Posted on 08/16/2004 2:04:50 AM PDT by The Bandit
Sen. Kerry has an established a track record for playing fast and lose with the facts, such as claiming he commanded the PCF-94 during January of 1969; that it was his boat that hit a mine and lifted 2-3 feet out of the water (See Congressional Record: January 28, 1998 (Senate) Page S186-S187); claiming the Rev. David Alston was a member of his crew; Christmas in Cambodia, and well you get the idea. Sen. Kerry released a document for the March 13, 1969 incident that details his swift boat's (PCF-94) damage for the March 13th incident that had earned him a Bronze Star for helping a former Green Beret by the name of Jim Rassmann out of a river. If one was not familiar with Sen. Kerry's record, than they might conclude by the reading of this damage assessment that Sen. Kerry's PCF-94 really did strike a mine that could had really knocked Jim Rassmann from the deck of the swift boat and into the water.
(Excerpt) Read more at idexer.com ...
Interesting that according to this document the 94 boat towed the 3 boat. If the 94 boat had this kind of battle damage, I would have expected one of the other undamaged boats to do the towing. An Thoi was fairly far away (50+ miles).
There is no doubt that PCF 94 didn't suffer any damage in the mine incident. Unless the windows were blown out in the rice incident, I don't think there was any damage. If there was, you can be sure it would have been included in the bronze star citiation.
There is no doubt that a close miss with their mines would not bend heavy brass props. Their mines were not exactly hi powered. Sometimes you could bend/nick the props by running aground, but in the Cau Mau most river bottoms were very soft and silty.
One other point to think about. Rassmann says he was diving for the bottom to keep from getting run over. Truth be told if I ever went over, I would have wanted the boats behind to see me. I might swim perpendicular to the river, to get out of the way, but I want them to see me.
Besides his cookie would have gotten wet.
I find it very interesting that the state of Massachusetts has one senator telling us to remember what happened to him 36 years ago and another senator telling us to forget what happened to him 36 years ago.
How soon did Kerry's boat return to combat after supposedly suffering that blast? What was the next mission?
"F" works. It stands for FRAUD.
Are you questioning Kerry's patriotism?
There is a difference between lying/deception and patriotism. However, I will denounce Kerry as a patriot if all his lying and deception are proven to be linked to the futherance of his political career. Right now, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is exactly what his service in Viet Nam was used for. Despicable and a true disservice to real veterans who fought there.
No, that is the 94 boat. You need to "mine" the threads on the Swiftvets forum. The blown out windows were admitted by Kerry to be from the day before (3/12) in his diary published on page 304 of "Tour of Duty". The prop damage could have come from the boat hitting a log or the banks of the 75 foot wide canal when he fled after the 3 boat mine explosion. The non-functional electric equipment may have been a good reason for it to be laid up for repair. The 94 boat got fixed and went back on patrol on the 18th. The Charlie part of your message may be an estimated return to service date, which I think also means the 18th.
But Kerry wasn't going back out on patrol anyway. "Unfit for Command" says that one of the other officers told Kerry about the three Purple Heart provision after the 3/13 mission and said it would be best for all concerned if Kerry took that way out. Kerry's request for relief was received in Washington, D.C., on 3/17.
Note, from the link in my post, I first posted that on August 9th, and the post you are responding to is from August 16th. At the time, there wasn't anything to 'mine'!
I'm glad the information has since been reconciled. I still don't understand how a boat in that condition could have been capable of towing PCF-3, but don't have time to go dig into the details any more.
Thanks for the input! :-)
Hey, no problem. Thanks for your research. I'm trying to three things at once and didn't see the date.
Now I'm back to the Swiftvets forum to find the support behind Kerry's debate statement "... because I know what it means to lose people in combat." We seem to be certain that no man under Kerry's direct command lost his life. And grieving for his school friend could have happened if the guy died in a car crash, considering Kerry's remoteness from action on the Gridley.
It has been said that the Swifties of different crews bunked and ate together at the base. So the only way I could see giving Kerry a pass on this is if they lost people in his unit (squadron?) when he was there.
I think they lost quite a few. Also, Kerry was reportedly close with Don Droz, who was reportedly killed a couple weeks after Kerry left. In Kerry style... Droz' daughter (Tracy Tragos) just made a movie... and received an emmy from none other that Dan Rather, according to KansasCity.com.
“Totally, totally surprised,” said an exuberant Tragos by telephone, minutes after receiving the Emmy from newsman Dan Rather. “There were five other amazing films in our category. I was already loosening the straps of my shoes.”I wonder if Lt. Peter Upton was any relation to John Upton, VVAW Regional Coordinator for Missouri and half of Kansas...(snip)
Tragos spent the next two years tracking down men who served alongside Droz in Vietnam, including his fellow swift boat officers John Kerry and William Rood. The film powerfully recreates the events of April 12, 1969, when PCF-43, the boat commanded by Droz was ripped in half by a carefully planned Viet Cong heavy weapons barrage. Droz and corpsman Robert Worthington were killed at the scene; only three out of 15 men aboard the swift boat escaped casualty, according to the account by Lt. Peter Upton that Tragos found on the Web in 2001.
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