kerry was and witnessed two of his war `wounds.' I was also present during the action [in which] he received his Bronze Star. I know what a fraud he is. How can I help?" wrote Van Odell, a gunner from Kerry's unit in An Thoi.2 Commander John Kipp, USN (retired), of Coastal Division 13 also volunteered, "If there is anything I can do to unmask this charlatan, please let me know. He brings disgrace to all who served."

Swiftees have remarked that, if Kerry faked even one of these awards, he owes the Navy 243 additional days in Vietnam before he runs for anything. In a unit where terribly wounded personnel like Shelton White (now an undersea film producer who records specials for National Geographic) chose to return to duty after three wounds on the same day, Kerry's actions were disgraceful. Indeed, many share the feelings of Admiral Roy Hoffmann, to whom all Swiftees reported: Kerry simply "bugged out" when the heat was on.

For military personnel no medal or award (with the exception of the Congressional Medal of Honor) holds the significance of the Purple Heart. John O'Neill remembers witnessing, as a five-year-old child, the presentation of the Purple Heart to his widowed aunt, standing with her five children, at a memorial service for his uncle, a fighter pilot lost in Korea. Many remember the Purple Heart pinned on the pillows of the badly wounded in military hospitals throughout the world during America's wars in defense of freedom. For this reason, there were those in Coastal Division 11 who turned down Purple Hearts because, when the medals were offered, these honorable men felt they did not really deserve them. Veteran Gary Townsend wrote, "I was on PCF 3 [from] 1969 to 1970...I also turned down a Purple Heart award (which required seven stitches) offered to me while in Nam because I thought a little cut was insignificant as to what others had suffered to get theirs."3

To cheat by getting a Purple Heart from a self-inflicted wound would be regarded as befitting the lowest levels of military conduct. To use such a faked award to leave a combat sector early would be lower yet. Finally, to make or use faked awards as the basis for running for president of the United States, while faulting one's political opponents for not having similar military decorations, would represent unbelievable hypocrisy and the truly bottom rung of human conduct. Anyone engaging in such conduct would be unfit for even the lowest rank in the Navy, to say nothing of the commander in chief.

The Purple Heart Adventure in the Boston Whaler

JOHN KERRY'S STORY

John Kerry's website presents his first Purple Heart incident in typical heroic fashion: "December 2, 1968--Kerry experiences first intense combat; receives first combat related injury."4

As Kerry described the situation to Brinkley, who recounts the event in Tour of Duty, he grew bored in his first two weeks in Vietnam while awaiting the assignment of his own boat. So he volunteered for a "special mission" on a boat the Navy calls a skimmer but which Kerry knew as a "Boston whaler." The craft was a foam-filled boat, not a PCF Swift Boat. Kerry and two enlisted men were patrolling that night, as Kerry described it, "the shore off a Viet Cong*infested peninsula north of Cam Ranh." Kerry claims that he and his two crew members spent the night being "scared ****less," creeping up in the darkness on fishermen in sampans. They feared that the fishermen in sampans with no lights might be Viet Cong. According to Kerry, the action started early in the morning, around 2 or 3 a.m., when it was still dark. Here are Kerry's words, quoted by Brinkley:

The jungle closed in on us on both sides. It was scary as hell. You could hear yourself breathing. We were almost touching the shore. Suddenly, through the magnified moonlight of the infrared "starlight scope," I watched, mesmerized, as a group of sampans glided in toward the shore. We had been briefed that this was a favorite crossing area for VC trafficking contraband.5

Kerry reports that he turned off the motor and paddled the Boston Whaler out of the inlet into the bay. Then he saw the Vietnamese pull their sampans onto the beach; they began to unload something. Kerry decided to light a flare to illuminate the area. The entire sky seemed to explode into daylight. The men from the sampans bolted erect, stiff with shock for only an instant before they sprang for cover like a herd of panicked gazelles [Kerry] had once seen on TV's "Wild Kingdom." We opened fire...The light from the flares started to fade, the air was full of explosions. My M-16 jammed, and as I bent down in the boat to grab another gun, a stinging piece of heat socked into my arm and just seemed to burn like hell. By this time one of the sailors had started the engine and we ran by the beach, strafing it. Then it was quiet.6

That was the entire action. As Kerry explained to Brinkley, he was not about to go chasing after the Vietnamese running away. "We stayed quiet and low because we did not want to illuminate ourselves at this point," Kerry explains.

