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AnnC
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State & Ontario
Sep 1999
time: 23:35
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From the Wall Street Journal:
quote:
BY JIM RASSMANN
Tuesday, August 10, 2004 12:01 a.m.
I came to know Lt. John Kerry during the spring of 1969. He and his swift boat crew assisted in inserting our Special
Forces team and our Chinese Nung soldiers into operational sites in the Cau Mau Peninsula of South Vietnam. I worked
with him on many operations and saw firsthand his leadership, courage and decision-making ability under fire.
On March 13, 1969, John Kerry's courage and leadership saved my life.
While returning from a SEA LORDS operation along the Bay Hap River, a mine detonated under another swift boat.
Machine-gun fire erupted from both banks of the river, and a second explosion followed moments later. The second blast
blew me off John's swift boat, PCF-94, throwing me into the river. Fearing that the other boats would run me over, I
swam to the bottom of the river and stayed there as long as I could hold my breath.
When I surfaced, all the swift boats had left, and I was alone taking fire from both banks. To avoid the incoming fire, I
repeatedly swam under water as long as I could hold my breath, attempting to make it to the north bank of the river. I
thought I would die right there. The odds were against me avoiding the incoming fire and, even if I made it out of the
river, I thought I'd be captured and executed. Kerry must have seen me in the water and directed his driver, Del
Sandusky, to turn the boat around. Kerry's boat ran up to me in the water, bow on, and I was able to climb up a cargo
net to the lip of the deck. But, because I was nearly upside down, I couldn't make it over the edge of the deck. This left
me hanging out in the open, a perfect target. John, already wounded by the explosion that threw me off his boat, came
out onto the bow, exposing himself to the fire directed at us from the jungle, and pulled me aboard.
For his actions that day, I recommended John for the Silver Star, our country's third highest award for bravery under fire.
I learned only this past January that the Navy awarded John the Bronze Star with Combat V for his valor. The citation for
this award, signed by the Commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam, Vice Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, read, "Lieutenant
(junior grade) Kerry's calmness, professionalism and great personal courage under fire were in keeping with the highest
traditions of the United States Naval Service." To this day I am grateful to John Kerry for saving my life. And to this day I
still believe that he deserved the Silver Star for his courage.
It has been many years since I served in Vietnam. I returned home, got married, and spent many years as a deputy
sheriff for Los Angeles County. I retired in 1989 as a lieutenant. It has been a long time since I left Vietnam, but I think
often of the men who did not come home with us.
I am neither a politician nor an organizer. I am a retired police officer with a passion for orchids. Until January of this
year, the only public presentations I made were about my orchid hobby. But in this presidential election, I had to speak
out; I had to tell the American people about John Kerry, about his wisdom and courage, about his vision and leadership.
I would trust John Kerry with my life, and I would entrust John Kerry with the well-being of our country.
Nobody asked me to join John's campaign. Why would they? I am a Republican, and for more than 30 years I have
largely voted for Republicans. I volunteered for his campaign because I have seen John Kerry in the worst of conditions.
I know his character. I've witnessed his bravery and leadership under fire. And I truly know he will be a great
commander in chief.
Now, 35 years after the fact, some Republican-financed Swift Boat Veterans for Bush are suddenly lying about John
Kerry's service in Vietnam; they are calling him a traitor because he spoke out against the Nixon administration's failed
policies in Vietnam. Some of these Republican-sponsored veterans are the same ones who spoke out against John at
the behest of the Nixon administration in 1971. But this time their attacks are more vicious, their lies cut deep and are
directed not just at John Kerry, but at me and each of his crewmates as well. This hate-filled ad asserts that I was not
under fire; it questions my words and Navy records. This smear campaign has been launched by people without decency,
people who don't understand the bond of those who serve in combat.
As John McCain noted, the television ad aired by these veterans is "dishonest and dishonorable." Sen. McCain called on
President Bush to condemn the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush ad. Regrettably, the president has ignored Sen. McCain's
advice. |
http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms...ml?id=110005460
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AnnC
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State & Ontario
Sep 1999
time: 23:35
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From the Chicago Tribune:
quote:
By William B. Rood
Chicago Tribune
August 22, 2004
There were three swift boats on the river that day in Vietnam more than 35 years ago--three
officers and 15 crew members. Only two of those officers remain to talk about what happened on
February 28, 1969.
