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JOHN
KERRY'S SILVER STAR
SUMMARY
FACTS
(For detailed proof, scroll down or click here)
-
SBV's claim about
Kerry and his Silver Star are false and contradict the known
record. Secondly, a key accuser of Kerry who cast doubt
about the legitimacy of Kerry's Silver Star, George Elliott,
destroyed his credibility by contradicting himself repeatedly
(serial flip-flopping anyone?). Indeed, not just in 1969, but also
in 1996, he actually explicitly supported Kerry and spoke highly
about his Silver Star. Roy Hoffman and Adrian Lonsdale, other key
accusers, were not
very different in their flip-flopping.
- Kerry's Silver Star
was NOT awarded for the mere act of shooting an enemy soldier in
the back, but for his bravery in attacking the armed enemy soldier
in the middle of two ambushes. Not
to mention that the eyewitness (Mike Medeiros) who actually saw
Kerry shoot the Viet Cong soldier had no problem with Kerry's
story and states that Elliott and the SBV are liars. Medeiros also
strongly supports Kerry even though he was also upset with Kerry's
anti-war activities at one time.
- SBV's claim that Kerry wrote up the
whole incident report relating to his Silver Star is contradicted
by past testimony from key SBV members who were responsible for
reviewing the incident reports.
- SBV's overall downplaying of Kerry's
heroism is contradicted by his crewmates and another Swiftboat
commander who was involved in the incident that led to Kerry's
Silver Star - William Rood. The wife of a third swiftboat
commander (the late Dan Droz) has publicly stated now that
her husband respected Kerry and would have fully supported Kerry's
medals. Thus, in the incident that led to Kerry's Silver Star,
where there were three boats involved (Kerry commanded one of
them), the commander of one boat (Rood) lends credence to the Navy
reports (Kerry's version) and the wife of the other commander (the
late Dan Droz) has stated that Droz had supported Kerry's medals
before his death.
- SBV's claims that Kerry received no
fire that day and that he chased a man in a "loin cloth"
are also false.
- SBV's claim that the whole incident
was "planned" by soldiers with a view of winning medals
is grossly misleading because Kerry was not part of such
"discussions" - which is something the SBV member who
made the claim has made clear. Indeed, the same SBV member Larry
Clayton Lee who is against Kerry for his anti-war statements, has
endorsed Kerry's Silver Star as being legitimate and agrees that
what Kerry did in the incident that earned him a Silver Star was a
"great" and unprecedented tactic.
DETAILED
FACTS
1. SBV claim on
the legitimacy of Kerry's Silver Star
2. SBV claim on
the reason Kerry was awarded the Silver Star
3. SBV claim
about Kerry writing up the incident report relating to his Silver Star
award, and soldiers having "planned" the whole thing
4. SBV claim that
Kerry's actions were based on "stupidity, not courage"
5. SBV claim the
Kerry shot a man in a "loin cloth" and that he received no
fire
5.1 SBV claim
that the new witness who backed the Navy's (and Kerry's) record of the
events relating to Kerry's Silver Star confirmed the "loin
cloth" claim
1. SBV CLAIM
ON THE LEGITIMACY OF KERRY'S SILVER STAR:
[Former Lt. Cdr. George Elliott]: [Kerry]
'lied about what occurred in Vietnam . . . for example, in
connection with his Silver Star, I was never informed that he had
simply shot a wounded, fleeing Viet Cong in the back.
[Former Lt. Cdr. George
Elliott]: John Kerry has not been honest
about what happened in Vietnam.
FACT
(i) Firstly, Elliott's and SBV's claim about Kerry and his Silver
Star are false and contradict the known record.
(ii) Secondly, Elliott has destroyed any shred of reputation he might
have by contradicting himself repeatedly (aka serial flip-flopping).
Not just in 1969, but also in 1996, he actually explicitly supported
Kerry and spoke highly about his Silver Star.
(iii) Adrian Lonsdale also supported Kerry in 1996 and now
flip-flopped.
REFERENCES
Snopes.com:
Although Kerry's
superiors were somewhat concerned about the issue of his leaving his
boat unattended, they nonetheless found his actions courageous and
worthy of commendation:
When Kerry returned to
his base, his commanding officer, George Elliott, raised an issue
with Kerry: the fine line between whether the action merited a
medal or a court-martial.
"When [Kerry] came back from the well-publicized action where
he beached his boat in middle of ambush and chased a VC around a
hootch and ended his life, when [Kerry] came back and I heard his
debrief, I said, 'John, I don't know whether you should be
court-martialed or given a medal, court-martialed for leaving your
ship, your post,'" Elliott recalled in an interview.
"But I ended up writing it up for a Silver Star, which is
well deserved, and I have no regrets or second thoughts at all
about that," Elliott said. A Silver Star, which the Navy said
is its fifth-highest medal, commends distinctive gallantry in
action.
Asked why he had raised the issue of a court-martial, Elliott said
he did so "half tongue-in-cheek, because there was never any
question I wanted him to realize I didn't want him to leave his
boat unattended. That was in context of big-ship Navy — my
background. A C.O. [commanding officer] never leaves his ship in
battle or anything else. I realize this, first of all, it was
pretty courageous to turn into an ambush even though you usually
find no more than two or three people there. On the other hand, on
an operation some time later, down on the very tip of the
peninsula, we had lost one boat and several men in a big
operation, and they were hit by a lot more than two or three
people."
Elliott stressed that he never questioned Kerry's decision to kill
the Viet Cong, and he appeared in Boston at Kerry's side during
the 1996 Senate race to back up that aspect of Kerry's action.
"I don't think they were exactly ready to court-martial
him," said Wade Sanders, who commanded a swift boat that
sometimes accompanied Kerry's vessel, and who later became deputy
assistant secretary of the Navy. "I can only say from the
certainty borne of experience that there must have been some
rumbling about, 'What are we going to do with this guy, he turned
his boat,' and I can hear the words, 'He endangered his crew.' But
from our position, the tactic to take is whatever action is best
designed to eliminate the enemy threat, which is what he
did."
Indeed, the Silver Star citation makes clear that Kerry's
performance on that day was both extraordinary and risky.
"With utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy
rockets," the citation says, Kerry "again ordered a
charge on the enemy, beached his boat only 10 feet
from the Viet Cong rocket position and personally led a landing
party ashore in pursuit of the enemy . . . 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."
Maria
L. La Ganga and Matea Gold, Los Angeles Times (bold text is
eRiposte emphasis):
Kerry's war record
wasn't an issue in his reelection campaign in 1990. And during his
reelection bid in 1996, his Republican opponent, then-Gov. Bill Weld,
went out of his way to praise Kerry for his service.