In the dead of night, without any knowledge of what kind of force was there, we were not all about to go crawling on the beach to get our asses shot off. We were unprotected; we didn't have ammunition; we didn't have cover; we just weren't prepared for that....So we first shot the sampans so that they were destroyed and whatever was in them was destroyed.7

In the introduction of the incident in the book, Kerry said that it "was a half-assed action that hardly qualified as combat, but it was my first, and that made it exciting." Kerry and his crew loaded their gear in the Swift Boat that was there to cover them, and with the Boston Whaler in tow, they headed back to Cam Ranh Bay. Brinkley ends his discussion by quoting Kerry's summary, an account that again paints a larger-than-life picture:

"I felt terribly seasoned after this minor skirmish, but since I couldn't put my finger on what we had really accomplished or on what had happened, it was difficult to feel satisfied," Kerry recalled. "I never saw where the piece of shrapnel had come from, and the vision of the men running like gazelles haunted me. It seemed stupid. My gunner didn't know where the people were when he first started firing. The M-16 bullets had kicked up the sand way to the right of them as he sprayed the beach, slowly walking the line of fire over to where the men had been leaping for cover. I had been shouting directions and trying to unjam my gun. The third crewman was locked in a personal struggle with the engine, trying to start it. I just shook my head and said, `Jesus Christ.' It made me wonder if a year of training was worth anything." Nevertheless, the episode introduced Kerry to combat with the VC and earned him a Purple Heart.8

THE BOSTON GLOBE'S ACCOUNT

A somewhat different version is recounted in the Kerry biography written by the Boston Globe reporters. In this account, Kerry had emphasized that he was patrolling with the Boston Whaler in a free-fire curfew zone, and that "anyone violating the curfew could be considered an enemy and shot."9

continued........

[thedrifter]

By the time the Globe biography was written, questions had been raised about whether the incident involved any enemy fire at all. The Globe reporters covered this point as follows:

The Kerry campaign showed the Boston Globe a one-page document listing Kerry's medical treatment during some of his service time. The notation said: "3 DEC 1968 U.S. NAVAL SUPPORT FACILITY CAM RANH BAY RVN FPO Shrapnel in left arm above elbow. Shrapnel removed and apply Bacitracin dressing. Ret to duty."

The Globe asked the campaign whether Kerry was certain that he received enemy fire and whether Kerry remembers the Purple Heart being questioned by a superior officer. The campaign did not respond to those specific questions and, instead, provided a written statement about the fact that the Navy did find the action worthy of a Purple Heart.10

The two men serving alongside Kerry that night had similar memories of the incident that led to Kerry's first wartime injury. William Zaldonis, who was manning an M-60, and Patrick Runyon, operating the engine, said they spotted some people running from a sampan to a nearby shoreline. When they refused to obey a call to stop, Kerry's crew began shooting. "When John told me to open up, I opened up," Zaldonis recalled. Zaldonis and Runyon both said they were too busy to notice how Kerry was hit. "I assume they fired back," Zaldonis said. "If you can picture me holding an M-60 machine gun and firing it--what do I see? Nothing. If they were firing at us, it was hard for me to tell."

Runyon, too, said that he assumed the suspected Viet Cong fired back because Kerry was hit by a piece of shrapnel. "When you have a lot of shooting going on, a lot of noise, you are scared, the adrenaline is up," Runyon said. "I can't say for sure that we got return fire or how [Kerry] got nicked. I couldn't say one way or the other. I know he did get nicked, a scrape on the arm."11

In a separate conversation, Runyon related that he never knew Kerry was wounded. So even in the Globe biography accounting, it was not clear that there was any enemy fire, just a question about how Kerry might have been hit with shrapnel.

The Globe reporters noted that, upon the group's return to base, Kerry's commander, Grant Hibbard, was very skeptical about the injury. The Globe account also quoted William Schachte, the officer in command for the operation. As the Globe reporters recount, Another person involved that day was William Schachte, who over-saw the mission and went on to become an admiral. In 2003, Schachte responded: `It was not a very serious wound at all.'12

Still, on Sunday, April 18, 2004, when NBC correspondent Tim Russert questioned Kerry on national television about the skimmer incident, Kerry described the incident as "the most frightening night" of his Vietnam experience. The Globe reporters noted that Kerry had declined to be interviewed about the Boston Whaler incident for their book. Kerry's refusal to be interviewed may well have been because witnesses such as Commander Hibbard, Dr. Louis Letson, Rear Admiral William Schachte, and others had begun to surface, and Kerry's fabricated story of "the most frightening night" had begun to unravel.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

The truth is that at the time of this incident Kerry was an officer in command (OinC) under training, aboard the skimmer using the call sign "Robin" on the operation, with now-Rear Admiral William Schachte using the call sign "Batman," who was also on the skimmer.

After Kerry's M-16 jammed, Kerry picked up an M-79 grenade launcher and fired a grenade too close, causing a tiny piece of shrapnel (one to two centimeters) to barely stick in his arm. Schachte berated Kerry for almost putting someone's eye out. There was no hostile fire of any kind, nor did Kerry on the way back mention to PCF OinC Mike Voss, who commanded the PCF that had towed the skimmer, that he was wounded. There was no report of any hostile fire that day (as would be required), nor do the records at Cam Ranh Bay reveal any such hostile fire. No other records reflect any hostile fire. There is also no casualty report, as would have been required had there actually been a casualty.

Following "the most frightening night" of his life, to the surprise of both Schachte and the treating doctor, Louis Letson, Kerry managed to keep the tiny hanging fragment barely embedded in his arm until he arrived at sickbay a number of miles away and a considerable time later, where he was examined by Dr. Letson. Dr. Letson, who has never forgotten the experience, reported it to his Democratic county chairman early in the 2004 primary campaign. When Kerry appeared at sickbay, Dr. Letson asked, "Why are you here?" in surprise, observing Kerry's unimpressive scratch. Kerry answered, "I've been wounded by hostile fire." Accompanying crewmen then told Dr. Letson that Kerry had wounded himself. Dr. Letson used tweezers to remove the tiny fragment, which he identified as shrapnel like that from an M-79 (not from a rifle bullet, etc.), and put a small bandage on Kerry's arm.

