A Great Post!
This article has been posted to DoctorZin’s New News Blog!
Posted on 08/14/2004 7:15:31 AM PDT by stayout
For those of you who have not been fully following the Swift Vet's story, one of Kerry's traveling entourage (David Alston) claimed he was under Kerry's command on a PBF and found Kerry to be a great leader. He even gave a speech to that effect at the Democratic National Convention, where he said the following:
I know him from a small boat in Vietnam, where we fought and bled together, serving our country. There were six of us aboard PCF-94, a 50-foot, twin-engine craft known as a "Swift Boat." We all came from different walks of life, but all of us-including our skipper, John Kerry-volunteered for combat duty. And combat is what we got.However, one intrepid blogger now has proven that to be a lie, Alston never served under Kerry because Alston was wounded and out of action before Kerry took command of Alston's boat. Here is the final bit of proof (published early this morning), I suggest you go to Captain's Quarters to find all the previous analysis leading up to this astonishing coup de gras (pass the word):
Alston Never Served Under Kerry
Thanks to reader Lori in Texas, I think we've just about pieced the record together on David Alston and his supposed service under John Kerry's command. Lori points out a sympathetic article on Dale Sandusky, one of the few Swift boat veterans supporting Kerry and one that served on his boat, specifically gives the timing on Kerry's command of PCF-94:
In January 1969, Sandusky's boat, PCF-94, came under attack during one such ambush. Lt. Ted Peck, the officer in charge, and another crewman were seriously wounded. Sandusky had to take command. The boat was sinking and on fire, but Sandusky steered it back to safety. They counted 155 bullet holes in the boat and found a live enemy rocket in the main cabin. It had come to rest in a sack of potatoes.Bingo! Yachtzee! Alston received his serious wounds in that same exact battle that took Peck out of service. On January 29th, Alston was medevaced out to a hospital with head wounds and no records indicate that he ever returned to the unit. Kerry took command of PCF-94 the next day. Alston never served a day under Kerry's command. In fact, Kerry received a replacement, Fred Short, on 28 February as a replacement for Alston.For his actions, Sandusky would receive the Bronze Star.
With their officer headed home, the crew of PCF-94 needed a leader. And Lt. j.g. John Kerry, whose crew on PCF-44 had rotated back home, needed men to lead.
"I was sure glad he came along," Sandusky said, "because to be honest, I didn't want to take command."
From Jan. 30 to March 13, 1969, Kerry and the crew of the PCF-94 would conduct 18 missions in the Mekong Delta river system. In that time, Kerry would earn a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and add two Purple Hearts to the one he received earlier.
Now what does that tell us about Kerry and his Viet Nam narrative?
1. He and Alston conspired to deceive people about Alston's service under Kerry. That conspiracy was intended to give John Kerry cover against exactly the kind of campaign he faces from the other Swiftvets.
2. The "end of January" language on Kerry's website was intentionally vague in order to fuzzy up the timeline and keep Alston's true status a secret. Obviously, Sandusky remembers the dates well enough, and Kerry could easily have gotten them from him if he wanted to be as specific as his other dates on the timeline.
3. The DNC either were saps or actively participated in the conspiracy in order to assist Kerry in his Viet Nam mythology. Otherwise, why would they have allowed David Alston to speak at the convention about his experiences serving with John Kerry on the boat?
4. Kerry's band of brothers have some complicity in this cover-up as well. Those who served on PCF-94 surely remember that Alston never served under Kerry; Sandusky specifically recalls Peck being wounded and removed from command, but he wouldn't remember that Alston left at the same time?
5. One could argue that they served on the same boat, of course, and I look forward to that Clintonian parsing used in Kerry's defense. After holding Alston up as an expert on his leadership, he'll be hard pressed to explain how that expertise came to Alston from a hospital bed miles away from Kerry and his old PCF.
If this gets out to the mainstream media, this story kills Kerry's campaign. This isn't just a guy embellishing his war record -- this is a deliberate and longstanding attempt to mislead and defraud people by creating his own witnesses after the fact. That he could have done such a clumsy job should disqualify him for higher office on that basis alone.