But a Boston Globe reporter who was a Vietnam veteran, David Warsh,
wrote several columns critical of Kerry, including one that questioned
the actions that led to Kerry's Silver Star.
...
Nine days before the election, Warsh questioned whether Kerry's
shooting of the fleeing enemy soldier constituted "a war crime
nevertheless, and hardly the basis for a Silver Star."
From that moment on, recalls Thomas Vallely, a former Marine and
longtime Kerry friend, "Bill Weld might as well not have been in
the race."
Kerry called a news conference to renounce the charge. With him in
Boston was retired Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., who said the column was
"such a terrible insult, such an absolutely outrageous
interpretation of the facts, that I felt it was important to be
here."
Also at his side, to stand up for his leadership and courage under
fire, were two of Kerry's immediate commanders during his time in
Vietnam, former Navy Lt. Cmdr. George Elliott and Area Commander
Adrian Lonsdale. Kerry won the race and later credited the Vietnam
brass for helping him pull it off.
Today, Elliott and Lonsdale have joined Swift Boat Veterans for Truth;
both appeared in group's first ad, which attacked Kerry's military
record and his leadership.
Also see the
Smoking Gun for Elliott's laudatory notes on Kerry.
Information
at John Kerry.com:
George Elliott was
NOT a crewmate of John Kerry's
Was Elliott
Honest in 1996 When He Said This of Kerry?
"The fact that he chased an armed enemy down is not something
not to be looked down upon but it was an act of courage. And the
whole outfit served with honor..."[T]here was no question that
it was above and beyond anything that we had seen down there in that
case at that time frame...It just so happened that this one was so
outstanding that the Silver Star was eventually awarded." [Kerry
Press Conference, 10/27/96]
In 1969,
Elliott Wrote This to Describe John Kerry's Fitness as a SWIFT Boat
Commander
"In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive
action, LTJG Kerry was unsurpassed. He constantly reviewed tactics
and lessons learned in river operations and applied his experience
at every opportunity. On one occasion, while in tactical command of
a three boat operation his units were taken under fire from ambush.
LTJG Kerry rapidly assessed the situation and ordered his units to
turn directly into the ambush. This decision resulted in routing the
attackers with several KIA. LTJG Kerry emerges as the acknowledged
leader in his peer group. His bearing and appearance are above
reproach. He has of his own volition learned the Vietnamese language
and is instrumental in the successful Vietnamese training program.
During the period of this report LTJG Kerry has been awarded the
Silver Star medal, the Bronze Star medal, the Purple Heart medal
(2nd and 3rd awards)."[U.S. Navy, Officer Fitness Report
signed by George Elliott; 18, Dec 1969]
Elliott on
Presenting Kerry the Silver Star: He Went "Above & Beyond
the Call of Duty."
"The [Silver Star] ceremony [for John Kerry] was meant to be a
morale booster,' Commander George Elliot recalled. 'We were trying
to pay tribute to Kerry and the others for going above and beyond
the call of duty. The Silver Star is always a big deal." [Tour
of Duty, 2004, Brinkley; p. 294]
Michael
Kranish (Boston Globe):
...yesterday, a key
figure in the anti-Kerry campaign, Kerry's former commanding
officer, backed off one of the key contentions. Lieutenant Commander
George Elliott said in an interview that he had made a ''terrible
mistake" in signing an affidavit that suggests Kerry did not
deserve the Silver Star -- one of the main allegations in the book.
The affidavit was given to The Boston Globe by the anti-Kerry group
to justify assertions in their ad and book.
...
The statement refers to an episode in which Kerry killed a Viet Cong
soldier who had been carrying a rocket launcher, part of a chain of
events that formed the basis of his Silver Star. Over time, some
Kerry critics have questioned whether the soldier posed a danger to
Kerry's crew. Crew members have said Kerry's actions saved their
lives.
Yesterday, reached at
his home, Elliott said he regretted signing the affidavit and said
he still thinks Kerry deserved the Silver Star.
''I still don't think
he shot the guy in the back," Elliott said. ''It was a terrible
mistake probably for me to sign the affidavit with those words. I'm
the one in trouble here."
Elliott said he was
no under personal or political pressure to sign the statement, but
he did feel ''time pressure" from those involved in the book.
''That's no excuse," Elliott said. ''I knew it was wrong . . .
In a hurry I signed it and faxed it back. That was a mistake."
The affidavit also
contradicted earlier statements by Elliott, who came to Boston
during Kerry's 1996 Senate campaign to defend Kerry on similar
charges, saying that Kerry acted properly and deserved the Silver
Star.
...
Kerry won the Silver Star for his action on Feb. 28, 1969, in which
he shot a Viet Cong soldier who had been carrying a rocket launcher
and running toward a hut. All of Kerry's crewmates who participated
and are still living said in interviews last year that the action
was necessary and appropriate, and it was Elliott who recommended
Kerry for the Silver Star.
In an interview for a
seven-part biographical series that appeared in the Globe last year,
Kerry said: ''I don't have a second's question" about killing
the Viet Cong. ''He was running away with a live B-40, and, I
thought, poised to turn around and fire it."
Asked whether that
meant that he had shot the guerrilla in the back, Kerry said, ''No,
absolutely not," adding that the enemy had been running to a
hut for cover, where he could have destroyed Kerry's boat and killed
the crew.
Of course, Elliott is not done
flip-flopping like crazy (not
unlike his Dear Leader President Bush himself), as this report
shows:
CNN:
On Friday, a member
of that group who was one of Kerry's supervisors in Vietnam, George
Elliott, appeared to back off an earlier affidavit in which he
suggested Kerry did not deserve the Silver Star. In the affidavit,
he said, "I was never informed that he had simply shot a
wounded, fleeing Viet Cong in the back."
In Friday's Boston
Globe, Elliott was quoted as saying: "It was a terrible mistake
probably for me to sign the affidavit with those words. I'm the one
in trouble here."
Elliott told the
Globe Kerry did deserve the medal.
...
Inundated with calls to verify the statement, Elliott grew media shy
and said through his wife he would not talk. Earlier in the day,
Mrs. Elliott said her husband was playing golf and would call back
when he returned in the afternoon.
Elliott later issued
another affidavit -- witnessed and notarized -- this time saying he
was misquoted by the Globe and reaffirming his belief that Kerry has
"not been honest about what happened in Vietnam."
Elliott also wrote:
"Had I known the facts, I would not have recommended Kerry for
the Silver Star for simply pursuing and dispatching a single
wounded, fleeing Viet Cong."
Martin Baron, editor
of The Boston Globe, said in a statement: "Regarding George
Elliott's statements on John Kerry's military service, which ran in
the Globe this morning, the Globe stands by the article. The quotes
attributed to Mr. Elliott were on the record and absolutely
accurate."