The following morning Kerry appeared at the office of Coastal Division 14 Commander Grant Hibbard and applied for the Purple Heart. Hibbard, who had learned from Schachte of the absence of hostile fire and self-infliction of the "wound" by Kerry himself, looked down at the tiny scratch (which he said was smaller than a rose thorn prick) and turned down the award since there was no hostile fire.13

When we interviewed Grant Hibbard for this book, he was equally emphatic that Kerry's slight injury, in his opinion, could not possibly merit the Purple Heart:

Q: When did you first meet John Kerry?

GH: Kerry reported to my division in November 1968. I didn't know him from Adam.

Q: Can you describe the mission in which Kerry got his first Purple Heart?

GH: Kerry requested permission to go on a skimmer operation with Lieutenant Schachte, my most senior and trusted lieutenant, using a Boston Whaler to try to interdict a Viet Cong movement of arms and munitions. The next morning at the briefing, I was informed that no enemy fire had been received on that mission. Our units had fired on some VC units running on the beach. We were all in my office, some of the crew members, I remember Schachte being there. This was thirty-six years ago; it really didn't seem all that important at the time. Here was this lieutenant, junior grade, who was saying "I got wounded," and everybody else, the crew that were present were saying, "We didn't get any fire. We don't know how he got the scratch." Kerry showed me the scratch on his arm. I hadn't been informed that he had any medical treatment. The scratch didn't look like much to me; I've seen worse injuries from a rose thorn.

Q: Did Kerry want you to recommend him for a Purple Heart?

GH: Yes, that was his whole point. He had this little piece of shrapnel in his hand. It was tiny. I was told later that Kerry had fired an M-79 grenade and that he had misjudged it. He fired it too close to the shore, and it exploded on a rock or something. He got hit by a piece of shrapnel from a grenade that he had fired himself. The injury was self-inflicted, that's what made sense to me. I told Kerry to "forget it." There was no hostile fire, the injury was self-inflicted for all I knew, besides it was nothing really more than a scratch. Kerry wasn't getting any Purple Heart recommendation from me.

Q: How did Kerry get a Purple Heart from the incident then?

GH: I don't know. It beats me. I know I didn't recommend him for a Purple Heart. Kerry probably wrote up the paperwork and recommended himself, that's all I can figure out. If it ever came across my desk, I don't have any recollection of it. Kerry didn't get my signature. I said "no way" and told him to get out of my office.14

Amazingly, Kerry somehow "gamed the system" nearly three months later to obtain the Purple Heart that Hibbard had denied. How he obtained the award is unknown, since his refusal to execute Standard Form 180 means that whatever documents exist are known only to Kerry, the Department of Defense, and God. It is clear that there should be numerous other documents, but only a treatment record reflecting a scratch and a certificate signed three months later have been produced. There is, of course, no "after-action" hostile fire or casualty report, as occurred in the case of every other instance of hostile fire or casualty. This is because there was no hostile fire, casualty, or action on this "most frightening night" of Kerry's Vietnam experience. Dr. Louis Letson agreed with Grant Hibbard. Kerry's injury was minor and probably self-inflicted:

The incident that occasioned my meeting with Lieutenant Kerry began while he was patrolling the coast at night just north of Cam Ranh Bay where I was the only medical officer for a small support base. Kerry returned from that night on patrol with an injury.

Kerry reported that he had observed suspicious activity on shore and fired a flare to illuminate the area. According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a firefight, receiving small arms fire
from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.

The story he told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a grenade round at close range to the shore. The crewman who related this story thought that the injury was from a fragment of the grenade shell that had ricocheted back from the rocks. That seemed to fit the injury I treated.

continued......

[thedrifter]

What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about one centimeter in length and was about two or three millimeters in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle. I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than three or four millimeters. It did not require probing to find it, nor did it require any anesthesia to remove it. It did not require any sutures to close the wound. The wound was covered with a band-aid. No other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any injury to the boat.

Lieutenant Kerry's crew related that he had told them that he would be president one day. He liked to think of himself as the next JFK from Massachusetts. I remember that Jess Carreon was present at the time and he, in fact, made the entry into Lieutenant Kerry's medical record.15

Both Hibbard and Letson wondered why Kerry had even bothered to go to the dispensary. Kerry's report of the injury as a combat injury seemed at best to be exaggerated. The crewmen present maintained that there was no evidence of enemy fire, and their conclusion was that Kerry had been hit by a fragment of his own grenade.

Kerry's proponents have also pointed to a fitness report for Kerry that was filed by Hibbard rating Kerry "excellent" as proof that Kerry's service in Cam Ranh was unusually good. In reality, the Kerry fitness report (which leaves fourteen of the eighteen categories, including "integrity," marked "unobserved") is a marginal report. Hibbard has stated that he wished to provide in the report a mediocre evaluation without permanently destroying Kerry, given his short four-week period of evaluation. At the time the report was made, Hibbard did not know of Kerry's later-finagled first Purple Heart.

