Setting Straight Kerry’s War Record

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | 3/01/04 | Thomas Lipscomb

[kattracks]

Senator Kerry recently wrote a letter to President Bush complaining, “You and your campaign have initiated a widespread attack on my service in Vietnam, my decision to speak out to end that war,” and warning, “I will not sit back and allow my patriotism to be challenged.”

In the absence of any evidence from Mr. Kerry of an attack from the Bush campaign, Mr. Kerry seems to have originated his own doctrine of “pre-emption.” How valid are his concerns?

No one denies Mr. Kerry’s four bemedaled months in “Swiftboats” or his seven-months’ service as an electrical officer on board the USS Gridley, during its cruises back and forth to California, or even his months as an admiral’s aide in Brooklyn, before he was able get out of the Navy six months early to run for office.

Taking a look at Mr. Kerry’s much-promoted Vietnam service, his military record was, indeed, remarkable in many ways. Last week, the former assistant secretary of defense and Fletcher School of Diplomacy professor, W. Scott Thompson, recalled a conversation with the late Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. that clearly had a slightly different take on Mr. Kerry’s recollection of their discussions:

“[T]he fabled and distinguished chief of naval operations,Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, told me — 30 years ago when he was still CNO —that during his own command of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam, just prior to his anointment as CNO, young Kerry had created great problems for him and the other top brass,by killing so many non-combatant civilians and going after other non-military targets.‘We had virtually to straitjacket him to keep him under control,’ the admiral said. ‘Bud’ Zumwalt got it right when he assessed Kerry as having large ambitions — but promised that his career in Vietnam would haunt him if he were ever on the national stage.” And this statement was made despite the fact Zumwalt had personally pinned a Silver Star on Mr. Kerry.

Mr. Kerry was assigned to Swiftboat 44 on December 1, 1968. Within 24 hours, he had his first Purple Heart. Mr. Kerry accumulated three Purple Hearts in four months with not even a day of duty lost from wounds, according to his training officer. It’s a pity one cannot read his Purple Heart medical treatment reports which have been withheld from the public. The only person preventing their release is Mr. Kerry.

By his own admission during those four months, Mr. Kerry continually kept ramming his Swiftboat onto an enemy-held shore on assorted occasions alone and with a few men, killing civilians and even a wounded enemy soldier. One can begin to appreciate Zumwalt’s problem with Mr. Kerry as commander of an unarmored craft dependent upon speed of maneuver to keep it and its crew from being shot to pieces.

Mr. Kerry now refers to those civilian deaths as “accidents of war.”And within four days of his third Purple Heart, Mr. Kerry applied to take advantage of a technicality which allowed him to request immediate transfer to a stateside post.

Once back in the States, Mr. Kerry joined “the struggle for our veterans,” as he called it last week in Atlanta, by joining a scruffy organization called the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The VVAW’s executive director, Al Hubbard, supposedly a former Air Force captain wounded in Vietnam, quickly appointed Mr. Kerry to the executive committee.

Mr. Kerry participated with the VVAW at agitprop rallies such as Valley Forge and the “Winter Soldier” guerrilla theater atrocity trials in Detroit, finally testifying in April 1971 before the Senate as an authority on the war crimes his fellow American servicemen had committed in Vietnam.

Outside of his own “accidents of war,” there is no evidence that Mr. Kerry had then or has now the least idea what may or may not have been the realities of ground combat. However, he had no problem reeling off for the Senate a series of unproven, secondhand allegations that would have been perfectly at home at the Nuremberg trials indicting his fellow veterans.

Mr. Kerry stated there were “war crimes committed in Southeast Asia...not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-today basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.” Then Mr. Kerry got specific:

“They had personally 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 in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam...we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free-fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search-and-destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam.”

In other words, My Lai was just another day in the life of the Vietnam War.

This wasn’t a one-time occasion. The VVAW had been peddling this line from the day Mr. Kerry joined them and had been publishing charges like this for the previous two years. Mr. Kerry repeated them on “Meet the Press” with Al Hubbard, who was found to be a total fraud and who never served in Vietnam, much less was wounded. However, Mr. Kerry has never renounced the charges he made.

Recently, his fellow VVAW supporter, Jane Fonda, has tried to minimize a potentially damaging picture of him a few rows behind her at the three-day VVAW Valley Forge rally in September 1970. And many members of the press fell for the line that it was accidental or coincidental, including Fox’s Chris Wallace and ABC’s Tim Russert.

However, there were only eight or nine speakers that day, including Donald Sutherland, Mark Lane, Bella Abzug, and Ms. Fonda. And far from being a casual audience member, Mr. Kerry, an executive committee member, not Ms. Fonda, was the lead speaker.

Ms. Fonda had been funding VVAW events since before Mr. Kerry joined its executive committee. At Valley Forge, Ms. Fonda said: “My Lai was not an isolated incident but rather a way of life for many of our military.”

