Setting straight Kerry's war record

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Senator Kerry recently wrote a letter to President Bush complaining, "You and your campaign have initiated a widespread attack on my service in Vietnam, my decision to speak out to end that war," and warning, "I will not sit back and allow my patriotism to be challenged."

In the absence of any evidence from Mr. Kerry of an attack from the Bush campaign, Mr. Kerry seems to have originated his own doctrine of "pre-emption." How valid are his concerns?

No one denies Mr. Kerry's four bemedaled months in "Swiftboats" or his seven-months' service as an electrical officer on board the USS Gridley, during its cruises back and forth to California, or even his months as an admiral's aide in Brooklyn, before he was able get out of the Navy six months early to run for office.

Taking a look at Mr. Kerry's much-promoted Vietnam service, his military record was, indeed, remarkable in many ways. Last week, the former assistant secretary of defense and Fletcher School of Diplomacy professor, W. Scott Thompson, recalled a conversation with the late Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. that clearly had a slightly different take on Mr. Kerry's recollection of their discussions:

"[T]he fabled and distinguished chief of naval operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, told me — 30 years ago when he was still CNO —that during his own command of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam, just prior to his anointment as CNO, young Kerry had created great problems for him and the other top brass, by killing so many non-combatant civilians and going after other non-military targets. 'We had virtually to straitjacket him to keep him under control,' the admiral said. 'Bud' Zumwalt got it right when he assessed Kerry as having large ambitions — but promised that his career in Vietnam would haunt him if he were ever on the national stage." And this statement was made despite the fact Zumwalt had personally pinned a Silver Star on Mr. Kerry.

Mr. Kerry was assigned to Swiftboat 44 on December 1, 1968. Within 24 hours, he had his first Purple Heart. Mr. Kerry accumulated three Purple Hearts in four months with not even a day of duty lost from wounds, according to his training officer. It's a pity one cannot read his Purple Heart medical treatment reports which have been withheld from the public. The only person preventing their release is Mr. Kerry.

By his own admission during those four months, Mr. Kerry continually kept ramming his Swiftboat onto an enemy-held shore on assorted occasions alone and with a few men, killing civilians and even a wounded enemy soldier. One can begin to appreciate Zumwalt's problem with Mr. Kerry as commander of an unarmored craft dependent upon speed of maneuver to keep it and its crew from being shot to pieces.

Mr. Kerry now refers to those civilian deaths as "accidents of war. "And within four days of his third Purple Heart, Mr. Kerry applied to take advantage of a technicality which allowed him to request immediate transfer to a stateside post.

Once back in the States, Mr. Kerry joined "the struggle for our veterans," as he called it last week in Atlanta, by joining a scruffy organization called the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The VVAW's executive director, Al Hubbard, supposedly a former Air Force captain wounded in Vietnam, quickly appointed Mr. Kerry to the executive committee.

Mr. Kerry participated with the VVAW at agitprop rallies such as Valley Forge and the "Winter Soldier" guerrilla theater atrocity trials in Detroit, finally testifying in April 1971 before the Senate as an authority on the war crimes his fellow American servicemen had committed in Vietnam.

Outside of his own "accidents of war," there is no evidence that Mr. Kerry had then or has now the least idea what may or may not have been the realities of ground combat. However, he had no problem reeling off

for the Senate a series of unproven, secondhand allegations that would have been perfectly at home at the Nuremberg trials indicting his fellow veterans.

Mr. Kerry stated there were "war crimes committed in Southeast Asia...not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-today basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do."Then Mr. Kerry got specific:

"They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam...we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free-fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search-and-destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam."

This wasn't a one-time occasion. The VVAW had been peddling this line from the day Mr. Kerry joined them and had been publishing charges like this for the previous two years. Mr. Kerry repeated them on "Meet the Press" with Al Hubbard, who was found to be a total fraud and who never served in Vietnam, much less was wounded. However, Mr. Kerry has never renounced the charges he made.

Recently, his fellow VVAW supporter, Jane Fonda, has tried to minimize a potentially damaging picture of him a few rows behind her at the three-day VVAW Valley Forge rally in September 1970.And many members of the press fell for the line that it was accidental or coincidental, including Fox's Chris Wallace and ABC's Tim Russert.

However, there were only eight or nine speakers that day, including Donald Sutherland, Mark Lane, Bella Abzug, and Ms. Fonda. And far from being a casual audience member, Mr. Kerry, an executive committee member, not Ms. Fonda, was the lead speaker.

Ms. Fonda had been funding VVAW events since before Mr. Kerry joined its executive committee. At Valley Forge, Ms. Fonda said: "…My Lai was not an isolated incident but rather a way of life for many of our military."

Their appearance together in that picture may be a lot of things, but it was not a coincidence.

Mr. Kerry has already confessed his complicity in killing civilians as "accidents of war. "However, he has offered a classic Nuremberg defense that this was not only a commonplace occurrence throughout the Vietnam War, but he was carrying out a policy "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

His commander of naval operations in Vietnam, who specifically designed the mission that Mr. Kerry and the other Swiftboat commanders executed, Admiral Zumwalt, clearly disagreed. An examination of the truth behind this disagreement is not an attack on Mr. Kerry. It is a matter of vital historical interest.

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JWR contributor Thomas H. Lipscomb, the founder of Times Books, was the publisher of Admiral Zumwalt's best-selling book, "On Watch"

A Collection of Thoughts...Just in via email from Don Bendell, an
honorably discharged Vietnam Combat Veteran and Special Forces
Soldier...