Unfortunately, for Elliott, he's not
done destroying his reputation. There's more!
2. SBV CLAIM
ON THE REASON KERRY WAS AWARDED THE SILVER STAR
[George Elliott in his modified
affidavit]: Had I known the facts, I would not
have recommended Kerry for the Silver Star for simply pursuing and
dispatching a single, wounded, fleeing Viet Cong.
[O'Neill
via Media Matters]: What actually happened
on John Kerry's Silver Star is he went in, and there was a single
man in a loincloth opposing him ... the man was wounded. He [Kerry]
then climbed off the boat, chased him and shot him....[took his]
heavily armored gunboat, with 30 troops on board. They were faced by
one adversary, a Viet Cong. The Viet Cong was wounded in the legs.
He sought to escape and Kerry dispatched him, shot him in the back.
FACT
Elliott, in a desperate attempt to try and salvage his reputation,
misleads/lies and flip-flops again. O'Neill stabs Kerry in the back
with an egregious lie. Kerry's Silver Star was NOT awarded for the
mere act of shooting an enemy soldier, but for his bravery in
attacking the armed enemy in the middle of two ambushes.
Not to mention that the eyewitness
(Mike Medeiros) who actually saw Kerry shoot the Viet Cong
soldier had no problem with Kerry's story and states that
Elliott and the SBV are liars. He also strongly supports Kerry even
though he was also upset with Kerry's anti-war activities at one time.
Another Swift Boat commander involved in the
same incident (William Rood) has stated publicly that Kerry's heroism
was a fact and that Kerry deserved his Silver Star. The commander of
the third swiftboat that participated in the incident that led to
Kerry's Silver Star is dead but his wife has come forward stating that
Droz supported Kerry's medals before his death.
Roy Hoffman another Kerry accuser
also had great things to say about Kerry's heroics when Kerry won the
Silver Star; now of course he has magically changed his mind.
REFERENCES
FactCheck.org:
We
originally reported that Elliott had recanted his affidavit. Now he says
he still stands by the words he speaks in the TV ad, and makes what
he describes as only an "immaterial clarification" to his
original affidavit supporting that ad.
We note,
however, that Elliott's latest affidavit is misleading,
containing an incorrect characterization of the official basis for
Kerry's Silver Star .
...
In the Globe story, Elliott is quoted as saying it was
a "terrible mistake" to sign that statement:
George
Elliott (Globe account): It
was a terrible mistake probably for me to sign the affidavit with
those words. I'm the one in trouble here. . . . I knew it
was wrong . . . In a hurry I signed it and faxed it back.
That was a mistake.
In
his second affidavit, however, Elliott downgraded that
"terrible mistake" to an "immaterial
clarification." He said in the second affidavit:
Elliott
(second affidavit): I
do not claim to have personal knowledge as to how
Kerry shot the wounded, fleeing Viet Cong.
Elliott
also said he now believes Kerry shot the man in the back, based on
other accounts including a book in which Kerry is quoted as saying
of the soldier, "He was running away with a live B-40 (rocket
launcher) and, I thought, poised to turn around and fire it."
(The book quoted by Elliott is John F. Kerry, The Complete
Biography, By The Reporters Who Know Him Best.)
Elliott
also says in that second affidavit, "Had I known the facts, I
would not have recommended Kerry for the Silver Star for simply
pursuing and dispatching a single, wounded, fleeing Viet Cong."
That statement is misleading, however. It mischaracterizes the
actual basis on which Kerry received his decoration.
The official
citation shows Kerry was not awarded the Silver Star
"for simply pursing and dispatching" the Viet Cong. In
fact, the killing is not even mentioned in the official citation.
The citation - based on what Elliott wrote up at the time - covers
Kerry's decision to attack rather than flee from two
ambushes, including one in which he "led a landing party."
It says Kerry first attacked an "entrenched enemy" less
than 50 feet away: "Unhesitatingly, Lieutenant (junior grade)
Kerry ordered his boat to attack as all units opened fire and
beached directly in front of the enemy ambushers. This daring and
courageous tactic surprised the enemy and succeeded in routing a
score of enemy soldiers." It says "many enemy
weapons" were captured. Later, 800 yards away, Kerry's boat
encountered a second ambush and a B-40 rocket exploded
"close aboard" Kerry's boat. "With utter disregard
for his own safety, and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge
on the enemy, beached his boat only ten feet away from the VC rocket
position, and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of
the enemy." There is no mention of enemy casualties at all. Kerry
was cited for "extraordinary daring and personal courage . . .
in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense
fire."
Elliott had previously defended Kerry on that score when his record
was questioned during his 1996 Senate campaign. At that time Elliott
came to Boston and said Kerry acted properly and deserved the Silver
Star. And as recently as June, 2003, Elliott called Kerry's Silver
Star "well deserved" and his action "courageous"
for beaching his boat in the face of an ambush:
Elliott
(Boston Globe, June 2003): I
ended up writing it up for a Silver Star, which is well
deserved, and I have no regrets or second thoughts at all
about that. . . . (It) was pretty courageous to turn into
an ambush even though you usually find no more than
two or three people there.
Elliott
now feels differently, and says he has come to believe Kerry didn't
deserve his second award for valor, either, based only on
what the other anti-Kerry veterans have told him. He told the Globe
Aug. 6:
Elliott: I
have chosen to believe the other men. I absolutely do not know
first hand.
Compassionate conservatism at
work!
Maria
L. La Ganga and Stephen Braun (Los Angeles Times):
During the war,
Elliott gave Kerry high marks in fitness reports and recommended
Kerry for the Silver Star and the Bronze Star. "John was one of
50 young officers who performed extremely well," Elliott said
in an interview in May. "I wrote his fitness report, and I
stand by that."
Alex
Katz, Oakland Tribune (bold text is eRiposte emphasis):
ON THE LAST DAY of
February 1969, rifle-toting Mike Medeiros found himself running
through the Vietnamese jungle, following a young Lt. John Kerry, who
was chasing a teenage Viet Cong soldier armed with a grenade
launcher.
It was a fairly
typical day for Medeiros, a San Leandro native who served for seven
intense and bloody weeks on a Navy swiftboat commanded by the
then-25-year-old Kerry, now the Democratic nominee for president.
Medeiros, who still
lives in San Leandro, was the rear gunner on Kerry's boat, a 50-foot
aluminum craft with no armor and noisy diesel engines.
"The element
of surprise was never with you," Medeiros, 56, said last week.
"You'd go up a river and get ambushed and shoot it out with the
enemy. There were only one or two occasions we went up a river and
didn't get shot at."
Medeiros is on active
duty in the U.S. Army as a staff sergeant -- he's helping to train
National Guard units on their way to Iraq at Ft. Bliss,
Texas -- and cannot directly endorse any candidates.