Their appearance together in that picture may be a lot of things, but it was not a coincidence.

Mr. Kerry has already confessed his complicity in killing civilians as “accidents of war.” However, he has offered a classic Nuremberg defense that this was not only a commonplace occurrence throughout the Vietnam War, but he was carrying out a policy “with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.”

His commander of naval operations in Vietnam, who specifically designed the mission that Mr. Kerry and the other Swiftboat commanders executed, Admiral Zumwalt, clearly disagreed. An examination of the truth behind this disagreement is not an attack on Mr. Kerry. It is a matter of vital historical interest.

[kattracks]

ping

[uncbob]

Just what we need as CIC

A nut job

[sgtbono2002]

When I read Kerry's speech spouting that he had killed women and kids with 50 caliber machine guns , I wondered then what he was doing on the 50's. Captain's of boats dont fire the 50's, I stated then he went to them for his "amusement" ,this story seems to bear me out on that.

[samtheman]

commie-man

[kattracks]

ping

[zarf]

I think it's a mistake to bitch about Kerry's war protesting. he did what he felt he had to do based upon his experiences. In a sense I can respect him for it.

It's more important to focus on what the Vietnam experience made of Kerry: an indecisive, equivocator.

Not the stuff of leadership.

[aspiring.hillbilly]

I heard the kerry didnt serve out his one full year tour of duty like everybody else but pulled strings to be sent back home before his year was out.. furthermore his medals are suspect since he wrote the citations himself and not his commanding officer...

[Lokibob]

ping

[Conspiracy Guy]

Did Kerry fight in Nam? Which side?

CG

[YOMO]

I think it's a mistake to bitch about Kerry's war protesting. he did what he felt he had to do based upon his experiences. In a sense I can respect him for it.
It's more important to focus on what the Vietnam experience made of Kerry: an indecisive, equivocator. ..........
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It would be fun to see a commercial featuring a Presidential Debate showing the Audience as the debaters would see them. Only the back of the debaters heads and the audio giving each position. i.e. "I am for this (using real quotes, giving the dates in text) and have the other response I am against this ( on the same subject). After about 5 or 6 statements and responses have the camera move to show the faces of both debaters,JOHN F. KERRY. He can be on both sides of a position at the same time. What do you think?

[TMSuchman]

Here is my take on mr. katsup-boy.

1] If he had witnessed any war crimes then he is guilty of a cover up and or war crimes themselves. Under the UCMJ he was bond to report & take action aginst any unlawful actions agnist unarmed persons.
2] If he did not witness any crimes, then he is guilty of perjury aginst congress. In other words a LIAR!

Anyway you look at it, he commited a crime of some sort! So why don't we cal him to task on this. He opened the "door" on this. So let's slam it in his face!

[YaYa123]

"It’s a pity one cannot read his Purple Heart medical treatment reports which have been withheld from the public. The only person preventing their release is Mr. Kerry."

After running so hard on his self-described "fighting", "courage", "hero" military accomplishments, Kerry will do ANYthing to keep his medical records on those purple hearts secret. I bet it's not reporters digging for them...I bet it's people working for the Clintons.

George Bush was pressured by the media to release his military medical records, the same should apply to Kerry.

[kabar]

I don't agree that the characterization of Zumwalt's opinion of Kerry is accurate. Zumwalt supported Kerry.

[kabar]

The following important article from the October 10, 1996 South Coast Today by an AP writer suggests that Zumwalt wanted to recommend Kerry for the Navy Cross, but "it would take too long":

Kerry assails columnist who questioned war service By Glen Johnson, Associated Press writer

BOSTON -- Stung by a column questioning the circumstances of his greatest war triumph, Sen. John F. Kerry gathered his commanders and crew from Vietnam yesterday to rebuff what several called an assault on his integrity.

Mr. Kerry, visibly angered, recounted how he chased down a Viet Cong soldier in February 1969 and killed him as he was just about to fire a rocket into Mr. Kerry's Swift boat. The action earned him the Silver Star, the country's third highest honor for bravery.

The critical column, however, quoted the boat's forward gunner as saying Sen. Kerry actually finished off the soldier after the gunner wounded him.

Yesterday, the gunner, Tom Belodeau of Dracut, stood beside Sen. Kerry and said he had been misquoted. "This man was not lying on the ground. This man was more than capable of destroying that boat and everybody on it. Sen. Kerry did not give him that opportunity," Mr. Belodeau said.

Mr. Belodeau did concede that he may have wounded the Viet Cong soldier with a burst from his own gun, but he said Sen. Kerry did more than just finish him off. The columnist, an economics writer David Warsh for a Boston newspaper, noted that such a "coup de grace" would have been considered a war crime.