Most Swiftees who were with Kerry at Cam Ranh Bay never knew until Kerry decided to run for president that he had somehow successfully maneuvered his way to this undeserved Purple Heart.

But in Kerry's own unit, Coastal Division 14, his attempt to gain the award through fraud marked him as someone who could never be trusted. When Kerry was dispatched to go to An Thoi with Lieutenant Tedd Peck (now Captain, USNR, retired), Peck told him, "Kerry, follow me no closer than a thousand yards. If you get any closer, I'll teach you what a real Purple Heart is."

A Trip to An Thoi

In contrast to the pretty beaches and placid existence at Cam Ranh Bay where Kerry was stationed, Coastal Division 11 was engaged in a gritty struggle against a North Vietnamese base area, deep in the man-grove swamps in the extreme south and west of Vietnam. This area, commonly known as the U Minh and Nam Can forests, had been under North Vietnamese control since the 1940s and was used for POW camps. Most POWs never left these camps. The city of Nam Can, one of the few free outposts in the area, had been overrun by the North Vietnamese in February 1968. Swift operations in the area were supported from an offshore outpost at An Thoi, located on an island off the coast.

The ultimate commander of United States Naval and Coast Guard forces in Vietnam, Admiral Elmo "Bud" Zumwalt III developed a strategy--with enthusiastic support of then-Captain Roy Hoffmann--to use underutilized offshore naval assets to rip control of area water-ways from the North Vietnamese. His model was the Mississippi River campaigns of the Civil War, which had effectively used specialized craft.

Zumwalt was deeply admired by almost all Swiftees. A hero in World War II, Zumwalt was also later known as the man who brought women to the Naval Academy and into full participation in the Navy. He was also recognized as a crusader against racism. Zumwalt was a visionary whose sponsorship of missile ships and other innovations mark today's Navy. He also often rode into danger with the Swiftees. Kerry's later charge on Meet the Press in April 1971 that Zumwalt and others were war criminals cut deeply at the heart of Swiftees. Perhaps part of Kerry's unjustifiable attack on Zumwalt was motivated by the fact that it was Zumwalt's decision to use Swift Boats on dangerous riverine missions that ended with Kerry's hopes of avoiding action.

THE DINNER THAT NEVER HAPPENED

Kerry's Fictitious Journal Account

In Kerry's account of the An Thoi transfer, he makes up an entire conversation with the skipper of the landing ship tank (LST) who Kerry claims invited him and Peck for dinner on their way to An Thoi. As Kerry told the story in Tour of Duty, the LST captain launched into a discussion about his role in what had become known as the "Bo De massacre." According to the version of the story told by Kerry, the LST captain presented a defensive account, attempting to correct a Stars and Stripes story criticizing him for LST covering fire that had supposedly fallen short, exposing Swiftees on the mission to unnecessary casualties.

But according to Captain Peck's recollection and that of Kerry's crewman Steven Gardner, he and Kerry were at the LST only a few minutes for refueling, not enough time for a comfortable dinner with the LST captain--and there was no conversation about "the massacre" as described by Kerry. Even more significant, Kerry's account of the "Bo De massacre" is a breathtaking lie. In Tour, Kerry presents the first Swift incident on the Bo De as a "massacre" of Swiftees with seventeen wounded caused by the incompetence of all commanders whom he chose to blame rather than the vagaries of war or the enemy. Kerry's fabrication comes even though he was not there. Joe Ponder was there as a Swiftee on the mission in question. Today, still badly disabled and on crutches from the incident, Ponder says, "There were only three persons wounded--not seventeen as Kerry states--and I was the first. I do not understand his criticism of our officers. I've always been proud of our officers."

Ponder maintains today that the person who truly shamed and offended him was John Kerry, whose fraudulent account of war crimes in Tour of Duty has led his own grandchildren to ask him, "Did you commit the war crimes John Kerry describes?" At the press conference held by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in Washington, D.C., on May 4, 2004, Ponder was in tears, not from his wounds or the agony of standing with his braces, but from the wounds that Kerry's lies in Tour of Duty had left upon his heart and his family.

THE BRIEF ASSIGNMENT IN AN THOI: KERRY'S VERSION

As Kerry has admitted in Tour of Duty, he was ordered against his will to Coastal Division 11 in An Thoi in December 1968. Tedd Peck recalls Kerry's constant griping about the transfer. In Tour of Duty, Brinkley writes that both Kerry and Peck were opposed to their assignment. Following Kerry's account, Brinkley quotes Peck telling his men, "There was no way I was leaving Cam Ranh Bay voluntarily to go up the rivers. That was a suicide mission."16 Brinkley relates a tortured explanation of why Kerry was finally forced to accept the assignment: He claims that he missed one of the division meetings held to solicit volunteers because he was at the Air Force PX. Peck remembered Kerry distinctly objecting, saying that he had not volunteered for the war that was occurring in the Nam Can and U Minh forests. Peck believed that Kerry did not belong in the Navy. In Brinkley's account, the one guy who got Peck's ire up the quickest was John Kerry, who he found standoffish and condescending. "I didn't like anything about him," Peck proclaimed, "Nothing." For his part, Kerry liked Peck, and decades later recalled none of this supposed animosity between them.17