But he and his crew
mates showed up on stage with Kerry last month at the Democratic
Convention in Boston.
Medeiros describes
Kerry in Vietnam as daring and highly competent, and said recent
allegations by a group of Vietnam veterans who question Kerry's
record are "totally false."
Kerry "always
led from the front," Medeiros said. "He was always the
first one off (the boat). He was just dedicated, and he wanted to
accomplish something."
...
"My personal opinion is (the anti-Kerry ad) is totally
politically motivated," Medeiros said. "It's a real
shallow attempt to defame a guy because they didn't like his
political stance in 1971."
A leader of the
anti-Kerry group, longtime Kerry antagonist John O'Neill, is
co-author of a new book accusing Kerry of winning the Silver Star
after shooting a fleeing Viet Cong soldier in the back.
Medeiros, who was
with Kerry during the shooting, says that's not how it happened.
On the day of the
now-famous incident, Medeiros said the swiftboat, PCF-94, was
heading upriver when it ran into an ambush. Rockets were flying out
of the jungle, and Kerry "made a decision to put the boats in
and get these guys," Medeiros said.
Kerry's boat
happened to hit the shore right in front of an enemy soldier holding
a grenade launcher. The soldier started running, maybe to get enough
distance to be able to fire his weapon at the boat, Medeiros said.
Kerry's forward
gunner managed to hit the guerrilla, who appeared to be a teenager,
according to reports on the incident. Although he was hit in the
leg, the guerrilla kept running with his weapon, which could have
done serious damage to the boat and the sailors on board.
Medeiros remembers
Kerry jumping off the boat to give chase.
"I saw him
running down this trail after this guy, and I followed him,"
Medeiros said. "Just as I rounded a corner behind him, (Kerry)
shot the guy."
Kerry won the Silver
Star, even though beaching boats to engage the enemy was a highly
unorthodox tactic in the Navy.
"It was almost
heresy for a Navy boat to beach itself and for people to get
off," Medeiros said. "I'm not sure if anybody had done it
before we did it or not."
Retired Rear Adm. Roy
Hoffman, chairman of the anti-Kerry group, "sat in a nice,
fairly safe rear echelon area (during the war) and hardly ever left
it," Medeiros said. "He's kind of a pugnacious little guy.
He was very gung ho, but he never got a chance to do anything."
Hoffman and George
Elliott, one of the vets in the recent attack ad, gave Kerry glowing
performance reviews during the war. Elliott, Kerry's commanding
officer in Vietnam, has praised Kerry's courage, and told the Boston
Globe that Kerry's Silver Star medal was "well deserved."
Hesiod:
Whoops!
Turns out that one of the veterans behind this sham organization,
Roy Hoffmann, had very good things to say about John Kerry...last
June!
Back then, if you recall, it looked like Kerry's candidacy was
(ahem) dead in the water, and he posed no serious threat to George
W. Bush.
I wonder what changed Hoffman's mind?
"Roy Hoffmann,
who commanded the coastal division in which Kerry served, worried
about Kerry, at least at the beginning. He said Kerry and some
other skippers initially "had difficulty carrying out direct
orders. You know, they were playing the cowboy a little bit. John
Kerry was one of them. You don't go out on your own when you are
given certain type of patrols, and we were having difficulty with
that."
Hoffmann said the problem was corrected and he supported the
actions on the day Kerry won the Silver Star. "It took
guts, and I admire that," Hoffman said.
Indeed.
3. SBV
CLAIM
ON KERRY WRITING UP THE INCIDENT REPORT LEADING TO HIS SILVER STAR,
and SOLDIERS HAVING PLANNED THE WHOLE THING
[via
NY Times]: Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth describes the man Mr. Kerry killed as a
solitary wounded teenager "in a loincloth," who may or may
not have been armed. They say the charge to the beach was planned
the night before and, citing a report from one crew member on a
different boat, maintain that the sailors even schemed about who
would win which medals.
The group says Mr. Kerry himself wrote the reports that led to the
medal.
FACT
Again, largely false statements contradicted by the past statements of
their own members and the public record. Even the statement that some
soldiers "planned" the charge the night before to win medals
is misleading because Kerry was not part of such
"discussions" - which is something the SBV member who made
the claim has made clear. Indeed, the same SBV member Larry Clayton
Lee who is against Kerry for his anti-war statements, has endorsed
Kerry's Silver Star as being legitimate and agrees that what Kerry did
in the incident that earned him a Silver Star was a "great"
and unprecedented tactic.
REFERENCES
William
Rood, Chicago Tribune via Atrios
(bold text is eRiposte emphasis):
The difference was that
Kerry, who had tactical command of that particular operation, had
talked to Droz and me beforehand about not responding the way the
boats usually did to an ambush.
We agreed that if we were not crippled by the initial volley and had a
clear fix on the location of the ambush, we would turn directly into
it, focusing the boats' twin .50-caliber machine guns on the attackers
and beaching the boats. We told our crews about the plan.
The Viet Cong in the area had come to expect that the heavily loaded
boats would lumber on past an ambush, firing at the entrenched
attackers, beaching upstream and putting troops ashore to sweep back
down on the ambush site. Often, they were long gone by the time the
troops got there.
The first time we took fire—the usual rockets and automatic
weapons—Kerry ordered a "turn 90" and the three boats
roared in on the ambush. It worked. We routed the ambush, killing
three of the attackers. The troops, led by an Army adviser, jumped off
the boats and began a sweep, which killed another half dozen VC,
wounded or captured others and found weapons, blast masks and other
supplies used to stage ambushes.
Meanwhile, Kerry ordered our boat to head upstream with his, leaving
Droz's boat at the first site.
It happened again, another ambush. And again, Kerry ordered the turn
maneuver, and again it worked. As we headed for the riverbank, I
remember seeing a loaded B-40 launcher pointed at the boats. It wasn't
fired as two men jumped up from their spider holes.
We called Droz's boat up to assist us, and Kerry, followed by one
member of his crew, jumped ashore and chased a VC behind a hooch—a
thatched hut—maybe 15 yards inland from the ambush site. Some who
were there that day recall the man being wounded as he ran. Neither I
nor Jerry Leeds, our boat's leading petty officer with whom I've
checked my recollection of all these events, recalls that, which is no
surprise. Recollections of those who go through experiences like that
frequently differ.
With our troops involved in the sweep of the first ambush site,
Richard Lamberson, a member of my crew, and I also went ashore to
search the area. I was checking out the inside of the hooch when I
heard gunfire nearby.
Not long after that, Kerry returned, reporting that he had killed the
man he chased behind the hooch. He also had picked up a loaded B-40
rocket launcher, which we took back to our base in An Thoi after the
operation.
