Kerry's PCF (Swift) Boats Records [Where Is He?]

Swift Boats Net ^ | Composite

[johnb838]

Phoney Medals, Phoney Ribbons, Phoney Political Hack. J. Effing Kerry, Esq., Traitor

[archy]

I wonder how many of these guys are now going to get emails, asking about their impressions of Kerry--if they even can remember him.

*** Kerry? Kerry? Oh yeah, the L-T who was only with us a couple of months. Don't remember much about him....***

I'd wonder about the two guys [3?] out of the 5-man crew who transferred off the 94 boat [or maybe DEROSed] between the short time Kerry took over and he left....

[Krodg]

The first report I read said Kerry's team contacted the GOP guy. When the guy was interviewed he said he volunteered...when questions were raised both sides claimed the guy called Kerry's team and left a message, they returned the call. Bunch of hooey...

[sonofatpatcher2]

E-mailed to friends@foxnews.com

CCs to brenda.parsons@version.net, Midnightvette@cs.com, jsm4914@peoplepc.com, JLavoie101@.aol.com, tnfayette@aol.com, bkreyer@egcrc.net, russpr@st-tel.net, twright3@hotmail.com, johnbrown578@aol.com, jbrook1029@aol.com, seascow@msn.com, jlmiller@tscnet.com, tpeck49@cableone.net, Jenereski@aol.com, ndc@mwwed.com, bogey67401@yahoo.com, dalyeame@midusa.net, buddyb@atlantic.net, algarza@earthlink.net, oneilljohn@copn.com, hmcconnell@daytonalaw.com, ElbowG97@aol.com

Hey,
something's fishy here. You at "Fox & Friends" have the resources to check this out. Ask a few of the military folks you have and see if they agree with the following:

The Essex Soapbox ^ | February 17, 2004 | Mike Morrison


Posted on 02/18/2004 10:06:40 PM CST by Bubba_Leroy


I've long thought that John Kerry's war record was phoney. We talked about it when you were here. It's mainly been instinct because, as you know, nobody who claims to have seen the action he does would so shamelessly flaunt it for political gain.

I was in the Delta shortly after he left. I know that area well. I know the operations he was involved in well. I know the tactics and the doctrine used. I know the equipment. Although I was attached to CTF-116 (PBRs) I spent a fair amount of time with CTF-115 (swift boats), Kerry's command.

Here are my problems and suspicions:

(1) Kerry was in-country less than four months and collected, a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three purple hearts. I never heard of anybody with any outfit I worked with (including SEAL One, the Sea Wolves, Riverines and the River Patrol Force) collecting that much hardware so fast, and for such pedestrian actions. The Swifts did a commendable job. But that duty wasn't the worst you could draw. They operated only along the coast and in the major rivers (Bassac and Mekong). The rough stuff in the hot areas was mainly handled by the smaller, faster PBRs. Fishy.

(2) Three Purple Hearts but no limp.. All injuries so minor that no time lost from duty. Amazing luck. Or he was putting himself in for medals every time he bumped his head on the wheel house hatch? Combat on the boats was almost always at close range. You didn't have minor wounds. At least not often. Not three times in a row. Then he used the three purple hearts to request a trip home eight months before the end of his tour.. Fishy.

(3) The details of the event for which he was given the Silver Star make no sense at all. Supposedly, a B-40 (rocket propelled grenade) was fired at the boat and missed. Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand, the bow gunner knocks him down with the twin .50 (caliber machine guns), Kerry beaches the boat, jumps off, shoots Charlie, and retrieves the launcher. If true, he did everything wrong. (a) Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put your stern to the action and go (away) balls to the wall. A B-40 has the ballistic integrity of a Frisbee after about 25 yards, so you put 50 yards or so between you and the beach and begin raking it with your .50's. (b) Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a .50 caliber round and get up? The guy was dead or dying. The rocket launcher was empty. There was no reason to go after him (except if you knew he was no danger to you - just flopping around in the dust during his last few seconds on earth, and you wanted some derring-do in your after-action report). And we didn't shoot wounded people. We had rules against that, too. (c) Kerry got off the boat. This was a major breach of standing procedures. Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat in a hot area. EVER! The reason was simple. If you had somebody on the beach your boat was defenseless. It couldn't run and it couldn't return fire. It was stupid and it put his crew in danger. He should have been relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any boat crewman ever leaving a boat during or after a firefight.

Something is very fishy.

Here we have a JFK wannabe who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get a good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early, requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for Congress, finds out war heros don't sell well in Massachusetts in 1970 so reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting, winds up in the Senate himself a few years later, votes against every major defense bill, says the CIA is irrelevant after the Wall (Berlin) came down, votes against the Gulf War, a big mistake since that turned out well, decides not to make the same mistake twice so votes for invading Iraq, but oops, that didn't turn out so well so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war.

I'm real glad you or I never had this guy covering out flanks in Vietnam. I sure don't want him as Commander in Chief. I hope that somebody from CTF-115 shows up with some documented facts challenging Kerry's Vietnam record.