At any rate, Kerry's time at An Thoi was short. Within a week, Kerry and the crew of PCF 44 were on their way to the less hazardous CosDiv 13, at Cat Lo. Kerry has tried to make it appear that he was disappointed at being so quickly reassigned from An Thoi. Here is the account he gave to biographer Douglas Brinkley:

"I tried to fight the change--not because we wanted to stay in An Thoi and be shot at, but because we didn't want to have to move and resettle again," Kerry noted. "Our mail was already lost, and the trip back against the monsoon seas promised to be nothing but a *****. It was just that."18

THE REAL REASON KERRY WAS REASSIGNED

When they got to An Thoi, Kerry continued to object to his placement in this dangerous assignment against his will, so much so that he was given routine offshore patrols not involving any possibility of action until Coastal Division 11 could figure out a way to get rid of him. Within a week, Kerry was transferred to Coastal Division 13, headquartered near the former French resort town of Vung Tau. While Coastal Division 13 had been involved in substantial action, it was less than what Kerry avoided by his transfer. What his fellow Swiftees concluded was that Kerry had a very high regard for his own well-being and very little nerve for facing serious combat.

According to Peck, it was simply easier to get Kerry out of An Thoi than to have to listen to his constant bellyaching about how he had not volunteered for this kind of danger. Better just to get rid of Kerry and let him be somebody else's problem.

William Franke echoes Tedd Peck's explanation of why Kerry was so quickly transferred out of An Thoi:

continued........

[thedrifter]

Kerry vigorously protested being transferred to An Thoi, arguing that he had volunteered only for coastal patrol and not for the far more hazardous duty of missions within the inland waterways. Indeed, his objections were so strong that, upon his first assignment to An Thoi, he was transferred out within a week.19 So off Kerry went to Cat Lo, where the patrols were on wider, less dangerous rivers than the treacherous canals of the U Minh forest and Cau Mau peninsula.

Christmas In "Cambodia" ~ Vietnam, December 1968

JOHN KERRY'S STORY

If there is one story told over and over again by John Kerry since his return from Vietnam, it is the heart-wrenching tale of how he spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day illegally in Cambodia. From the early 1970s, when he used the tale as part of his proof for war crimes in Cambodia, through the mid-1980s and the 1990s, Kerry has spoken and written again and again of how he was illegally ordered to enter Cambodia.

On the floor of the U.S. Senate on March 27, 1986, Kerry launched one of his many attacks against President Reagan--this time charging that President Reagan's actions in Central America were leading the United States into yet another Vietnam, claiming that he could recognize the error of the administration's ways because he had experienced firsthand the duplicity of the Nixon administration in lying about American incursions into Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Kerry charged that he had been illegally ordered into Cambodia during Christmas 1968:

I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared--seared--in me.20

Kerry also described, for example, for the Boston Herald his vivid memories of his Christmas Eve spent in Cambodia:

I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real.21

As recently as July 7, 2004, Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe repeated Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story on FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, indicating that it was a critical turning point in Kerry's life. Kranish had no knowledge, even after his extensive study of Kerry, that he was simply repeating a total fabrication by Kerry. And Kranish was right: Study of the Christmas in Cambodia story is central to understanding John Kerry.

The story is also in the pages of the 2004 biography written by Krahish and other Boston Globe reporters. As we have come to expect, the story is twisted at the end to provide justification for yet another of Kerry's political ruses, this time used to justify what Kerry portrays as his noble and continuing distrust of government pronouncements:

To top it off, Kerry said later that he had gone into Cambodia, despite President Nixon's assurances to the American public that there was no combat action in this neutral territory. The young sailor began to develop a deep mistrust of the U.S. government pronouncements, he later recalled.22

Even without minimal investigation, a critical press should have been able to spot the story as a total fabrication: Richard Nixon did not become president of the United States until twenty-six days after John Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED: CHRISTMAS IN VIETNAM

Despite the dramatic memories of his Christmas in Cambodia, Kerry's statements are complete lies. Kerry was never in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War. In reality, during Christmas 1968, he was more than fifty miles away from Cambodia. Kerry was never ordered into Cambodia by anyone and would have been court-martialed had he gone there. During Christmas 1968, Kerry was stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo. Coastal Division 13's patrol areas extended to Sa Dec, about fifty-five miles from the Cambodian border. Areas closer than fifty-five miles to the Cambodian border in the area of the Mekong River were patrolled by PBRs, a small river patrol craft, and not by Swift Boats. Preventing border crossings was considered so important at the time that an LCU (a large, mechanized landing craft) and several PBRs were stationed to ensure that no one could cross the border. A large sign at the border prohibited entry. Tom Anderson, Commander of River Division 531, who was in charge of the PBRs, confirmed that there were no Swifts anywhere in the area and that they would have been stopped had they appeared.