John O'Neill, author of a highly critical account of Kerry's Vietnam
service, describes the man Kerry chased as a "teenager" in a
"loincloth." I have no idea how old the gunner Kerry chased
that day was, but both Leeds and I recall that he was a grown man,
dressed in the kind of garb the VC usually wore.
The man Kerry chased was not the "lone" attacker at that
site, as O'Neill suggests. There were others who fled. There was also
firing from the tree line well behind the spider holes and at one
point, from the opposite riverbank as well. It was not the work of
just one attacker.
Our initial reports of the day's action caused an immediate response
from our task force headquarters in Cam Ranh Bay.
Congratulatory message
Known over radio circuits by the call sign "Latch,"
then-Capt. and now retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the task force
commander, fired off a message congratulating the three swift boats,
saying at one point that the tactic of charging the ambushes was a
"shining example of completely overwhelming the enemy" and
that it "may be the most efficacious method of dealing with small
numbers of ambushers."
...
It was also well within the aggressive tradition that was embraced by
the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, then commander of U.S. Naval Forces,
Vietnam. Months before that day in February, a fellow boat officer,
Michael Bernique, was summoned to Saigon to explain to top Navy
commanders why he had made an unauthorized run up the Giang Thanh
River, which runs along the Vietnam-Cambodia border. Bernique, who
speaks French fluently, had been told by a source in Ha Tien at the
mouth of the river that a VC tax collector was operating upstream.
Ignoring the prohibition against it, Bernique and his crew went
upstream and routed the VC, pursuing and killing several.
Instead of facing disciplinary action as he had expected, Bernique was
given the Silver Star, and Zumwalt ordered other swifts, which had
largely patrolled coastal waters, into the rivers.
The decision sent a clear message, underscored repeatedly by
Hoffmann's congratulatory messages, that aggressive patrolling was
expected and that well-timed, if unconventional, tactics like
Bernique's were encouraged.
What we did on Feb. 28, 1969, was well in line with the tone set by
our top commanders.
Zumwalt made that clear when he flew down to our base at An Thoi off
the southern tip of Vietnam to pin the Silver Star on Kerry and
assorted Bronze Stars and commendation medals on the rest of us.
Kate
Zernike and Jim Rutenberg, New York Times [via Hesiod]:
But Mr. Elliott and
Mr. Lonsdale, who handled reports going up the line for recognition,
have previously said that a medal would be awarded only if there was
corroboration from others and that they had thoroughly corroborated
the accounts.
"Witness reports
were reviewed; battle reports were reviewed," Mr. Lonsdale said
at the 1996 news conference, adding, "It was a very complete
and carefully orchestrated procedure." In his statements Mr.
Elliott described the action that day as "intense" and
"unusual."
According to a
citation for Mr. Kerry's Bronze Star, a group of Swift boats was
leaving the Bay Hap river when several mines detonated, disabling
one boat and knocking a soldier named Jim Rassmann overboard. In a
hail of enemy fire, Mr. Kerry turned the boat around to pull Mr.
Rassmann from the water.
...
Several veterans
insist that Mr. Kerry wrote his own reports, pointing to the
initials K. J. W. on one of the reports and saying they are Mr.
Kerry's. "What's the W for, I cannot answer," said Larry
Thurlow, who said his boat was 50 to 60 yards from Mr. Kerry's. Mr.
Kerry's middle initial is F, and a Navy official said the initials
refer to the person who had received the report at headquarters, not
the author.
A damage report to
Mr. Thurlow's boat shows that it received three bullet holes,
suggesting enemy fire, and later intelligence reports indicate that
one Vietcong was killed in action and five others wounded,
reaffirming the presence of an enemy. Mr. Thurlow said the boat was
hit the day before. He also received a Bronze Star for the day, a
fact left out of "Unfit for Command."
Joseph
Gerth (Courier-Journal) via reader RM (bold text is my emphasis):
A Kentucky Vietnam
veteran who was involved in the fighting that earned Sen. John Kerry
the Silver Star for gallantry says the Democratic presidential
nominee deserved the award.
But Larry Clayton Lee
of Franklin County says he opposes Kerry's presidential bid, largely
because of statements Kerry made in opposition to the Vietnam War
after he returned to the United States.
"I have no
problems with him getting the Silver Star," said Lee, who was a
20-year-old boatswain's mate on a swift boat accompanying Kerry's
boat when they were ambushed by Viet Cong soldiers.
Lee is a member of
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that has run controversial
television commercials challenging Kerry's war record, including his
three Purple Hearts and Bronze Star.
...
Lee, 56, a senior
programmer for an insurance company, said he was not present when
Kerry was wounded on three occasions or when he was awarded the
Bronze Star for pulling a soldier out of a river under fire.
...
On Feb. 28, 1969,
Lee was serving as the forward gunner on Patrol Craft Fast 23, a
swift boat that Lee estimates was 60 to 90 feet away from Kerry's
boat during the battle.
Kerry was then a
lieutenant junior grade in tactical command of three boats in an
operation — Sea Lords — to insert South Vietnamese troops along
the Dong Cung River.
Lee said that the
night before the operation, Kerry recommended to two other swift
boat commanders that if they were ambushed the next day, they should
turn their boats toward the attack and beach them.
Lee said the
normal course of action was to speed past an attack, firing toward
the shore and then beaching the boat to allow soldiers and sailors
to double back and fight the attackers.
Often, Lee said, the
Viet Cong were gone by the time troops reached their position along
the riverbanks.
Lee said he and
other crew members talked the night before the operation that if
Kerry's tactic worked, the sailors involved could be eligible to
receive commendations and Bronze Stars.
Kerry was not
involved in those discussions, he said.
Lee said it was
probably around noon the next day when the boats came under fire.
Lee was mentioned in
a story last weekend in the Chicago Tribune in which William Rood, a
Tribune editor and the officer in charge of Lee's swift boat,
supported Kerry's version of events during the battle.
Rood wrote that Kerry
gave the order to turn into the fire and charge the Viet Cong, who
were dug in along the river.
"That was the
first time it had been done that I know of, and I don't think it was
ever done after that," Lee said of the tactic. "I think it
was great."
The Silver Star
Kerry, Rood and the
third boat's commander, Lt. Donald Droz, beached their boats and
dropped off South Vietnamese soldiers to conduct a sweep for the
Viet Cong, Lee said. Kerry and Rood then proceeded up the river
about 1,000 yards and were ambushed once more.
Again, Lee said, the
boats turned toward the Viet Cong.
Lee was on the bow of
his boat firing an M-60 machine gun, which he said delivered about
100 rounds in 45 seconds.
"They (the Viet
Cong) popped up out of the bush, and we just mowed them down."
