John Kerry's war record

Washington Times Letter to the editor ^ | Fri Dec 13 2002 | MICHAEL BENGE

[Texasforever]

Private Lynch is not running for Prsident. Kerry has built his entire campaign on his "heroics" in Viet Nam. Once you do that then you had damn well be prepared to live up to the image. There is a LOT to be skeptical about with this guy especially his conduct after using a loophole to get out early and his subsequent embrace of enemy sympathizers.

[Salvation]

But I know you care about issues and morals and values.

[Destro]

No I don't. We will win no one over with such statements - meant to tupe. We will sound like kooks to the average American who will not have made up his mind.

[Texasforever]

No what he sounds like is guy that takes credit for a "kill" his machine gunner had already made.

[Destro]

Yes I am pro life. I respect the Catholic church as a foundation of Western European civilization (as is Protestantisim-I won't leave them out). Actually in the heat of the moment typed quick. His anti-values agenda is a good way to attack Kerry. My apologies.

[Mo1]

We will sound like kooks to the average American who will not have made up his mind.

Hmmm .. we sounds like kooks and Kerry sounds like the good guy with his speech before Congress??

[Destro]

That is a petty and Clintonian approach to politics. The man deserved that medal and his crew served him well.

[Destro]

This may shock you - but many Americans think that is what happened in Vietnam.

[Mo1]

Yes I am pro life. I respect the Catholic church as a foundation of Western European civilization (as is Protestantisim-I won't leave them out).

I think the key word there is "respect" .. something Kerry obviously doesn't have

[Texasforever]

The man deserved that medal and his crew served him well.

No he deserved a court martial for running his boat aground and placing his entire crew in a position to be a sitting duck.

[Light Speed]

Three wounds and you’re out

Here is an article from the New Yorker.....note who Kerry's friends are....how quickly he recieved 3 wounds in combat.

Engineered outcome in my view....people pulling strings in high places.

[The New Yorker]...The Long War of John Kerry by Joe Klein

“I signed up for the Navy in 1965, the year before the Class Oration,” Kerry said now, with quiet vehemence. He repeated it, for emphasis: “I signed up for the Navy. There was very little thought of Vietnam. It seemed very far away. There was no connection between my decision to serve and the speech I made.”

But there was a connection, of sorts. Kerry had made the decision along with three close friends, classmates and fellow-members of Yale’s not so secret society, Skull and Bones: David Thorne, Richard Pershing, and Frederick Smith. All came from families with strong traditions of military and public service. Pershing was the grandson of General John Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force in the First World War. (Richard Pershing was killed during the Tet offensive.) “Our decisions were all about our sense of duty,” Fred Smith, who went on to found Federal Express, recalls. “We were the Kennedy generation—you know, ‘Pay any price, bear any burden.’ That was the ethos.”

The week before John Kerry delivered the Class Oration, the fifteen Skull and Bones seniors went off on a final jaunt together to a fishing camp on an island in the St. Lawrence River. Fred Smith remembers spending the days idly, playing cards and drinking beer. David Thorne, however, says that there was a serious running discussion about Vietnam. “There were four of us going to war in a matter of months. That tends to concentrate the mind. This may have been the first time we really seriously began to question Vietnam. It was: ‘Hey, what the hell is going on over there? What the hell are we in for?’”

Kerry’s reaction to these discussions was intense and precipitate. He decided to rewrite the speech. His original address, which can still be found in the 1966 Yale yearbook, was “rather sophomoric,” he recalled. “I decided that I couldn’t give that speech. I couldn’t get up there and go through that claptrap. I remember there was no electricity in the cabin. I remember staying up with a candle writing my speech in the wee hours of the night, rewriting and rewriting. It reflected what I felt and what we were all thinking about. It got an incredible reception, a standing ovation.”

