Kerry's Medals Were Deserved, Says Widow of Slain Comrade, Husband was Swift Boat Skipper (Droz)

The Boston Globe ^ | Friday, August, 27, 2006 | Jessica Vascellaro

[kristinn]

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.

SNIP

She also protested the war, and met with resentment from several men who served with her husband and were reluctant to meet her.

SNIP

Over the years, the ties between Kerry and the Droz family have grown deeper. The senator appeared in a 2003 documentary that Tracy Droz Tragos, daughter of Keyes and Droz, produced entitled "Be Good, Smile Pretty," the salutation at the end of her father's letter from Vietnam.

"[John Kerry] has been a very important relation to me for some time," said Tragos, who worked as an intern in Kerry's Senate office in the summer of 1989. "He was the only person who had kept in touch with my family."

SNIP

[RogueIsland]

So the media is reduced to using the widow of a guy who was a Swift Boat skipper to buttress Kerry's claims. Was she on his boat?

Pathetic.

[shezza]

But she wasn't even in Vietnam, much less on Kerry's boat. How can her opinion be considered valid? </sarcasm>

[The G Man]

Let me see if I have this right. The Swift Boat guys are to be ignored as they "weren't on his boat" yet we should believe this woman ... because why?

[Militiaman7]

Let's find out for sure, get John Edwards to channel this guy.

Talk about wishing and hoping.

[PilloryHillary]

The Kerry camp has shown how desperate they are.....but now they trot out a widow to do their dirty work? Sheesh.

[Howlin]

[CR]

I knew a guy who's brother once had lunch at a table next to Kerry in 1969 and I KNOW that he must be telling the truth......I'm just waiting for the press to come interview me

[rwilson99]

The real question should be... if she did not appear with John Kerry before congress. Did she really protest with him?

[conservative in nyc]

She was also a delegate to the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Her New York Slimes first-person op-ed piece is posted here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1200642/posts

[farsighted]

HA! Great idea. Funny how Edwards has slipped below the radar with all the coward and draft dodger venom coming from the Rats.

[Texan5]

This is disgusting! First he uses disabled veterans to whine for him, and now he uses a widow. What is he going to do now-troll for some more widows to who weren't even in Nam to vouch for him?

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

Must have been a conjugal visit

[madprof98]

"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.

What makes this seem utterly predictable?

[speedy]

Man, this just gets better all the time. These people are even more desperate than I had imagined. The poor Globe -- its little cheerleader outfit is all covered with mud.

[boxerblues]

Judith Keyes of Morrison & Foerster Image: Jason Doiy / The Recorder

Boston in Common Attorneys from around the country, many with ties to Kerry or Edwards, to appear on the Democratic National Convention floor

Brenda Sandburg The Recorder 07-27-2004

The first time Judith Droz Keyes attended a Democratic National Convention it was 1968, and she never made it inside.

She was among the throngs of anti-war protesters who were pummeled outside the convention by the Chicago police. An officer on a horse struck Keyes on the head with his baton, she says. At the time, her husband was serving in Vietnam as a swift boat officer, in the same squadron as John Kerry. Eight months later, Keyes' husband died, spurring her to become more active in the anti-war movement. That's where she met Kerry.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1090180176989

[dawn53]

Obviously, you don't have to be on the boat, as the media claim in order to be credible, you just have to be pro-Kerry.

[keysguy]

This is exactly how they play the game. Hey let's use the dead guys wife, "who would have the nerve to go against her"--a sure sign of desperation, and slick operators.

[Cosmo]

Pathetic? no, nuanced!

[normy]

Awesome comparison! I have that picture framed on the wall in front of my computer. I never considered that.

As far as the thread goes, I guess "bring it on" means Kerry is gonna stand behind the widows and amputees. What a punk!