I know in my gut it's wildly inflated. And fishy.

This e-mail was written by Mike Morrison, who won a bronze star in Vietnam and who is now retired, but wrote speeches for Lee Iacocca for many years. It was sent to his brother Ed, who sent it to one of our readers who follows such matters. -Ed.-


Posted at: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1080942/posts
See also: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1080011/posts

I've sent CCs to the members of Kerry's Boat Squadron I could find. Hopefully, one or more of them will come foward to set the record straight.

[Cold Heat]

It was up-graded from a Bronze Star,

That explains it.

[Thommas]

Did he really not know that Lyndon Baines Johnson, a Democrat, was President when he, Kerry, went to war?

Of course he knew. When he was commissioned an O-1, the order was signed by the then POTUS, LBJ. I guarantee, every Officer in the U.S. Military remembers who gave him/her the commission.

[Kenny Bunk]

On the money, Dog.

Vietnam was in many ways a medals giveaway program, especially for officers who went in harms way, which the scumbag undeniably did.

As far as the Purple Hearts go, if a wound bleeds, you get it. Plenty of "band-aid Purple Hearts" out there. I got one, and I ain't givin' it back. Another half-inch in any direction and my own esteemed conservative self, as well as the the liberal scumbag Kerry would not have come home.

As far as the Silver Star goes, if the Kerry action report is true, he broke every rule in the book. However, JFK's WWII medal also came instead of a deserved court martial for losing a fast agile boat to a ramming from an enemy destroyer that "Snuck up on them.(?)"

Drop the medals inquiry, folks. It's a loser. Concentrate on his abandonment of the field to join Jane Fonda, and the despicable Tom Hayden. (Tom's worse, because he's smart. Jane is one of the stupidest women on the planet, and I include Barbara Boxer.)

[hgro]

Anyone that has an opinion on service related matters hopefully has been in the Marines, Army, Airforce or Navy.

By having served, you get a much better insight into how some few are awarded medals while real heroism is buried.

[kabar]

Kerry is listed in PCF 66.

[Robert A Cook PE]

William B. Hoole Jr, LT, OinC 4/68-4/69 Qui Nhon

But Kerry claims he was on baoard at the same time, in a different base:

John Forbes Kerry, LTJG, OinC 10/68-4/69 An Thoi

Remember, only ONE officer was ever assigned on ONE Swift boat at a time 9Here, Kerry and Hoole overlapped), and BOTH were named Officer-in-Charge!

Further, Kerry was still training in October 67 back in Mare island, CA - north of San Francisco in the Napa Valley....

and he (Kerry) was home before the end of March 68 at an admiral's position in Boston!

[Robert A Cook PE]

Is the mythical "3 PH and you're out" "policy" actually written down anywhere?

We know he applied specifically to duck and run away from Vietnam, and apparently his boss decided it was better to let a troublemaker go home rather than screw up the rest of the boats and crews.....

Kerry had already had several protest meetings in Saigon with Abrams (Army CO) and Zumwalt BEFORE he decided to ask to go home after only 90 days.

[terilyn]

Nice catch!

BTTT

[kabar]

What I also find strange is how quickly Kerry received his Silver Star. The photo seems to indicate he received his Silver Star on Feb 28, but it also appears the action took place around the same date. As someone who spent almost 8 years as a naval officer and 20 months in a combat zone, 8 months offshore and 12 months in-country, I cannot believe an award nomination and approval could be done so quickly. It took months to get medals through the approval process.

[Drammach]

Now this is bugging me - there's some round out there that is prohibited for use on human targets, but I can't recall it.

You may be thinking along these lines...
Explosive rounds, and "tracer" or phosphorus rounds are relegated to "non personnel" use.. or banned for use against troops.
When I say "explosive" rounds, I refer to "dum-dum" and, I think, hollow-point type rounds used in small arms.
This could include specialty rounds like mercury-tips, etc.. but only as it applies to pistols, rifles, and automatic weapons..

"Explosive" does not apply of course to larger, crew-served weapons, such as howitzers and artillery, although Geneva Conventions, IIRC, still placed restrictions on phosphorus rounds, and of course, gas rounds, like mustard gas or other blister agents and nerve agents.

[SwiftBoatSailor]

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill:

"Never in the field of American politics has so much been
touted by so many about so few months in Vietnam"

Only one question: Why did he REQUEST to leave after only
four months of his twelve month obligation? More than two
million Americans served in Vietnam. And they all served
their entire obligation to that conflict. I did so on Swifts.

If he would release his medical records from those short
months, maybe we would be able to form an opinion on this
question. But so far, he has refused to make disclosure of
these and other pertinent documents about his service.
.
Four versus Twelve. That is the question.
.

[dalebert]

Kerry was not on the boat on Jan. 29th.

[dalebert]

Doesn't look like he recommended the men serving under him for anything at all. And if he got guys to write letters in his behalf after the fact those same guys may be worried about the trouble they could be in for embellishing the truth. I wonder if any of the guys who recommended him actually served with him?