Open Letter to John Kerry:

My wife had rotator cuff surgery earlier this year, and the recovery
is terribly painful. Then, she developed a staph-epi infection, and
they had to cut the same scar open and operate on her again. Just
thinking about the pain and anxiety of facing that painful surgery a
second time in the same wound, makes me cringe. That experience,
however pales in comparison to what I am going through right now, in
my heart.

The old hurts are surfacing and the feelings of betrayal by fellow
citizens, and their leader stirring them up, are breaking my heart
again. I am being cut in the same scar. How did we who served in
Vietnam suddenly become cold-blooded killers, torturers, and rapists,
of the ilk of the Nazi SS or the Taliban? Most of us were American
soldiers who grew up idolizing John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and all the
other heroes That was why I volunteered. But for political expediency,
John Kerry has rewritten history, again. After spending only four
months in the country of Vietnam,
John Kerry testified before Congress in 1971 with these exact words
about incidents he supposedly witnessed or heard about from other
vets: "They personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires
from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power,
cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed
villages, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and
generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."

I was a green beret officer who volunteered for duty in Vietnam and
fought in the thick of it in 1968 and 1969 on a Special Forces A-team
on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, just for starters. We were the elite. We saw
the most action. Everybody in the world knows that. But we did not
just kill people, we built a church, a school, treated illnesses,
passed out soap, food, and clothing, and had fun and loving
interaction with the indigenous people of
Vietnam, just like our boys did in Normandy, Baghdad, Saigon, and
everywhere American soldiers ever served. We all gave away our candy
bars and rations to kids. Our hearts to oppressed people all over the
globe.

My children and grandchildren could read your words, and think those
horrendous things about me, Mr. Kerry. You are a bold-faced,
unprincipled liar, and a disgrace, and you have dishonored me and all
my fellow Vietnam veterans. Sure, there were a couple bad-apples, but
I saw none, and I saw it all, and if I did, as an army officer, it was
my obligation to stop it, or at the very least report it. Why is there
not a single record anywhere of you ever reporting any incidents like
this or having the perpetrators arrested? The answer is simple. You
are a liar. Your medals and mine are not a free pass for lifetime,
Senator Kerry, to bypass character, integrity, and morality. I earn my
green beret over and over daily in all aspects of my life.

Eight National Guard green berets, and other National Guard soldiers,
have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and you totally dishonored
their widows and families by lumping National Guard service in with
being a draft-dodger, conscientious objector, and deserter, just so
you can try to sabotage the patriotism of our President who proudly
served as an Air National Guard jet pilot. I have a son earning his
green beret at Fort Bragg right now, and his wife serves honorably in
the Air National Guard, just like President Bush did, and I am as
proud of her as I am my son. I volunteered for Vietnam and have no
problem whatsoever with President Bush being our Commander-In-Chief.
In fact, I am proud of him as our leader.

John Kerry, you personally derailed the Vietnam Human rights Bill,
HR2883, in 2001, after it had passed the House by a 411 to 1 vote, and
thousands of pro-American Montagnard tribespeople in Vietnam died
since then who could have been saved, by you. Earlier, as Chair of the
Senate Select Committee on MIA/POW Affairs, you personally quashed the
efforts of any and all veterans to report sightings of living POW's,
when you held those reins in Congress. You have fought tooth and nail
to push for the US to normalize relations with Vietnam for years. Why,
Mr. Kerry? Simple, your first cousin C. Stewart Forbes, CEO, of
Colliers International, recently signed a contract with Hanoi, worth
BILLIONS of dollars for Collier's International to become the
exclusive real estate representative for the country of Vietnam.

"Hanoi John," now that it works for you, you beat your chest about
your Vietnam service, but to me, you are a phony, opportunistic,
hypocrite. You are one of those politicians that is like a fertilizer
machine: all that comes out of you is horse manure, and you are
spreading it everywhere. Medals do not make a man. Morals do.

Don Bendell
Canon City, Colorado

Don Bendell served as an officer in four Special Forces Groups, is a
best-selling author with over 1,500,000 books in print, a 1995
inductee into the International Karate Hall of Fame, and owns karate
schools in southern Colorado.

Hmmmmm. I will dare fate and go a bit farther. Admiral Zumwalt's recollections of Kerry's apparent recklessness are very telling. The Admiral gave us a clue, in his decrying "collateral damage" resulting from his "...killing so many non-combatant civilians and going after other nonmilitary targets. 'We had virtually to straitjacket him to keep him under control,' the admiral said."Note that "By his own admission during those four months, Mr. Kerry continually kept ramming his Swiftboat onto an enemy-held shore on assorted occasions alone and with a few men, killing civilians and even a wounded enemy soldier. One can begin to appreciate Zumwalt's problem with Mr. Kerry as commander of an unarmored craft dependent upon speed of maneuver to keep it and its crew from being shot to pieces."

Could it be, that Kerry was committing a Naval "Swift Boat" version of shooting himself in the foot to get out of combat? He seemed to be quite aware of the "3 Purples and you're Stateside" clause, and used it right away. Kerry got his first PH the very first day of his combat duty. As far as we know, he could have gotten what appeared to be 3 bumps on the head from repeatedly running his boat aground. His "wounds" did not seem to have kept him from more than a day or so of regular duty. We can't be sure unless he releases his combat medical records. His actions seem to have been dangerous and reckless, irrationally so. He could have been killed, perhaps. I don't doubt that one bit, had he continued to be so very reckless. But he got his 3rd PH, and he was outta there! So, what is going on here, inquiring minds would like to know!

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