***Ketchup Boy Only Served For FOUR MONTHS***

Stardate: 0402.17

[twigs]

I agree with you as it relates to Kerry. However, I just don't think that it's helpful to the country as a whole to start second-guessing at military actions decades later for political gain. It's just not a place where it's ultimately helpful for any of us to go. I think what's happening to Pres. Bush is utterly ridiculous and these tangential issues that really have no useful resolution keeps the focus off the important matters. That concerns me.

It also plays to the emotional control of lots of people who don't have the ability to see through what is really happening.

[syriacus]

Maybe we should pick one unsubstantiated, mudslinging rumor and stick with it.

Yes. Unsubstantiated rumors are a bad idea.

Let's just stick with the record.

Kerry's on the record saying he chose the swift boat assignment because he thought it would be safer

[rbmillerjr]

..."The president's father had close personal ties with influential Chinese party members"...

Close personal ties - please show some evidence of this.

[kilowhskey]

He volunteered for Swift boats, which were cruising the coast of Viet Nam - fairly safe.

Um those boats were some of the most dangerouns assignments in 'nam. You were a sitting duck, open target, going up and down rivers full of snipers. Saying that his assignment was safe is re-writing history.

It is not rewriting history. John Kerry commanded a Swift Boat (PCF). These boats were the principal vessel used in Operation Market Time, whose mission was to interdict coastal traffic. It was not until Operation Sea Lord that PCFs were moved into the Mekong Delta. The standard Brownwater Navy boat in the Delta was the PBR and NOT the PCF. I'm sure that PBR crews are looking askance at the attempted rewrite of that chapter of Naval History.

Kerry Myers
RVN 3/67 - 5/69

[StriperSniper]

A swift boat is only safe when it is being swift

They look like they would make outstanding Tuna fishing boats here in the Northeast, not to mention that canyon run right now(well, after the storm ;-) for some bottom fishing. ;-)

Anybody know Sen. Ketchups unit, or whatever it would be called?

Swift Boat Sailors Association, Inc.

[syriacus]

Thanks for the link to the other thread!!

[RottiBiz]

I'd love to know the chronological order of these events.

Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry

Kerry graduated from Yale University in 1966.

Like John F. Kennedy (who served on a World War II patrol boat, PT 109), Kerry sought to do the same. He enlisted in the Navy and became an officer.

After training, Kerry volunteered for Vietnam. He served a relatively uneventful six months, far removed from combat, from December 1967 to June 1968, in the electrical department aboard the USS Gridley, a guided-missile frigate that supported aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin.

His ship returned to its Long Beach, Calif., port on June 6, 1968. Five months later, Kerry went back to Vietnam, securing an assignment as "swift boat" skipper. Kerry commanded his first swift boat, No. 44, from December 1968 through January 1969. He received no medals while serving on this craft.

While in command of Swift Boat 44, Kerry and crew operated without prudence in a Free Fire Zone, carelessly firing at targets of opportunity racking up a number of enemy kills and some civilians. His body count included-- a woman, her baby, a 12 year-old boy, an elderly man and several South Vietnamese soldiers.

"It is one of those terrible things, and I'll never forget, ever, the sight of that child," Kerry later said about the dead baby. "But there was nothing that anybody could have done about it. It was the only instance of that happening."

Kerry said he was appalled that the Navy's ''free fire zone'' policy in Vietnam put civilians at such high risk.

Kerry experienced his first intense combat action on Dec. 2, 1968. He was slightly wounded on his arm, earning his first Purple Heart.

In late January 1969, Kerry joined a five-man crew on swift boat No. 94 completing 18 missions over 48 days, almost all of them in the Mekong Delta.

Kerry earned his second Purple Heart after sustaining a minor shrapnel wound in his left thigh on Feb. 20, 1969.