Lee said he had hoped
to be ordered off the boat to chase the Viet Cong into the jungle
because he believed he would have been in line for a Bronze Star —
the same award he said his father earned in World War II.
But Lee said his
orders were to stay aboard and man his gun. He earned a commendation
instead of a Bronze Star.
According to
Kerry's Silver Star citation, which was endorsed by Rood in his
Tribune story: "Without hesitation Lt. (junior grade) Kerry
leaped ashore, pursued the man behind a hootch (sic) and killed him,
capturing a B-40 rocket launcher with a round in the chamber."
Lee said he didn't
see Kerry chase a soldier behind a hooch — a thatched hut — and
kill him, but he said he doesn't question the account. "I was
too busy firing my gun," Lee said. "I didn't have time to
check and see what he was doing."
According to Kerry's
citation, 10 Viet Cong soldiers were killed and one was wounded.
There were no American or South Vietnamese casualties.
4. SBV CLAIM
THAT KERRY'S ACTIONS WERE BASED ON "STUPIDITY, NOT
COURAGE"
[Chicago
Tribune via Atrios]:
In the book "Unfit for Command,"
Kerry's critics maintained otherwise. The book's authors, John O'Neill
and Jerome Corsi, wrote that Kerry's attack on the Viet Cong ambush
displayed "stupidity, not courage." The book was published
by Regnery, a conservative publisher that has brought into print many
books critical of Democratic politicians and policies.
FACT
This is egregious B.S and has been refuted
by Kerry's crewmates, another Swift Boat commander involved in the
same incident (William Rood), as well as Kerry's superiors at that time, including
those who are now singing a new tune.
The commander of the third swiftboat
that participated in the incident that led to Kerry's Silver Star is
dead but his wife has come forward stating that Droz supported Kerry's
medals before his death.
REFERENCES
Chicago
Tribune via Atrios:
The commander of a Navy
swift boat [William Rood] who served alongside Democratic presidential
candidate John Kerry during the Vietnam War stepped
forward Saturday to dispute attacks challenging Kerry's integrity
and war record.
...
In February 1969, Rood was a lieutenant junior grade commanding
PCF-23, one of the three 50-foot aluminum swift boats that carried
troops up the Dong Cung, a tributary of the Bay Hap River. Kerry
commanded another boat, PCF-94 and Lt. j.g. Donald Droz, who was
killed in action six weeks later, commanded PCF-43. Ambushes from Viet
Cong fighters were common because the noise from boats, powered by
twin diesel engines, practically invited gunfire. Ambushes, Rood said,
"were a virtual certainty."
Before this day's mission, though, Kerry, the tactical commander of
the mission, discussed with Rood and Droz a change in response to the
anticipated ambushes: If possible, turn into the fire once it is
identified and attack the ambushers, Rood recalled Kerry saying. The
boats followed that new tactic with great success, Rood said, and the
mission was highly praised.
...
After the attack,
the task force commanding officer, then-Capt. Roy Hoffmann, sent a
message of congratulations to the three swift boats, saying their
charge of the ambushers was a "shining example of completely
overwhelming the enemy" and that it "may be the most
efficacious [method] of dealing with small numbers of ambushers,"
Rood said.
In the official after-action message, obtained by the Tribune,
Hoffmann wrote that the tactics developed and executed by Kerry, Rood
and Droz were "immensely effictive [sic]" and that
"this operation did unreparable [sic] damage to the enemy in this
area."
"Well done," Hoffmann concluded in his message.
...
But more than three decades later, Hoffmann, now a retired rear
admiral, has changed his story. Today he is one of Kerry's most vocal
critics, saying the attacks against the ambushers 35 years ago call
into question Kerry's judgment and show his tendency to be impulsive.
Rood challenges that criticism, recalling that the direction for the
actions they took on the river that day came from the highest ranks of
the Navy command in Vietnam.
"What we did on Feb. 28, 1969, was well in line with the tone set
by our top commanders," Rood said.
...
In his eyewitness account, Rood describes coming under rocket and
automatic weapons fire from Viet Cong on the riverbank during two
separate ambushes of his boat and Kerry's boat.
Praise for the mission led by Kerry came from Navy commanders who far
outranked Hoffmann. Rood won a Bronze Star for his actions on that
day. The Bronze Star citation from the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, then
commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam, singled out the tactic used
by the boats and said the Viet Cong were "caught completely off
guard."
William
Rood, Chicago Tribune via Atrios:
The difference was that
Kerry, who had tactical command of that particular operation, had
talked to Droz and me beforehand about not responding the way the
boats usually did to an ambush.
We agreed that if we were not crippled by the initial volley and had a
clear fix on the location of the ambush, we would turn directly into
it, focusing the boats' twin .50-caliber machine guns on the attackers
and beaching the boats. We told our crews about the plan.
The Viet Cong in the area had come to expect that the heavily loaded
boats would lumber on past an ambush, firing at the entrenched
attackers, beaching upstream and putting troops ashore to sweep back
down on the ambush site. Often, they were long gone by the time the
troops got there.
The first time we took fire—the usual rockets and automatic
weapons—Kerry ordered a "turn 90" and the three boats
roared in on the ambush. It worked. We routed the ambush, killing
three of the attackers. The troops, led by an Army adviser, jumped off
the boats and began a sweep, which killed another half dozen VC,
wounded or captured others and found weapons, blast masks and other
supplies used to stage ambushes.
Meanwhile, Kerry ordered our boat to head upstream with his, leaving
Droz's boat at the first site.
It happened again, another ambush. And again, Kerry ordered the turn
maneuver, and again it worked.
...
Our initial reports of the day's action caused an immediate response
from our task force headquarters in Cam Ranh Bay.
Congratulatory message
Known over radio circuits by the call sign "Latch,"
then-Capt. and now retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the task force
commander, fired off a message congratulating the three swift boats,
saying at one point that the tactic of charging the ambushes was a
"shining example of completely overwhelming the enemy" and
that it "may be the most efficacious method of dealing with small
numbers of ambushers."
...
It was also well within the aggressive tradition that was embraced by
the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, then commander of U.S. Naval Forces,
Vietnam. Months before that day in February, a fellow boat officer,
Michael Bernique, was summoned to Saigon to explain to top Navy
commanders why he had made an unauthorized run up the Giang Thanh
River, which runs along the Vietnam-Cambodia border. Bernique, who
speaks French fluently, had been told by a source in Ha Tien at the
mouth of the river that a VC tax collector was operating upstream.
Ignoring the prohibition against it, Bernique and his crew went
upstream and routed the VC, pursuing and killing several.
Instead of facing disciplinary action as he had expected, Bernique was
given the Silver Star, and Zumwalt ordered other swifts, which had
largely patrolled coastal waters, into the rivers.