"The soldier that Sen. John Kerry shot was standing on both feet with a loaded rocket launcher, about to fire it on the boat from which (Mr. Kerry) had just left, which still had four men aboard," Mr. Belodeau said.

The Democrat also describes it as a defining period in his life, since he came home opposed to the war and began his public life as co-founder of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

The most celebrated moment came on Feb. 28, 1969. A three-boat flotilla Mr. Kerry was commanding on a river in South Vietnam came under fire and Sen. Kerry took his boat directly into it. By the end, a Viet Cong soldier was dead and Sen. Kerry was carrying an enemy rocket launcher with a rocket still loaded in the chamber.

In the column, Mr. Warsh quotes Mr. Belodeau as saying in the course of their interview, "You know, I shot that guy. ... When I hit him, he went down and got up again. When Kerry hit him, he stayed down." Gov. Weld received educational and medical deferments from serving in Vietnam, something Sen. Kerry has never directly challenged. But Mr. Kerry was clearly insulted over having a segment of his service questioned.

Sen. Kerry's staff arranged a news conference at the Courageous Sailing Center in the Charlestown Navy Yard. It also flew in several people who attested to Sen. Kerry's character and his version of events.

They were retired Admiral E.R. Zumwalt Jr., who commanded U.S. naval forces in Vietnam; retired Capt. George Elliott, Kerry's commander at the time of the shooting; retired Cmdr. Adrian Longsdale, who commanded shoreline operations at the time; and Mr. Belodeau, an electrician who is currently working in Michigan.

Also participating by phone from San Francisco was Michael Medeiros, who was the rear gunner on the Swift boat. Tom Vallely, a former Marine and Sen. Kerry's close friend, introduced each speaker.

Mr. Zumwalt, with two Navy ships and the USS Constitution anchored over his shoulder, said he remembered only two such incidents from Vietnam and one of them was Sen. Kerry's.

Mr. Zumwalt also said he wanted to recommend Sen. Kerry for an even higher medal, the Navy Cross, but approval would have taken too long. Instead, he personally approved a Silver Star and sped along the award to improve morale at a time his sailors were taking heavy casualties.

"To me it was such a terrible insult, such an absolutely outrageous misinterpretation of the facts, that I felt it was important to be here," Mr. Zumwalt said. "A wartime commander has a lifetime responsibility to look out for the guys under him." ,

Mr. Medeiros, who was chasing after Sen. Kerry and the fleeing soldier, said he did not see Sen. Kerry kill him but had no doubt that the senator did so.

"The only one that was there was Senator Kerry," he said.

Sen. Kerry said his reaction to the column had nothing to do with the latest poll findings.

"This is not about Bill Weld," he said. "This is about my honor, this is about the honor of my crew and this is about the honor of those who served. ... This is just wrong. This is not the way to conduct American politics."

This is an interesting press report. What is instructive here is that we have an MO of exactly how Kerry will counter any attacks against his war record. The Weld campaign tried to raise it and this was Kerry's response. I also find it interesting that Kerry states he co-founded VVAW in 1970, which actually began in 1967.

[MEG33]

It's not his protesting or being anti war,it's his blanket accusations against his brothers in arms.

[angkor]

Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, told me ? 30 years ago when he was still CNO ?that during his own command of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam, just prior to his anointment as CNO, young Kerry had created great problems for him and the other top brass,by killing so many non-combatant civilians and going after other non-military targets.?We had virtually to straitjacket him to keep him under control,? the admiral said.

If true, this account means that Kerry was himself nothing less than a psychotic war criminal.

Are any of these other "top brass" still alive?

[zarf]

If he had witnessed any war crimes then he is guilty of a cover up and or war crimes themselves. Under the UCMJ he was bond to report & take action against any unlawful actions against unarmed persons.

The problem with this angle is that the high command up to the Joint Chiefs in that dirty war were busy sweeping everything under the rug including misbehavior of personnel in the field. Mi Lai for example. Reporting these incidents in many cases, was fruitless and dangerous to ones career.

I'm not going to bitch about Kerry's protesting, but that war has turned his head into indecisive jello and that's unacceptable in this era.

[kabar]

Mr. Zumwalt also said he wanted to recommend Sen. Kerry for an even higher medal, the Navy Cross, but approval would have taken too long. Instead, he personally approved a Silver Star and sped along the award to improve morale at a time his sailors were taking heavy casualties.

"To me it was such a terrible insult, such an absolutely outrageous misinterpretation of the facts, that I felt it was important to be here," Mr. Zumwalt said. "A wartime commander has a lifetime responsibility to look out for the guys under him."

Based on the above. I question Thompson's quote and even if true, Zumwalt's subsequent defense of Kerry would make it irrelevant.

[Kozak]

Just what we need as CIC

Yeah. I picture him with of Wes Clark as Veep. Yikes.