Kerry's Vietnam service deserves a look

Dallas Morning News ^ | 2-24-2004 | Danny Lee

[GailA]

home eight months

Gee, and Dubya only had a 6 months early out.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

I would like to know what the Navy Regulations said a wound was at the time Kerry was "wounded".

I would also like to read the citations describing the actions that he took to receive his medals.

I also would like to read the witness's accounts of the action(s).

[beelzepug]

"His wife Terry the Heiress said he has nightmares and flashbacks of Viet Nam"

Crappola! We used to take rocket fire night after night and I don't have nightmares. This guy's mind is weak. I sure don't want him in charge.

[BlessedByLiberty]

Please do use it, billb!


beelzpug, I understand what you say about nightmares. My point is that JF Kerry wants us to believe he is qualified for the office. However, his own wife is saying he is unstable.

[SAMWolf]

Yeah, isn't it funny how the Press keeps mentions Bush's "early Out" but not Kerry's?

[n-tres-ted]

This is an email I received last week, forwarded by a friend. I don't know the individuals who wrote and received it, but I think it is well worth reading on this subject.
****
Max,
I thought you would be interested in this email from Ed Morrison and his brother Mike. Ed worked at Triad in the early days and is ex-military. His brother Mike has some interesting first hand experiences in the same area and at the time John Kerry served in Nam.
Bill

Subject: Fwd: John Kerry

A VERY interesting article by my brother, Mike, who won a bronze star in Vietnam. I hope this one becomes public.

Bigger things. 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. So I spent a couple of hours on the internet yesterday, made a bunch of notes, and I'm sending them as an attachment. In addition, look at the website http://25thaviation.org/johnkerry/id15htm. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to chronicle Kerry's checkered career.

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.

(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 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, Kerry beaches the boat, jumps off, shoots Charlie, and retreives 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 balls to the wall. A B-40 has the ballistic integrity of a frisbie 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 coudn'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 fishy.

Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by running across the bow of a Jap destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get 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 Massachsetts 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 came down, votes against the Gulf War, a big mistake since tha! t 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 facts challenging Kerry's Vietnam record. I know in my gut it's wildy inflated. And fishy.

Keep smiling,

Mike

[bray]

If he were a Republican PravdABDNC would be wanting witnesses for his Purple Hearts and Silver, Bronze Stars???

Pray for W and The Truth

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: John Kerry
is
the
kindest, bravest, warmist,
most wonderful,
human being
I have ever known
in my life.

Are you Frank Sanatra?

[Just mythoughts]

There is no need to question anything about his medals.

Simply put there is a new STANDARD to be president one must release their military records.

No longer does ones own word stand, only the records can tell the story.

It is their standard and they need follow it.

[OldEagle]

I don't have any idea if Kerry's decorations were deserved or not. Something about it just doesn't pass the smell test and the fact that he refuses to document his record only adds to the smell.

[OrioleFan]

I keep hearing that "in 4 months Kerry earned...". I thought Kerry only spent 2 of the 4 months on the River. Wouldn't than make it a shorter time for him to have collected all of these medals?

[Skywarner]

"I don't think Kerry is about anything but Kerry."

Which Kerry? There are so many versions of him lately - almost like multiple personalities - that I can't keep count!

[OrioleFan]

The other thing I have a question about: Did the guy he fished out of the water fall out of his boat, one of the other boats, or was he tossout of the boat that hit the mine?

[OrioleFan]

It seems to me he wants to talk about how tough he will be on National Security (a joke), how he will create jobs (a falacy because he wants to shut down small business job creation by raising taxes), and how he's the only DemocRAT who can beat President Bush. Everytime he's challenged on his plans, he falls back on the "remember, I was a Vietnam war hero" worn out phrase. President Bush decides to take the gloves off and now Kerry wants to debate on Vietnam. Who's running scared. I say Kerry is because whatever the subject is, he wants to change it to something else.

[driftless]

I don't think it will be worth the effort to question whether Kerry deserved his medals or not. What I'm upset about is why Kerry is considered to be outstanding prez material on account of his war record by the same people who voted for Bill (I hate the military) Clinton over decorated war vets Bush I and Bob Dole. In fact Kerry is spectaculary unsuited to be cinc given his post-war actions. I'm not even counting his disgraceful actions impugning the integrity of Vietnam-vets like my older brother who served two full terms of duty including one where he came back with two purple hearts, a few medals for heroism, and recurring malaria.

But the attack on Kerry's war record will not be fruitful. His backers will just count it as malicious spite for political reasons and many Americans will only know that he was a decorated vet. Let's attack him on what he did post-war. There's plenty of ammunition there.

[sonofatpatcher2]

The Left had replied at
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/letters/stories/022504dnedicyberletters.29754.html

Do right-wing trashers get slime from same place? Re: "Kerry's Vietnam service deserves a look," by Danny Lee, yesterday's Cyberletters.

I found similar statements from a supposed Vietnam vet who claimed to have been in the same type of combat. Do the right-wing trashers all get their information from the same place? I find it deplorable that people who avoided Vietnam at all costs to be trashing the service of people who served there.

The man who trashed Max Cleland in Georgia managed to escape all together with deferments. This trash picked up from Ann Coulter is stupid. The last time that I checked the Army was not handing out the Silver Star for accidents. This commendation states his deed.

These same people – while Mr. Bush pretended to stand above the fray – slimed John McCain. Apparently when it comes to election politics from the far right there is no shame.

It seems that president who lied is preferable to one who lied about sex.

J. Austin Horn, Fort Worth, Texas

Guess the Left visits Free Republic...

But they just can't handle the truth. Can they?