The decision sent a clear message, underscored repeatedly by
Hoffmann's congratulatory messages, that aggressive patrolling was
expected and that well-timed, if unconventional, tactics like
Bernique's were encouraged.
What we did on Feb. 28, 1969, was well in line with the tone set by
our top commanders.
Zumwalt made that clear when he flew down to our base at An Thoi off
the southern tip of Vietnam to pin the Silver Star on Kerry and
assorted Bronze Stars and commendation medals on the rest of us.
Jessica
Vascellaro, Boston Globe via reader VM:
Lieutenant Donald Droz
knew more about John F. Kerry's service in Vietnam than most men. By
Kerry's side when he earned both the Silver and Bronze Stars, Kerry's
fellow swift boat captain and friend spoke often of his admiration for
the Yalie he called "a real fine guy."
But Droz, a key
witness in the ongoing debate over Kerry's service record, is
missing from it, killed in a rocket attack in Vietnam in April 1969
days after Kerry returned home. While Droz cannot defend Kerry, his
widow, Judith Droz Keyes, said she feels she must. She said she is
confident that her husband would defend both Kerry's record in
Vietnam and his antiwar activism.
"John Kerry was
a good friend, and a loyal friend to my late husband," she said
in a telephone interview from her office in San Francisco. "My
husband isn't here to speak, and all I can do is to speak in his
name. I don't feel I can remain silent anymore."
Keyes said that by
challenging Kerry's record, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a
group of former veterans opposed to Kerry's presidential candidacy,
are dishonoring the memory of men such as her husband who fought by
Kerry's side. "The suggestion that what Don did or that the
award he got was somehow undeserved is crossing a line," she
said.
...
Droz told the
details of the ambush to his wife when she and their infant daughter
met him in Hawaii while he was on leave a few weeks later. Keyes
said that at that time, her husband also spoke of the March 13
battle in which Kerry earned the Bronze Star for rescuing James
Rassmann from the Bai Hap River.
...
Droz also alluded to the Silver Star mission in a March 6 letter to
his wife: "[We] conducted an operation February 28th which we
pulled off rather spectacularly. Anyway, for my part, I was awarded
the Bronze Star Medal with Combat 'V.' I don't mean to blow my own
horn, but I really am pleased with the award, and it is a rather
significant medal."
Keyes said her
husband admired Kerry, a man he described in a Nov. 25, 1968, letter
to her as "Yale '66 and a real fine guy." The feeling was
one she grew to share as Kerry visited her home and sent Droz's
mother a rubbing of her son's name from the Vietnam Veterans'
Memorial in Washington.
Daily
Howler:
After all, one of the
four other officers that day was Kerry’s friend, the late Daniel
Droz. Does O’Neill now claim to speak for the dead? Here’s
what Droz’s widow says about his view of these matters:
JUDITH DROZ KEYES
(8/27/04): On Feb. 28, 1969, my husband was the commander of one
of three Swift boats traveling the Dong Cung in Vietnam to carry
troops and supplies upriver [Silver Star incident]. The events of
that day, and what happened almost two weeks later on another
Swift boat patrol [Bronze Star incident], have become a source of
controversy in the presidential campaign, with a group of veterans
saying that John Kerry did not deserve the medals he won for what
he did then. I know my husband thought otherwise.
“I know my husband
thought otherwise,” she says, referring to O’Neill’s nasty
accounts of the Bronze and Silver Star events. She describes a
letter she received from her husband, and personal conversations
they had two weeks before his death.
Yes, Daniel Droz died
in Vietnam. And last Sunday, O’Neill went on This Week and
lied about Droz, right in Stephanopoulos’ face. But can your
“press corps” smell a dissembler? Stephanopoulos gazed into air
as O’Neill lied about the honored dead.
5. SBV CLAIM
THAT KERRY SHOT A MAN IN A "LOIN CLOTH" AND THAT HE RECEIVED
NO FIRE
[Chicago
Tribune via Atrios]:
In the book "Unfit for Command," In
the book, O'Neill and Corsi said Kerry chased down a "young Viet
Cong in a loincloth"
...
[O'Neill] said the congratulatory note from Hoffmann was based on the
belief that Kerry was under heavy fire from the Viet Cong. But O'Neill
claimed that "didn't happen."
FACT
False. Not only was there significant enemy fire, Kerry shot a Viet
Cong soldier with a grenade launcher in normal VC garb. Neither
O'Neill nor Corsi were present during the incident in question.
REFERENCES
Chicago
Tribune via Atrios:
The commander of a Navy
swift boat [William Rood] who served alongside Democratic presidential
candidate John Kerry during the Vietnam War stepped
forward Saturday to dispute attacks challenging Kerry's integrity
and war record.
...
In February 1969, Rood was a lieutenant junior grade commanding
PCF-23, one of the three 50-foot aluminum swift boats that carried
troops up the Dong Cung, a tributary of the Bay Hap River. Kerry
commanded another boat, PCF-94 and Lt. j.g. Donald Droz, who was
killed in action six weeks later, commanded PCF-43. Ambushes from Viet
Cong fighters were common because the noise from boats, powered by
twin diesel engines, practically invited gunfire. Ambushes, Rood said,
"were a virtual certainty."
...
Rood recalled the
fleeing Viet Cong was "a grown man, dressed in the kind of garb
the VC usually wore." There were other attackers as well, he
said, and his boat and Kerry's boat took significant fire.
...
In his eyewitness account, Rood describes coming under rocket and
automatic weapons fire from Viet Cong on the riverbank during two
separate ambushes of his boat and Kerry's boat.
William
Rood, Chicago Tribune via Atrios:
The difference was that
Kerry, who had tactical command of that particular operation, had
talked to Droz and me beforehand about not responding the way the
boats usually did to an ambush.
We agreed that if we were not crippled by the initial volley and had a
clear fix on the location of the ambush, we would turn directly into
it, focusing the boats' twin .50-caliber machine guns on the attackers
and beaching the boats. We told our crews about the plan.
The Viet Cong in the area had come to expect that the heavily loaded
boats would lumber on past an ambush, firing at the entrenched
attackers, beaching upstream and putting troops ashore to sweep back
down on the ambush site. Often, they were long gone by the time the
troops got there.
The first time we took fire—the usual rockets and automatic
weapons—Kerry ordered a "turn 90" and the three boats
roared in on the ambush. It worked. We routed the ambush, killing
three of the attackers. The troops, led by an Army adviser, jumped off
the boats and began a sweep, which killed another half dozen VC,
wounded or captured others and found weapons, blast masks and other
supplies used to stage ambushes.
Meanwhile, Kerry ordered our boat to head upstream with his, leaving
Droz's boat at the first site.