February 28, 1969:

When Kerry's Patrol Craft Fast 94 received a B-40 rocket shot from shore, he hot dogged his craft beaching it in the center of the enemy position. To his surprise, an enemy soldier sprang up from a hole not ten feet from Patrol Craft 94 and fled.

The boat's machine gunner hit and wounded the fleeing Viet Cong as he darted behind a hootch. The twin .50s gunner fired at the Viet Cong. He said he "laid 50 rounds" into the hootch before Kerry leaped from the boat and dashed in to administer a "coup de grace" to the wounded Viet Cong. Kerry returned with the B-40 rocket and launcher.

Kerry was given a Silver Star for his actions.

[Cuttnhorse]

Or better yet, maybe we should leave this issue alone because it plays lousy with the voters, and instead go after Kerry on his policies and political record, an area that really matters in the here and now.

I'm with you.

[atlaw]

"Kerry's on the record saying he chose the swift boat assignment because he thought it would be safer."

And as it turned out, it wasn't safer. So what's your point? I think this is a lousy issue for us. Trying to spin Kerry's service into credible claims of "coward" or "war criminal" (take your choice) isn't going to keep him out of the White House. Pointing out his presently bad policies and politics will.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Not a problem, it's loaded with facts.

[McGruff]

Here's another little excerpt fom the record.

.. Kerry was slightly wounded on his arm, earning his first Purple Heart on his first day of serious action.

"It was not a very serious wound at all," recalled William Schachte, who oversaw the mission and went on to become a rear admiral.

[syriacus]

Command-F search for Kerry on that web page gives no results. (Message: Text 'Kerry' was not found)

Maybe his boat hasn't been added yet???

[Mo1]

Hey Cuttnhorse .. Can I ask you something since you were on this type of boat ... How wise is it to beach one of these

I'm trying not question his service because I wasn't there and am not qualified to really say anything on boat when one is taking on enemy fire is a bit dangerous

[Your Nightmare]

Check out this list of other cowards like Kerry who were avoiding combat by serving on swift boats:

http://www.swiftboats.org/kia.htm

Cowards, every one of them.

/sarcasm


You people need to lay off Kerry for serving on swift boats. In trying to denigrate him, you denigrate everyone else who did similar service and they (including Kerry) don't deserve it. Kerry served his country in combat. You can't (and shouldn't) try to take that away from him. Everyone can find plenty else to use against Kerry, y'all should leave his combat service out of it.


I'm sending out a special thanks to all those who served on swift boats in Vietnam (I think a couple of Freepers on this thread are included). And a very special thanks to those who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving on swift boats. Their names are listed in the link above.

[antiRepublicrat]

Bush's fighters, have, over time, a 1 in 4 crash rate.

Research is fun. From a history of the F-102 I searched up: "The F-102A established an excellent safety record in Vietnam. In almost ten years of flying air defense and a few combat air patrols for SAC B-52s ... eight were lost in operational accidents." Not bad. I wonder where the 102 got its bad rep.

[antiRepublicrat]

Bush's fighters, have, over time, a 1 in 4 crash rate.

Wait a minute, I see. You must be including the couple hundred that were converted to target drone duty in your statistics.

[Charles Martel]

Um those boats were some of the most dangerouns assignments in 'nam. You were a sitting duck, open target, going up and down rivers full of snipers. Saying that his assignment was safe is re-writing history.

I read in another thread that Kerry's Swift Boat duty was coastal interdiction, not Riverine. Anyone know for certain?

[antiRepublicrat]

instead go after Kerry on his policies and political record, an area that really matters in the here and now.

Good idea, because we can toast him on that.

[StriperSniper]

I don't know, since I don't know which was his. I don't know if there is anything to find, I was just looking for some info on the boats for 'nautical' purposes, ;-) and came across that site. What I would find most interesting would be if he was 'scrubbed' from any such place though. They want to talk about war records, I want to find out more from independent sources, I wonder what's out there. He should release all his records like Pres. Bush did, he wouldn't have anything to hide, would he?