One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a Silver Star for what happened
on that date. I am the other.
For years, no one asked about those events. But now they are the focus of skirmishing in a
presidential election with a group of swift boat veterans and others contending that Kerry didn't
deserve the Silver Star for what he did on that day, or the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts he
was awarded for other actions.
Many of us wanted to put it all behind us--the rivers, the ambushes, the killing. Ever since that time, I have refused all
requests for interviews about Kerry's service--even those from reporters at the Chicago Tribune, where I work.
But Kerry's critics, armed with stories I know to be untrue, have charged that the accounts of what happened were
overblown. The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their
version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to
accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there.
Even though Kerry's own crew members have backed him, the attacks have continued, and in recent days Kerry has called
me and others who were with him in those days, asking that we go public with our accounts.
I can't pretend those calls had no effect on me, but that is not why I am writing this. What matters most to me is that this is
hurting crewmen who are not public figures and who deserved to be honored for what they did. My intent is to tell the story
here and to never again talk publicly about it.
I was part of the operation that led to Kerry's Silver Star. I have no firsthand knowledge of the events that resulted in his
winning the Purple Hearts or the Bronze Star.
But on Feb. 28, 1969, I was officer in charge of PCF-23, one of three swift boats--including Kerry's PCF-94 and Lt. j.g.
Donald Droz's PCF-43--that carried Vietnamese regional and Popular Force troops and a Navy demolition team up the
Dong Cung, a narrow tributary of the Bay Hap River, to conduct a sweep in the area.
The approach of the noisy 50-foot aluminum boats, each driven by two huge 12-cylinder diesels and loaded down with six
crew members, troops and gear, was no secret.
Ambushes were a virtual certainty, and that day was no exception.
Instructions from Kerry
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."
Hoffmann has become a leading critic of Kerry's and now says that what the boats did on that day demonstrated Kerry's
inclination to be impulsive to a fault.
Our decision to use that tactic under the right circumstances was not impulsive but was the result of discussions well
beforehand and a mutual agreement of all three boat officers.
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.
Error in citation
My Bronze Star citation, signed by Zumwalt, praised the charge tactic we used that day, saying the VC were "caught
completely off guard."
There's at least one mistake in that citation. It incorrectly identifies the river where the main action occurred, a reminder
that such documents were often done in haste and sometimes authored for their signers by staffers. It's a cautionary note
for those trying to piece it all together. There's no final authority on something that happened so long ago--not the
documents and not even the strained recollections of those of us who were there.
But I know that what some people are saying now is wrong. While they mean to hurt Kerry, what they're saying impugns
others who are not in the public eye.
Men like Larry Lee, who was on our bow with an M-60 machine gun as we charged the riverbank, Kenneth Martin, who was
in the .50-caliber gun tub atop our boat, and Benjamin Cueva, our engineman, who was at our aft gun mount suppressing
the fire from the opposite bank.
Wayne Langhoffer and the other crewmen on Droz's boat went through even worse on April 12, 1969, when they saw Droz
killed in a brutal ambush that left PCF-43 an abandoned pile of wreckage on the banks of the Duong Keo River. That was
just a few months after the birth of his only child, Tracy.
The survivors of all these events are scattered across the country now.
Jerry Leeds lives in a tiny Kansas town where he built and sold a successful printing business. He owns a beautiful home
with a lawn that sweeps to the edge of a small lake, which he also owns. Every year, flights of purple martins return to the
stately birdhouses on the tall poles in his back yard.
Cueva, recently retired, has raised three daughters and is beloved by his neighbors for all the years he spent keeping their
cars running. Lee is a senior computer programmer in Kentucky, and Lamberson finished a second military career in the
Army.