Posted by Captain Ed at August 14, 2004 01:25 AM
If that's the tarp or cover over the 80 mm mortar, perhaps it was blowing in the breeze. Couldn't that explain the blurring in a photo probably taken with a "brownie"?
I'd do it for you but don't quite understand what it is we're searching for. Have you tried The Wayback Machine to find stuff that used to be there?
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
bump
Nah, complicit media will never let it get legs.
Whether Kerry was in Cambodia at Christmas '68 or in 1969,doesn't the fact that the U.S.Navy had concrete (word?)and some other type(name?)ship indicate that Kerry couldn't possibly have gone into Cambodia? I wonder how long Cambodia was blocked to any stray American ship?
Evidence Shows Crewmate Rev. Alston Never Served Under Sen. Kerry
"..Only problem with the above statements is that the are flat out false because David Alston was never a crew member under Sen. Kerry nor could he had ever participated in combat operations with Sen. Kerry because they were from two different boats. From December to January 29, 1969 Sen. Kerry commanded the PCF-44 while David Alston was the Gunner onboard the PCF-94 under Lt.(jg) Peck. On January 29, 1969 both Peck and Alston were wounded and hospitalized. We know Alston was wounded on that date because his causality report was made available briefly by the Kerry Campaign before they removed it. Here is what it said:
AWFA: GMG2 DAVID MARION Alston, USN, 99T 57 46 BRAVO: ACTIVE DUTY, ATTACHED TO COASTAL DIVISION ELEVEN AT AN THOI, RVN CHARLIE: INJURY, HOSTILE FIRE DELTA: 29, JAN 69, 1030H, SONG CUA LON - SONG BO DE, WHILE SERVING AS FORWARD GUNNER ABOARD PCF 94, ENGAGED IN CORDON AND SEARCH OPERATIONS IN THE ABOVE RIVER, GMG2 Alston RECEIVED SHRAPNEL WOUNDS TO HIS HEAD WHEN PCF CAME UNDER INTENSE HOSTILE ROCKET AND A/W FIRE. ECHO: CONDITION GOOD, PROGNOSIS GOOD. PRESENCE OF NOK IS NOT MEDICALLY WARRANTED AS REPORTED BY CORPSMAN. FOXTROT: MRS. IDA MCQUILLAR Alston, MOTHER GOLF: NOK NOT OFFICIALLY NOTIFIED. REQ NOK NOT REPEAT NOT BE NOTIFIED. HOTEL: SERVICEMAN TREATED BY CORPSMAN AND MEDEVACED TO 29TH EVAC HOSP. BINH THUY. 2. PATIENT ABL TO COMMUNICATE WITH NOK. 3. NO FURTHER INFO WILL FOLLOW.
This confirms the date of David Alston's wounds, but it does not tell how seriously wounded David Alston was. There is no military medical records available for David Alston, and you cannot go by the causality reports description of good and prognosis is good because they will always say that even if you had both legs shattered -- and then there is the fact no medical doctor had yet evaluated him. But we can today see the severity of the wound Alston suffered as shown below from as Rev. Alston stood before recent Democratic Convention delegates...."
This article has been posted to DoctorZin’s New News Blog!
I think the Alston speech was all about burnishing Kerry's image as a strong military leader who experienced combat. Nothing more, nothing less. Alston was also part of the visual human props to show that Kerry could relate to minorities. The vast majority of the American public know nothing about the details of Kerry's medals and military service.
No prob. Lots of posts to filter through. I rarely read all the posts. Freeper BJungNan said it looked doctored first, but just couldn't come up with the motivation why. Now we have the motivation.
---I can't explain the shadows, but the existance of another shot with the same guys with different expressions and positions makes the fake photo theory less likely to me.---
True, but I'd like to get a closer look at that second photo. the link won't come up. At any rate the Alston saga doesn't depend on that photo. Sooner or later we'll find out something definitive about this. Remember, Kerry told some real whoppers out of that Winter Soldier thing and before Congress! Then we've got him on the Cambodia story. It's certainly not out of the question that he would try a complete subterfuge with the Alston story. Kerry thinks he can get away with anything. He has in the past.