The Senator and I were sitting in wing chairs in his office, which is rather more elegant than those of his peers—the walls painted Chinese red with a dark lacquer glaze and covered with nineteenth-century nautical prints. There is a marble fireplace, a couch, a coffee table, the wing chairs: in sum, a room with a distinct sensibility, a reserved and private place. Kerry seemed weary. Our conversation was interrupted, from time to time, by phone calls from his supporters—most of whom seemed unhappy about his Iraq vote. At one point, he had to rush over to the Senate chamber to vote on another issue. When he returned, we began to talk about his time in Vietnam. He served as the captain of a small “swift boat,” ferrying troops up the rivers of the Mekong Delta. He was wounded three times in four months, and then sent home—the policy in Vietnam was three wounds and you’re out. He received a Bronze Star, for saving the life of a Special Forces lieutenant who had fallen overboard during a firefight, and a Silver Star. The latter, a medal awarded only for significant acts of courage, was the result of a three-boat counterattack Kerry had led against a Vietcong position on a riverbank. He had chased down, shot, and killed a man that day. The man had been carrying a B-40 rocket-propelled grenade launcher. “You want to see what one of those can do to a boat?” he asked. “A couple of weeks after I left Vietnam, a swift boat captained by my close friend Don Droz—we called him Dinky—got hit with a B-40. He was killed. I still have the photo here somewhere.”

New Yorker Archive

86 posted on 01/23/2004 9:58:46 AM PST by Light Speed

[Destro]

Kerry can place at a moments notice on stage hundreds of anti-War vets many of them bonafide medal winning heroes who will back him to the hilt. Bush can do find as many anti-Kerry Vets who are also heroes to stand with him on stage to attack Kerry. But you know what? Bush is not the one with the medals and he will look small in comparison to a medal winning candidate like Kerry. I understand and sympathize with what you say I just am saying this line of attack DOES NOTHING TO HELP BUSH WIN AND MAY EVEN WEAKEN HIM.

Clark - attack him on his record in Bosnia and Kosovo and Waco and on his weak political beliefs. Kerry on his record in congress. Leave Nam out of it.

[Destro]

Good luck making converts to our side with that line.

[Mo1]

I'm not going to defend that war .. and I'm not going to question his service

But to sit back and say "our soldiers had “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." like Kerry did was wrong and just because it was in the movies doen't mean it is right

[Destro]

Good luck.

[Texasforever]

Good luck making converts to our side with that line.

Oh drop the "our side" claptrap. Everything I have found on the details of Kerry’s "heroics" is blatant resume inflation.

[Mo1]

I'm not saying Bush should attack him and never said he should .. You did that

I just think the media should tell the truth about Kerry

However, I won't hold my breath on that .. they wouldn't know how to report the truth if it smacked him upside their heads

[Destro]

You don't get those medals via resume inflation. The very least he was in combat. Where was Bush? Cheney? See what I mean? This is a dangerous line of attack.

[Texasforever]

Where was Bush? Cheney? See what I mean? This is a dangerous line of attack.

Neither of them is claiming Audi Murphy status. Yes you do get those medals as resume inflators. JFK being a prime example. He too lost his boat due to command incompetence. Kerry ran his boat aground in order to get one guy that had already been hit by a 50-caliber machine gun.

[Destro]

He received a Bronze Star, for saving the life of a Special Forces lieutenant who had fallen overboard during a firefight, and a Silver Star. The latter, a medal awarded only for significant acts of courage, was the result of a three-boat counterattack Kerry had led against a Vietcong position on a riverbank. He had chased down, shot, and killed a man that day. The man had been carrying a B-40 rocket-propelled grenade launcher. “You want to see what one of those can do to a boat?” he asked. “A couple of weeks after I left Vietnam, a swift boat captained by my close friend Don Droz—we called him Dinky—got hit with a B-40. He was killed. I still have the photo here somewhere.”

A wounded man with an RPG is still able to sink a boat. He went in to make sure the threat was eliminated. Good anti-guerilla technique.