With the debate over that long-ago day in February, they're all living that war another time. |
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...ll=chi-news-hed
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:35
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quote:
read Bush's NYT interview this morning and found some of things he did and said mildly shocking. For example:
quote:
Showing none of the alarm about the North's growing arsenal that he once voiced regularly about Iraq, he opened his palms and shrugged when an interviewer noted that new intelligence reports indicate that the North may now have the fuel to produce six or eight nuclear weapons.
He shrugged? North Korea has missiles that can reach Seattle (where I live) and southern Alaska. Those of us who live within range of NK's missiles would prefer that the commander-in-chief take this threat very seriously.
And this:
quote:
"I don't think you give timelines to dictators,'' Mr. Bush said, speaking of North Korea's president, Kim Jong Il, and Iran's mullahs.
Isn't this the guy who gave Saddam a 48-hour deadline? If he no longer believes in giving timelines to dictators, does that count as a flip-flop? |
I understand your PoV, and I think Bush's double-standard on the issue of nutbag dictators who have nukes is appalling, the difference between NK and Iraq is that NK already has them, whereas Iraq (theoretically) was merely on its way to getting them. You can attack a country that is trying to get nukes. You cannot attack a country that already has them. They are immune to us. Hence the primary drive to get them in the first place. Have nukes, nobody can come in and take you down for whatever reason (no matter how valid).
NK, as far as I'm concerned, can just sit there and rot. Screw 'em. They're not going to shoot nukes at us because of MAD. They're going to continue to do what they've done for a long time now: extort things from us by dangling the possibility of giving up their nukes (which they have no intention whatsoever of doing). I say let 'em have the nukes, and to hell with them. Certainly the possibility of NK selling nukes or nuke tech to terrorists is worrisome, but we have that very same problem with Pakistan, and apparently that's ok. 
-Arrian
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The Mad Monk
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of Ice Cream
Mar 2000
time: 23:35
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quote:
Admiral speaks out, disputes Kerry's account of 1st wound
August 27, 2004
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
NEW YORK -- Retired Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr. said Thursday in his first on-the-record interview about the swift boat veterans dispute that "I was absolutely in the skimmer" in the early morning on Dec. 2, 1968, when Lt. (j.g.) John Kerry was involved in an incident that led to his first Purple Heart.
"Kerry nicked himself with a M-79 [grenade launcher]," Schachte said in a telephone interview from his home in Charleston, S.C. He said, "Kerry requested a Purple Heart."
Schachte, a lieutenant, said he was in command of the small boat called a Boston whaler or skimmer, with Kerry aboard in his first combat mission in the Vietnam War. The third crew member was an enlisted man, whose name Schachte did not remember.
Two enlisted men who appeared at the podium with Kerry at the Democratic National Convention in Boston have asserted that they were alone in the small boat with Kerry, with no other officer present. Schachte said it "was not possible" for Kerry to have gone out alone so soon after joining the swift boat command in late November 1968.
Kerry supporters said no critics of the Democratic presidential nominee ever were aboard a boat with him in combat. Washington lawyer Lanny Davis has contended that Schachte was not aboard the Boston whaler and says the statement that Schachte was aboard in Unfit for Command undermines that critical book's credibility.
Schachte until now has refused to speak out publicly on this question and agreed to give only two interviews. One was a television interview with Lisa Meyers of NBC News, for broadcast Thursday night. The second was a print interview with me, for publication today.
Schachte described the use of the skimmer operating very close to shore as a technique that he personally designed to flush out enemy forces so that the larger swift boats could move in. Around 3 a.m. on Dec. 2, Schachte said, the skimmer -- code-named "Batman" -- fired a hand-held flare. He said that after Kerry's M-16 rifle jammed, the new officer picked up the M-79 and, "I heard a 'thunk.' There was no fire from the enemy," he said.
Patrick Runyon and William Zaladonis are the two enlisted men who said they were aboard the skimmer and did not know Schachte. However, two other former officers interviewed Thursday confirmed that Schachte was the originator of the technique and always was aboard the Boston whaler for these missions.
Grant Hibbard, who as a lieutenant commander was Schachte's superior officer, confirmed that Schachte always went on these skimmer missions and said, "I don't think he [Kerry] was alone" on his first assignment. Hibbard said he had told Kerry to "forget it" when he asked for a Purple Heart.
