Kerry swift boat crewmate Jim Wasser
[Photo courtesy of The Columbus Dispatch]
Posted on 08/18/2004 1:27:03 PM PDT by OESY
LOMBARD -- James R. Wasser, second in command under Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry on PCF-44 in Vietnam, will speak at the August 25 meeting of the Democrat Party of DuPage County at their campaign office at 1000 Rohlwing, Lombard.
Wasser was one of the 13 men who fought with Kerry in Vietnam who were on the podium at the Democrat National Convention to help introduce the nominee before he gave his speech accepting the his Party's nomination for President.
Among the 13 were the boatswain, gunnery mates, and petty officers who crewed the boat skippered by Kerry when he was a 25-year-old Navy lieutenant in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Kerry calls them his Band of Brothers.
Wasser is now a union electrician who lives in Kankakee. He was a 2004 Democrat Convention delegate from Illinois.
Meanwhile, controversy about Kerry's tenure in Vietnam grows.
In his syndicated column today, conservative David Limbaugh calls the mainstream media "AWOL" on its coverage of contradicting accounts of Kerry's less than four months tour of Vietnam, particularly following the recent release of the book, Unfit for Command, co-authored by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi.
Limbaugh writes:
John O'Neill doesn't timidly suggest that Kerry might have lied occasionally or exaggerated in Vietnam and afterward during his antiwar crusade. Rather he paints an unmistakable picture of Kerry as a ruthless, self-promoting egomaniac who systematically placed his own interests above his fellow soldiers and who was obsessively involved in building his resume at all costs during the entirety of his short tour in Vietnam.
O'Neill depicts Kerry -- with mountains of documented evidence -- as a pathological, unconscionable liar whose penchant for dishonesty in Vietnam was only exceeded by his brutal, unmitigated slander of his fellow soldiers when he rushed stateside to lobby against them, their superiors and the entire military establishment.
Limbaugh points to specific media bias:
They haven't been willing to engage in a debate with Mr. O'Neill. Instead, they have shouted him down. Just review the transcript of O'Neill's appearance on CNN's Crossfire, where James Carville and Lanny Davis ceaselessly berated O'Neill and literally wouldn't let him speak.
And Chris Matthews [MSNBC's Hardball], though he allowed O'Neill to speak between interruptions, couldn't seem to get past his perception that Kerry had to be a hero because the Navy, as an institution, bestowed multiple awards on him.
But if Chris had read the book, he would have understood that one of its premises is that Kerry often circumvented those who had actual knowledge of events and duped his superiors into giving him honors by falsifying reports and presumably recommending himself for these awards when his superiors refused to do so.
Thus far, Kerry has refused to release all his military and medical records that would help clarify disputes. The swift boat waters were further muddied recently over Kerry's "Christmas in Cambodia" story.
On the floor of the U.S. Senate on March 27, 1986, Kerry recalled:
I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the President of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared - seared - in me.
Kerry also told the Boston Globe:
I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real.
Now, Kerry crewmembers who will speak about it say they were never in Cambodia, and all living commanders of Kerry deny he was ever ordered to Cambodia.
Limbaugh concludes:
But what's even more damning to John Kerry's credibility is his unsubstantiated defamation of his fellow servicemen in his opportunistic Senate testimony and elsewhere upon his return from Vietnam. Kerry not only indicts his fellow soldiers as war criminals, but the entire command structure of the U.S. military as directing these types of activities.
Yet Kerry has never been able to produce specific names and dates of those who committed these actions, nor any real proof of systematic, much less top-down orchestrated atrocities. Kerry has never apologized for these slanders.
If just one tenth of what the Swiftees assert is true, we should shudder at the prospect of a Kerry presidency.
© 2004 IllinoisLeader.com -- all rights reserved
Kerry swift boat crewmate Jim Wasser
[Photo courtesy of The Columbus Dispatch]
I'm getting confused here. Did Kerry command PCF-94 or PCF-44, because from the looks of this picture, if it was 94, Mr. Wasser would fall into that category of folks who can't comment because he wasn't in the same boat!
Did anyone ask what his salary is?