All the living commanders in Kerry's chain of command--Joe Streuhli (Commander of CosDiv 13), George Elliott (Commander of CosDiv 11), Adrian Lonsdale (Captain, USCG and Commander, Coastal Surveillance Center at An Thoi), Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann (Commander, Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam, CTF 115), and Rear Admiral Art Price (Commander of River Patrol Force, CTF 116)--deny that Kerry was ever ordered to Cambodia. They indicate that Kerry would have been seriously disciplined or court-martialed had he gone there. At least three of the five crewmen on Kerry's PCF 44 boat--Bill Zaldonis, Steven Hatch, and Steve Gardner--deny that they or their boat were ever in Cambodia. The remaining two crewmen declined to be interviewed for this book. Gardner, in particular, will never forget those days in late December when he was wounded on PCF 44, not in Cambodia, but many miles away in Vietnam.

The Cambodia incursion story is not included in Tour of Duty. Instead, Kerry replaces the story with a report about a mortar attack that occurred on Christmas Eve 1968 "near the Cambodia border" in a town called Sa Dec, some fifty-five miles from the Cambodian border.23 Somehow, Kerry's secret illegal mission to Cambodia, which he recounted on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1986, is now a firefight at Sa Dec and a Christmas day spent back at the base writing entries in his journal.

The truth is that Kerry made up his secret mission into Cambodia. Much like Kerry's many other lies relating to supposed "war crimes" committed by the U.S. military in Vietnam, the lie about the illegal Cambodian incursion painted his superiors up the chain of command--men such as Commander Streuhli, Commander Elliott, Admiral Hoffmann, and Admiral Zumwalt, all distinguished Naval heroes and men of integrity--as villains faced down by John Kerry, a solitary hero in grave and exotic danger and forced illegally and against his will into harm's way.

The same sorts of lies were repeated over and over in Kerry's anti-war book, The New Soldier, a book filled with preposterous, false confessions of bogus war crimes committed by the participants (who were often not even real veterans) against their will and under orders from dishonest superiors. Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia typifies the sort of lie upon which Kerry has built a false persona and a political career. The story of Christmas 1968 has one final chapter. When refueling his PCF near Dong Tam, Kerry and his crew were told that the Bob Hope USO show was at the Dong Tam base. So Kerry decided to leave his station on the river and go searching for the Bob Hope Christmas show. Unable to find the show, he risked boat and crew by unknowingly blundering into one of the most dangerous canals in Vietnam, a canal that to those who knew the area was notorious for Viet Cong ambushes. Given the easy navigation by radar and map of the rivers involved--not much more difficult than driving a car--Kerry had just performed a feat of reverse navigation worthy of Wrong Way Corrigan. There is, of course, no record that Kerry ever informed anyone of what he did, where he was, or where he was going--all required by regulations for the safety of the boat and crew. He did, however, record the Bob Hope adventure in his journal so he could be sure to share it in Tour of Duty.24

Ellie

[thedrifter]

John Kerry And The Unasked/Unanswered Questions

August 6 , 2004


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Thomas D. Segel
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Though never even being close to entering the John Kerry camp, as a writer I have followed this presidential race with great interest. What I have found most perplexing is the Senator has built his entire race around his four month tour of duty in Vietnam. This is the same service he later decried as an anti-war protester, an activity he now fails to mention in his public addresses.


Many questions have arisen about his valor in combat, but though they fester below the surface, I have yet to hear or read any of these questions being brought up to the candidate by members of the combined electronic and print media.

Having an Internet reader list of several hundred retired military, veterans and reservists, I sent out a note, requesting their input. I asked them if, in their military experience they knew of anyone who had been awarded three Purple Hearts for minor wounds in less than three months, then sent home? I asked if anyone had ever heard of a Silver Star being awarded to someone who shot a wounded enemy soldier running away from the action? Finally, I asked if anyone knew of, or had seen anyone taking home-movies of their combat action or attempting to recreate that action on film, after the fact? The answers I received were not all on topic, but all were most interesting.

One of the first to respond was Major Norm Hatch, a combat photographer in WWII and a Life Member of the United States Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association. Speaking on the side of caution, he reminded me thatŠ "Someone in the Navy's medical command had to certify the wounds to enable him to receive Purple Hearts, not the least of this being a navy medical report on the treatment received."

The best answer to that particular statement comes from Lieutenant Commander Lewis Letson who was a medical officer serving with the Swift Boats. Says the Commander; "I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart, because I treated him for that injury."

Major Hatch also posed this question, "Don't you think that the crew members who supported John Kerry during the convention could have knocked down any of the allegations that keep flying around? I question that they would put their integrity on the line just to walk out on the stage that night."

First, it should be noted these former service personnel came on stage, but did not speak. So, perhaps other Swift Boat veterans who knew and served with the candidate can best clarify Swift Boat veterans support for the candidate.

Former Swift Boat officer Lieutenant (jg) Jack Chenoweth says, "His account of what happened and what actually happened are the difference between night and day."

Gunners Mate Van O'Dell was with Kerry during one action. "John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star. I know. I was there and I saw what happened." Another Swift Boat officer is Lieutenant Commander George Elliott who claims, "John Kerry has not been truthful about what happened in Vietnam". He is echoed by former Ensign Al French who bluntly says, "John Kerry is lying about his record."

Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman, who was there among the Swift Boaters, further reinforces these comments. The admiral holds both the Distinguished Service Medal and the Silver Star. He says, "John Kerry has not been honest about Vietnam."

Commander Adrian Lansdale, who received both the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star, says of John Kerry, "He lacks the capacity to lead".

The final Swift Boat officer to comment was Lieutenant (jg) Larry Trudow, who said, "When the chips were down you could not count on John Kerry." Gunners Mate Overly Hackled completed 202 missions with River Division 594 on the Vam Co Tay and Van Co Dong rivers. His boat worked with SEAL teams and performed special operations, along with running regular patrols and setting up ambushes on the rivers. He says, "I never saw anyone get 3 Purple Hearts in four months, not that it couldn't happen. And if you got three you'd be one lucky SOB not to get hurt worse than Kerry did. I never saw anyone get a Silver Star for what he reportedly did and I never saw anyone with a home movie camera. Sure as hell nobody was taking pictures of anything during a real firefight. The boat Captain would be driving the boat and all hands would be putting down suppressive fire and would have had no time or business filming anything. Your job was to survive, kill the other guys before they killed you."

The Gunners Mate concluded saying "I honestly think the whole Kerry drill was a plan he had from day one to get 3 Purple hearts, come hone a hero and become the next JFK. When he got home he found no one was interested in a Vietnam War hero, so he became an anti-war hero."

Retired Marine Colonel Tom Hobbs had stronger words to describe the Kerry Swift Boat saga. "If it looks like a rat, smells like a rat, it's most likely a rat. With three Purple Hearts in such a short time, I'm glad we weren't in the same company in Vietnam. He must attract the enemy. If memory serves, one criterion for a Purple Heart was evacuation from the unit for 24 hours. If a corpsman patched you up and sent you back to duty, no Purple HeartŠjust a combat experience. If Kerry's integrity was breached at such an early age, I wonder if that is why he is so flip-flop today?"

Jay Adams served in both the Air Force and the Marine Corps, retiring as a Master Sergeant. He wonders if the Senator's awards don't add up to "Quite a number of decorations for a short four month tour." He also feels that the truth has been covered up. He thinks the political elite in partnership with those who report the news orchestrated the cover-up. "Even if such a cover-up came to light", he says, "The mainstream media would never publicize it."

As of this writing, 123 retired and former service personnel responded to my questions. Of that number four were neutral in their remarks. Three, including a retired Woman Marine, were admitted Kerry supporters and felt he should be given the benefit of the doubt. All the remaining veterans had strong reservations about the Kerry candidacy. Since military comments are still being received, this topic may warrant a follow-up.

One person who is very clear in his thinking about the upcoming presidential election is retired Air Force Colonel George "Bud" Day. He says, "The Kerry Vietnam anti-war movement directly encouraged the vicious torture I received as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, was demoralizing for other POW's and their families, and provided aid and comfort for North Vietnam to continue the war.

"I can think of no action more despicable than false public condemnation of warriors on the field of battle, as John Kerry made under oath.

"Senator Kerry is unfit to become President and our Commander in Chief."

Colonel Day, an Air Force pilot, former POW and war hero, is the recipient of the Medal of Honor.

Thomas D. Segel

http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive...egel080604.htm


Ellie

[thedrifter]

townhall.com

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Kerry is AWOL from Iraq...
Mark Alexander (back to web version) | Send


August 6, 2004

"I will be a commander-in-chief who will never mislead us into war," claims John Kerry, with a none-too-subtle implication that President George W. Bush lied about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

On that note, we decided to take a look at the historical record. Indeed, we wanted to know precisely what the senator from Massachusetts had been saying all along about the Butcher of Baghdad. Lo and behold, we found that Kerry makes a compelling argument in support of President's Bush's actions to free the Iraqi people -- and the world -- from Saddam's terror.

Back in 1991, Kerry voted against the use of force in removing Iraq from neighboring Kuwait (S. J. Res. 2), later explaining that he only "voted against the timing of it. I said very clearly in my statement on the Senate floor that I was committed to getting Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait...and that I was prepared to go to war if it took that...."

Regarding Bill Clinton's attacks on Iraqi targets, Kerry said in 1997, "So clearly the allies may not like it...where's the backbone of Russia, where's the backbone of France, where are they in expressing their condemnation of such clearly illegal activity?"

A year later, after additional bombing, Kerry said, "We have to be prepared to go the full distance, which is to do everything possible to disrupt [Saddam's] regime and to encourage the forces of democracy. ... [H]e can rebuild both chemical and biological. And every indication is, because of his deception and duplicity in the past, he will seek to do that. So we will not eliminate the problem for ourselves or for the rest of the world with a bombing attack. ... I believe that in the post-Cold War period this issue of proliferation, particularly in the hands of Saddam Hussein, is critical."

Three months after the 9/11 attack on our countrymen by state-supported Jihadi terrorists, Kerry argued, "Saddam is one who is and has acted like a terrorist. ... For instance, Saddam Hussein has used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. ... He is and has acted like a terrorist, and he has engaged in activities that are unacceptable."