It happened again, another ambush. And again, Kerry ordered the turn
maneuver, and again it worked. As we headed for the riverbank, I
remember seeing a loaded B-40 launcher pointed at the boats. It wasn't
fired as two men jumped up from their spider holes.
We called Droz's boat up to assist us, and Kerry, followed by one
member of his crew, jumped ashore and chased a VC behind a hooch—a
thatched hut—maybe 15 yards inland from the ambush site. Some who
were there that day recall the man being wounded as he ran. Neither I
nor Jerry Leeds, our boat's leading petty officer with whom I've
checked my recollection of all these events, recalls that, which is no
surprise. Recollections of those who go through experiences like that
frequently differ.
With our troops involved in the sweep of the first ambush site,
Richard Lamberson, a member of my crew, and I also went ashore to
search the area. I was checking out the inside of the hooch when I
heard gunfire nearby.
Not long after that, Kerry returned, reporting that he had killed the
man he chased behind the hooch. He also had picked up a loaded B-40
rocket launcher, which we took back to our base in An Thoi after the
operation.
John O'Neill, author of a highly critical account of Kerry's Vietnam
service, describes the man Kerry chased as a "teenager" in a
"loincloth." I have no idea how old the gunner Kerry chased
that day was, but both Leeds and I recall that he was a grown man,
dressed in the kind of garb the VC usually wore.
The man Kerry chased was not the "lone" attacker at that
site, as O'Neill suggests. There were others who fled. There was also
firing from the tree line well behind the spider holes and at one
point, from the opposite riverbank as well. It was not the work of
just one attacker.
Our initial reports of the day's action caused an immediate response
from our task force headquarters in Cam Ranh Bay.
Congratulatory message
Known over radio circuits by the call sign "Latch,"
then-Capt. and now retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the task force
commander, fired off a message congratulating the three swift boats,
saying at one point that the tactic of charging the ambushes was a
"shining example of completely overwhelming the enemy" and
that it "may be the most efficacious method of dealing with small
numbers of ambushers."
...
It was also well within the aggressive tradition that was embraced by
the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, then commander of U.S. Naval Forces,
Vietnam. Months before that day in February, a fellow boat officer,
Michael Bernique, was summoned to Saigon to explain to top Navy
commanders why he had made an unauthorized run up the Giang Thanh
River, which runs along the Vietnam-Cambodia border. Bernique, who
speaks French fluently, had been told by a source in Ha Tien at the
mouth of the river that a VC tax collector was operating upstream.
Ignoring the prohibition against it, Bernique and his crew went
upstream and routed the VC, pursuing and killing several.
Instead of facing disciplinary action as he had expected, Bernique was
given the Silver Star, and Zumwalt ordered other swifts, which had
largely patrolled coastal waters, into the rivers.
The decision sent a clear message, underscored repeatedly by
Hoffmann's congratulatory messages, that aggressive patrolling was
expected and that well-timed, if unconventional, tactics like
Bernique's were encouraged.
What we did on Feb. 28, 1969, was well in line with the tone set by
our top commanders.
Zumwalt made that clear when he flew down to our base at An Thoi off
the southern tip of Vietnam to pin the Silver Star on Kerry and
assorted Bronze Stars and commendation medals on the rest of us.
Alex
Katz, Oakland Tribune (bold text is eRiposte emphasis):
ON THE LAST DAY of
February 1969, rifle-toting Mike Medeiros found himself running
through the Vietnamese jungle, following a young Lt. John Kerry, who
was chasing a teenage Viet Cong soldier armed with a grenade
launcher.
...
Medeiros describes
Kerry in Vietnam as daring and highly competent, and said recent
allegations by a group of Vietnam veterans who question Kerry's
record are "totally false."
Kerry "always
led from the front," Medeiros said. "He was always the
first one off (the boat). He was just dedicated, and he wanted to
accomplish something."
...
"My personal opinion is (the anti-Kerry ad) is totally
politically motivated," Medeiros said. "It's a real
shallow attempt to defame a guy because they didn't like his
political stance in 1971."
...
On the day of the
now-famous incident, Medeiros said the swiftboat, PCF-94, was
heading upriver when it ran into an ambush. Rockets were flying out
of the jungle, and Kerry "made a decision to put the boats in
and get these guys," Medeiros said.
5.1 SBV CLAIM
THAT THE NEW WITNESS WHO BACKED THE NAVY'S (AND KERRY'S) RECORD OF THE
EVENTS RELATING TO KERRY'S SILVER STAR CONFIRMED THE "LOIN
CLOTH" CLAIM (ABOVE)
[O'Neill
in the Washington Post, via alert reader
Ted]: I was never on the same boat at
the same time with either John Kerry or Bill Rood. Bill Rood was
present only one event discussed in the book relating to John Kerry.
This was the silver star incident. The account in our book is very
similar to Bill Roods article except that Bill Rood's article makes
the Vietcong killed by John Kerry into an adult clothed in pajamas
whereas our book describes him as a young Vietcong in a loincloth...Mr.
Larry Lee on Bill Rood's boat confirmed our description.
FACT
Larry Lee did no such "confirming". Lee said clearly that he
did not even see the man that Kerry shot because he was too busy
firing his gun. As usual, O'Neill continues his pathological
lying compassionate conservatism.
REFERENCES
Alert reader Ted, writes this in:
I have a little bit
of an update for you that I researched myself, including contacting
the reporter who interviewed Larry Lee in the Louisville Courier
Journal newspaper:
http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/08/26ky/A1-swift0826-9879.html
The reason I
contacted the reporter was that Mr. Lee's description of the events
on the Silver Star day, where he totally supports Kerry's Silver
Star seem to disagree with what Mr. O'Neill said on a "Live
Chat" with the Washington Post yesterday.
...
Notice that Mr. O'Neill says that "Mr. Larry Lee on Bill Rood's
boat confirmed out description" meaning Mr. Lee supported the
Swift Vets for Truth's description of the "young Vietcong in a
loincloth".
However, according to
the Courier-Journal article, Mr. Lee says:
Lee said he didn't
see Kerry chase a soldier behind a hooch — a thatched hut — and
kill him, but he said he doesn't question the account. "I was
too busy firing my gun," Lee said. "I didn't have time to
check and see what he was doing."
And I confirmed this
account with the reporter today via email. He wrote back to me to
confirm that:
"Ted, my story
paraphrases Lee saying he didn't see Kerry chase the VC behind the
hooch and shoot him because he was too busy firing his gun to worry
about what Kerry was doing. He doesn't know what the VC looked like.
"
In other words, Mr.
O'Neill has attributing a description to Mr. Lee of something that
Mr. Lee says he has no knowledge about!!
Yet another John
O'Neill lie!!!
Thanks Ted, for keeping all of us
informed!
|