Ted Peck, another swift boat commander, said, "I remember Bill [Schachte] telling me it didn't happen" -- that is, Kerry getting an enemy-inflicted wound. He said it would be "impossible" for Kerry to have been in the skimmer without Schachte.
"I was astonished by Kerry's version" [in his book Tour of Duty] of what happened Dec. 2, Schachte said Thursday. When asked to support the Kerry critics in the swift boat controversy, Schachte said, "I didn't want to get involved." But he said he gradually began to change his mind when he saw his own involvement and credibility challenged, starting with Davis on CNN's "Crossfire" on Aug. 12.
The next time he saw Kerry after the first Purple Heart incident, Schachte said, was "about 20 years" later on the U.S. Senate subway in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building. "I called, 'Hey, John.' He replied, 'Batman.' I was absolutely amazed by his memory." He said they "talked about having lunch" but never did it.
Schachte said he never has been contacted by or talked to anybody in the Bush-Cheney campaign or any Republican organization. He said he has been a political independent who votes for candidates of both parties.
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http://www.suntimes.com/output/nova...ws-novak27.html
Oooooh, I can't wait to see them shoot down this one.
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The Mad Monk
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of Ice Cream
Mar 2000
time: 23:35
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quote:
Plot thickens after checking records
August 27, 2004
BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB
In the midst of the controversy between the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and Kerry campaign representatives about Kerry's service in Vietnam, new questions have arisen.
The Kerry campaign has repeatedly stated that the official naval records prove the truth of Kerry's assertions about his service.
But the official records on Kerry's Web site only add to the confusion. The DD214 form, an official Defense Department document summarizing Kerry's military career posted on johnkerry.com, includes a "Silver Star with combat V."
But according to a U.S. Navy spokesman, "Kerry's record is incorrect. The Navy has never issued a 'combat V' to anyone for a Silver Star."
Naval regulations do not allow for the use of a "combat V" for the Silver Star, the third-highest decoration the Navy awards. None of the other services has ever granted a Silver Star "combat V," either.
Fake claims not uncommon
B.G. Burkett, a Vietnam veteran himself, received the highest award the Army gives to a civilian, the Distinguished Civilian Service Award, for his book Stolen Valor. Burkett pored through thousands of military service records, uncovering phony claims of awards and fake claims of military service. "I've run across several claims for Silver Stars with combat V's, but they were all in fake records," he said.
Burkett recently filed a complaint that led last month to the sentencing of Navy Capt. Roger D. Edwards to 115 days in the brig for falsification of his records.
Kerry's Web site also lists two different citations for the Silver Star. One was issued by the commander in chief of the Pacific Command (CINCPAC), Adm. John Hyland. The other, issued by Secretary of the Navy John Lehman during the Reagan administration, contained some revisions and additional language. "By his brave actions, bold initiative, and unwavering devotion to duty, Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry reflected great credit upon himself... ."
One award, three citations
But a third citation exists that appears to be the earliest. And it is not on the Kerry campaign Web site. It was issued by Vice Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, commander of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam. This citation lacks the language in the Hyland citation or that added by the Lehman version, but includes another 170 words in a detailed description of Kerry's attack on a Viet Cong ambush, his killing of an enemy soldier carrying a loaded rocket launcher, as well as military equipment captured and a body count of dead enemy.
Maj. Anthony Milavic, a retired Marine Vietnam veteran, calls the issuance of three citations for the same medal "bizarre." Milavic hosts Milinet, an Internet forum popular with the military community that is intended "to provide a forum in military/political affairs."
Normally in the case of a lost citation, Milavec points out, the awardee simply asked for a copy to be sent to him from his service personnel records office where it remains on file. "I have never heard of multi-citations from three different people for the same medal award," he said. Nor has Burkett: "It is even stranger to have three different descriptions of the awardee's conduct in the citations for the same award."
So far, there are also two varying citations for Kerry's Bronze Star, one by Zumwalt and the other by Lehman as secretary of the Navy, both posted on johnkerry.com.