Did that reporter he was supposedly boinking ever come back from Africa?
I've tried as best I can to follow all the related threads.
I don't mean to be difficult, but everything has to be carefully scrutinized because I have seen how the trashers work. And work they will.
Did the Kerry camp ever use it? His SUPPORTERS certainly did!
I see the boston globe published it in June 2003.... AND there's even SPECIFIC mention to the Christmas eve events near the border, and Kerry's trek inside Cambodia IN THE SAME ARTICLE! ALL A FABRICATION.
www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061603.shtml
Heroism, and growing concern about war
By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff, 6/16/2003
[FAKED PHOTO USED]
The Christmas Eve truce of 1968 was three minutes old when mortar fire exploded around John Forbes Kerry and his five-man crew on a 50-foot aluminum boat near Cambodia. ''Where is the enemy?'' a crewmate shouted.
In the distance, an elderly man was tending his water buffalo -- and serving as human cover for a dozen Viet Cong manning a machine-gun nest.
"Open fire; let's take 'em," Kerry ordered, according to his second-in-command, James Wasser of Illinois. Wasser blasted away with his M-60, hitting the old man, who slumped into the water, presumably dead. With a clear path to the enemy, the fusillade from Kerry's Navy boat, backed by a pair of other small vessels, silenced the machine-gun nest.
When it was over, the Viet Cong were dead, wounded, or on the run. A civilian apparently was killed, and two South Vietnamese allies who had alerted Kerry's crew to the enemy were either wounded or killed.
On the same night, Kerry and his crew had come within a half-inch of being killed by "friendly fire," when some South Vietnamese allies launched several rounds into the river to celebrate the holiday.
To top it off, Kerry said, he had gone several miles inside Cambodia, which theoretically was off limits, prompting Kerry to send a sarcastic message to his superiors that he was writing from the Navy's "most inland" unit.
Note: for those of you enlarging the photo, to look for clues...
The LARGEST, clearest version I could find of that FAKED PHOTO appeared in salon.com - 518x302 pixels (does that mean it ORIGINATED from Salon?)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/06/kerry_smear/index_np.html
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/06/kerry_smear/story.jpg
[its funny! They used THAT faked photo to claim Kerry is being smeared!!!]
Sen. John Kerry: The wall to the right of the door in the reception area of Sen. Kerry's office is devoted to his Vietnam experiences. Immediately by the door is large color photograph taken in 1969 on the Mekong Delta in Vietnam showing Kerry and crewmates Tom Belodeau, Michael Medeiros, Del Sandusky, and Gene Thorson (not in the photo is David Alston). A large model of the Kerry commanded, is situated by this wall in a glass case--according to the label it is a U.S. Navy Swift Boat MKI, PCF-94. [PCF stands for "Patrol Craft Fast"].
Mike Medeiros is the white guy in the 'medals' photo, lower left
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry
The larger SALON photo 518x302 pixels
Wow if is true, now we know why Ma Ma T Rex isn't sleeping with her serial liar, anymore and pushes him away when he tries hug or kiss her.
Well, I was considering that.
Here's the curious thing. I can't find a current pic of alston. You'd think because he was at the convention there would be one.
Tricky stuff. I just want to know as much as possible about what really happened, no matter whose ox gets gored. They sure had a field day with Bush, day after day.
I can hear the Kennedy soundbite ringing in my ears, "Lie after lie after lie".
Just exactly who has been lying here?
The spot reports were on the Kerry campaign website, not at the medias website. After the Kranish article of April 23, published in the Boston Globe (your link above), the Kerry campaign realized that there were NO Swift boat actions in January 1969 that involved Kerry, so they removed those references (summaries, including lies; plus spot reports from January) from the website.
I hope our few allies (Rush, Hannity, Hewitt, etc.) in the media would proceed very cautiously with this one. Hopefully, it can be proven that Kerry-Alston were never together. But please don't jump the gun on it before there's certainty. If we push no Kerry-Alston connection, and it's documented there was one, the media would work to reduce our credibility to nothing. Please be careful.
I think those are two different pictures taken within seconds of each other.
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