Reiterating his position on Saddam prior to 9/11, Kerry said, "[I] think we ought to put the heat on Saddam Hussein. I've said that for a number of years. I criticized the Clinton administration for backing off of the inspections...." He then added, "I think we need to put the pressure on, no matter what the evidence is about September 11."

Regarding Afghanistan and Iraq, Kerry said, "I think we clearly have to keep the pressure on terrorism globally. This doesn't end with Afghanistan by any imagination. And I think the president has made that clear. I think we have made that clear. Terrorism is a global menace. It's a scourge. And it is absolutely vital that we continue [to combat terrorism], for instance, Saddam Hussein."

Regarding diplomatic solutions and the Bush administration's efforts to get the UN to enforce the Security Council's unanimous mandates on Iraqi arms, Kerry said, in May of 2002, "[Saddam is] buying time and playing a game, in my judgment. Do we have to go through that process? The answer is yes. We're precisely doing that. And I think that's what Colin Powell did today."

In July of 2002, Kerry told the Democrat Leadership Council, "I agree completely with this Administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq.... Saddam Hussein is a renegade and outlaw who turned his back on the tough conditions of his surrender put in place by the United Nations in 1991."

That's "completely," fellow Patriots.

A month later in a New York Times op-ed, Kerry asserted, "If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act."

That's even if it's "mostly at the hands of the United States."

In September of 2002, a year after 9/11, Kerry said: "It is imperative that we issue an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, and that would require immediate and full compliance, and if Hussein doesn't comply, the United States must be prepared to go in and...if need be, largely alone remove Saddam Hussein from power. There is also no question that Saddam Hussein continues to pursue weapons of mass destruction, and his success can threaten both our interests in the region and our security at home. ...[Saddam] may even miscalculate and slide these [WMD] off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It's the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat."

A few days later, he told MSNBC, "The president...always reserves the right to act unilaterally to protect the interests of our country." On 11 October 2002, Kerry voted for the Iraq War Resolution (H.J. Res. 114).

That's "unilaterally."

In May of 2003, Kerry defended that vote, saying, "I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." But when Howard Dean turned up the heat with his anti-war message, Kerry began to waffle. Announcing his candidacy, Kerry's support for regime change morphed into, "I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations."

Notice the head of the pin on which Kerry is now attempting to dance. He's claiming that he only "voted to threaten the use of force." In other words, he's now insisting that he only voted to deliver a hollow threat. Not exactly a profile in courage, eh?

As the Demo-primary season approached, Kerry began to hone his newfound opposition to the removal of Saddam: "They rushed to war. They were intent on going to war."

When it came time to provide supplemental appropriations for our troops in Iraq, Kerry (who planned to run his campaign on his veteran status) claimed, "I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running. That's irresponsible. I don't think anyone in the Congress is going to not give our troops ammunition, not give our troops the ability to be able to defend themselves. We're not going to cut and run and not do the job."

But on 17 October 2003, Kerry abandoned our troops, voting against S. 1689, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan Security and Reconstruction. Thus, he put pure political expedience ahead of his obligation to arm and equip our fighting forces -- specifically those fighting forces currently standing in harm's way.

In January of this year, when asked if he was "one of the anti-war candidates," Kerry answered firmly, "I am -- yeah." After announcing his running mate in March, he said of John Edwards, "I'm proud to say that John joined me in voting against that $87 billion...."

Got that? He's actually "proud" of having stiffed our troops.

Last month, when asked by CBS if his vote for the removal of Saddam was a mistake (which, politically, it clearly was), Kerry fumbled his answer: "What -- what -- what I voted for, you -- you -- you see, you're playing here. What -- what I voted for was a -- an authority for the president to go to war as a last resort if Saddam Hussein did not disarm and we needed to go to war." When pressed for a direct answer to the question, Kerry responded curtly, "I think I answered your question."

When asked why he "voted for the war, but didn't vote for the money to finance the war," Kerry responded, "That's not a flip-flop. That's not a flip-flop."

And this week, Kerry claims, "I believe this administration is actually encouraging the recruitment of terrorists. The policies of this administration, I believe and others believe very deeply, have resulted in an increase of animosity and anger focused on the United States of America." (Here we suppose "others" is in reference to the same yet-to-be-identified foreign leaders who Kerry claims support his candidacy.)

The reality is, of course, that it's our very existence, and not our actions, that the Jihadis really object to. Kerry's failure to acknowledge this fact is indicative of just how deeply he has delved into the fevered swamp.

Last week, greeting Demo-conventioneers with a limp Clintonesque salute, Kerry intoned that he was "reporting for duty." To which we say, it's about time -- because he has been AWOL from Iraq since he voted to invade.


Mark Alexander is Executive Editor and Publisher of The Federalist Patriot, a Townhall.com member group.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/m...20040806.shtml


Ellie

[Sparrowhawk]

John Kerry has a new secret plan, a new proposal, on how to get things done. New ideas to take care of the problems, New original thoughts by John Kerry.

Now, all that is great, but now I hear that in his 19 years in the Congress thee in no bill there that he authored!

I guess he was waiting with all those new ideas and answers until now, to come up with them.