Kerry's Web site also carries a DD215 form revising his DD214, issued March 12, 2001, which adds four bronze campaign stars to his Vietnam service medal. The campaign stars are issued for participation in any of the 17 Department of Defense named campaigns that extended from 1962 to the cease-fire in 1973.
However, according to the Navy spokesman, Kerry should only have two campaign stars: one for "Counteroffensive, Phase VI," and one for "Tet69, Counteroffensive."
94 pages of records unreleased?
Reporting by the Washington Post's Michael Dobbs points out that although the Kerry campaign insists that it has released Kerry's full military records, the Post was only able to get six pages of records under its Freedom of Information Act request out of the "at least a hundred pages" a Naval Personnel Office spokesman called the "full file."
What could that more than 100 pages contain? Questions have been raised about President Bush's drill attendance in the reserves, but Bush received his honorable discharge on schedule. Kerry, who should have been discharged from the Navy about the same time -- July 1, 1972 -- wasn't given the discharge he has on his campaign Web site until July 13, 1978. What delayed the discharge for six years? This raises serious questions about Kerry's performance while in the reserves that are far more potentially damaging than those raised against Bush.
Experts point out that even the official military records get screwed up. Milavic is trying to get mistakes in his own DD214 file corrected. In his opinion, "these entries are not prima facie evidence of lying or unethical behavior on the part of Kerry or anyone else with screwed-up DD214s."
Burkett, who has spent years working with the FBI, Department of Justice and all of the military services uncovering fraudulent files in the official records, is less charitable: "The multiple citations and variations in the official record are reason for suspicion in itself, even disregarding the current swift boat veterans' controversy."
Thomas Lipscomb is chairman of the Center for the Digital Future in New York.
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http://www.suntimes.com/output/elec...nws-lips27.html
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Lincoln
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Burkett is just part of the vast right wing conspiracy and can't be trusted to tell the truth like John Kerry. Or, GWB paid him to say that. Or, big oil money is paying for all this. Or, John Kerry is just being picked on, we need to stick to the issues that are really important to the American people. Or, ...
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Lincoln
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From the National Review:
Statement of RADM William L. Schachte, Jr. USN (Ret.)
August 27, 2004
As was true of all "Swiftees," I volunteered to serve in Vietnam and was assigned to Coastal Division 14 for a normal tour of duty.
I was a Lieutenant serving as Operations Officer and second in command at Coastal Division 14 when Lieutenant (junior grade) John Kerry reported to us in mid-November, 1968. Lt. (jg) Kerry was an Officer-in-Charge (O-in-C) under training in preparing to be assigned as one of our Swift Boat O-in-C's.
At some point following President Johnson's announcement of the suspension of bombing in North Vietnam in March 1968, we were directed to become more aggressive in seeking to find and destroy or disrupt the enemy in our operating area. As part of this effort, I conceived a new operation that became known as "Skimmer OPS." The concept was simple. A 15-foot Boston Whaler was sent into an area where, based on coordinated intelligence, North Vietnamese cadre and Viet Cong were expected to be meeting or where, for example, concentrations of enemy forces might be involved in the movement of arms or munitions. We were to draw fire and quickly get out of the area. This would allow more concentrated firepower to be brought against the enemy forces we had been able to identify.
These operations were carried out only in "hot" areas and well away from any villages or populated areas. A Swift Boat would tow the skimmer to the general area of operations, and the ambush team would then board the skimmer and proceed to the designated area of operations. The Swift Boat would be riding shotgun and standing off, occasionally out of sight, to provide fire support and long-range communications. The Skimmer was powered by an outboard motor, and we carried an FM radio, handheld flares, an M-60 machine gun with a bipod mount, and an M-16 mounted with a starlight scope. If the night was heavily overcast, we brought an M-14 mounted with an infrared scope. We also carried an M-79 single-shot grenade launcher. In addition to our combat gear and flak jackets, we often carried .38-caliber pistols.
The operation consisted of allowing the skimmer to drift silently along shorelines or riverbanks to look or listen for sounds of enemy activity. If activity was identified, we would open fire with our automatic weapons, and if we received fire, we would depart the area as quickly as possible, leaving it to air support or mortar fire from a Swift Boat standing off at a distance to carry out an attack.