Maybe he just gets to walk around with his knees intact.
nuff said
I suspect the correct fraction that is the truth is much higher, and I'm shuddering.
Has anybody asked Wasser if he ran guns into Cambodia with Kerry?
Both, neither for more than 2 1/2 months. The previous skipper of the -94 boat was WIA and Kerry was moved to the -94 boat. Why, rather than just bringing in a new skipper, I haven't a clue.
On page 73 of "Unfit for Command" Wasser (a Kerry supporter) was quoted (only place in the book) as he recounted one of Kerry's mishaps:
"In addition to leading the board-and-search operations, it was Wasser's responsibility to stand by his young skipper in the event Lieutenant Kerry committed a blunder. 'Sometimes he got disoriented and misread the navigational maps,' Wasser allowed. 'It was easy to do. Once, we hit a sandbar and couldn't get loose. We didn't call in because we didn't want to get John in trouble. We just sat around for hours, waiting for high tide. It eventually came, and off we went.'"
Note: The point of posting this piece was to illustrate how interest in the Kerry's claims about Vietnam are spreading. It also contains some good quotations. The more interest, the more controversy, the more Kerry's candidacy is hurt -- by those who might ordinarily not be paying attention at this stage of the campaign but have begun to seek answers. Wasser is likely to be challenged on many of Kerry's assertions.
Any lie is made most believable when it has threads of truth. I am starting to wonder if Kerry has given us some truth, but instead of it having been the actions of others, perhaps it describes what he personally did when on his secret CIA missions.
"..................at times 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 in addition to the normal ravage of war,........"
Kerry could save everyone a lot of time...money...and aggravation by simply releasing his
records......
So why wont he?.....
you are right. Wasser never served on his boat. Therefore he is obviously not a credible witness to anything, using Kerry standards.
Once, we hit a sandbar and couldn't get loose. We didn't call in because we didn't want to get John in trouble. We just sat around for hours, waiting for high tide. It eventually came, and off we went.'"
I was on a ship when the captain grounded it on a shoal under similar conditions. I'd warned him he was getting too close sometime before it happened. He was a total idiot. I can only imagine Kerry was also.
"In addition to leading the board-and-search operations, it was Wasser's responsibility to stand by his young skipper in the event Lieutenant Kerry committed a blunder. 'Sometimes he got disoriented and misread the navigational maps,' Wasser allowed. 'It was easy to do. Once, we hit a sandbar and couldn't get loose. We didn't call in because we didn't want to get John in trouble. We just sat around for hours, waiting for high tide. It eventually came, and off we went.'"
so they covered for Kerry back then....
article 4 (10) rocks and shoals...also article 14 (10) fraud...
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq59-7.htm
I believe Jean Fraude Kerrí first commanded PCF-44, then PCF-94.
In UNFIT FOR COMMAND it is pointed out how reckless and dangerous it was to have your swiftboat hung up on a sand bar for hours.
And oftentimes, to win us to are harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths. Tell us honest trifles to betray us in deepest consequence.
Absolutely correct. The narrative continues:
"[The grounding] left Kerry's boat almost defenseless, unable to maneuver, unable to bring guns to bear, unable to withdraw. Aground, Kerry's boat was totally vulnerable to mortar or any other type of attack. Kerry's mistake also left the area that his boat was supposed to be patrolling totally unguarded. Because of the boat's vulnerability and its inability to guard its patrol area and carry out its assignment on station, officers in charge of boats that ran seriously aground were required to report the situation immediately. In the above incident, Kerry evidently chose not to call in to avoid getting 'in trouble.' While incidental minor grounding was seldom reported, a major long-term grounding, like that of PCF-44 described above, would always have been reported, and very little trouble would have ensued given the nature of the brown-water navy. Kerry's decision not to report the episode to his superiors, based on his fear of their disfavor, says much about him.
"In addition to failing to report adverse occurrences, Kerry developed a reputation for simply wandering off aimlessly. For example, on one occasion, after being relieved, he simply diverted his boat into Saigon ... 'to taste the storied capital,' without informing anyone that he had done so or where he was.... That Kerry stories abound is remarkable given his short cameo in Vietnam."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.