I commanded each of these Skimmer operations up to and including the one on the night in question involving Lt. (jg) Kerry. On each of these operations, I was in the skimmer manning the M-60 machine gun. I took with me one other officer and an enlisted man to operate the outboard motor. I wanted another officer because officers, when not on patrol, were briefed daily on the latest intelligence concerning our sector of operations and were therefore more familiar with the current intelligence. Additionally, at these daily briefings, officers debriefed on their patrol areas after returning to port.
On the night of December 2-3, we conducted one of these operations, and Lt. (jg) Kerry accompanied me. Our call sign for that operation was "Batman." I have no independent recollection of the identity of the enlisted man, who was operating the outboard motor. Sometime during the early morning hours, I thought I detected some movement inland. At the time we were so close to land that we could hear water lapping on the shoreline. I fired a hand-held flare, and upon it bursting and illuminating the surrounding area, I thought I saw movement. I immediately opened fire with my M-60. It jammed after a brief burst. Lt. (jg) Kerry also opened fire with his M-16 on automatic, firing in the direction of my tracers. His weapon also jammed. As I was trying to clear my weapon, I heard the distinctive sound of the M-79 being fired and turned to see Lt. (jg) Kerry holding the M-79 from which he had just launched a round. We received no return fire of any kind nor were there any muzzle flashes from the beach. I directed the outboard motor operator to clear the area.
Upon returning to base, I informed my commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard, of the events, informing him of the details of the operation and that we had received no enemy fire. I did not file an "after action" report, as one was only required when there was hostile fire. Soon thereafter, Lt. (jg) Kerry requested that he be put in for a Purple Heart as a result of a small piece of shrapnel removed from his arm that he attributed to the just-completed mission. I advised Lt. Cmdr. Hibbard that I could not support the request because there was no hostile fire. The shrapnel must have been a fragment from the M-79 that struck Lt. (jg) Kerry, because he had fired the M-79 too close to our boat. Lt. Cmdr. Hibbard denied Lt. (jg) Kerry's request. Lt. (jg) Kerry detached our division a few days later to be reassigned to another division. I departed Vietnam approximately three weeks later, and Lt. Cmdr. Hibbard followed shortly thereafter. It was not until years later that I was surprised to learn that Lt. (jg) Kerry had been awarded a Purple Heart for this night.
I did not see Lt. (jg) Kerry in person again for almost 20 years. Sometime in 1988, while I was on Capitol Hill, I ran into him in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building. I was at that time a Rear Admiral and in uniform. He was about 20 paces away, waiting to catch the underground subway. In a fairly loud voice I called out to him, "Hey, John." He turned, looked at me, came over and said, "Batman!" We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, agreed to have lunch sometime in the future, and parted ways. We have not been together since that day.
In March of this year, I was contacted by one of my former swift boat colleagues concerning Douglas Brinkleyıs book about Senator Kerry, "Tour of Duty." I told him that I had not read it. He faxed me a copy of the pages relating to the action on the night of December 2-3, 1968. I was astonished by Senator Kerryıs rendition of the facts of that night. Notably, Lt. (jg) Kerry had himself in charge of the operation, and I was not mentioned at all. He also claimed that he was wounded by hostile fire.
None of this is accurate. I know, because I was not only in the boat, but I was in command of the mission. He was never more than several feet away from me at anytime during the operation that night. It is inconceivable that any commanding officer would put an officer in training, who had been in country only a couple of weeks, in charge of such an ambush operation. Had there been enemy action that night, there would have been an after action report filed, which I would have been responsible for filing.
I have avoided talking to media about this issue for months. But, because of the recent media attention, I felt I had to step up to recount my personal experiences concerning this incident.
Last edited by Lincoln on 28-08-2004 at 16:39
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Lincoln
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"...Lt. (jg) Kerry had himself in charge of the operation, and I was not mentioned at all."
This guy Kerry is a real nut case. I am seriously convinced that he is a patholigical liar.
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27-08-2004 20:21
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