Posted on 03/09/2004 11:33:47 PM PST by ambrose
Tuesday, Mar. 09, 2004 Douglas Brinkley, author of Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, interviews Kerrys tenth warmate and gets a story sharply different from what the other nine crew members have had to say Just when it looked like Senator John Kerrys so-called Band of Brothers were unified in vouching for his leadership in Vietnam there is suddenly a lone ripple of dissent in the ranks. What can I say? Kerry said when told that a former crewmate had unpleasant memories of him as his commanding officer. Ill take nine out of ten testimonies anytime. Every sailor who served under Lieutenant John Kerry on Swift boats PCF-44 and PCF-94 have gushed about his poise under enemy fire. They tell stories of his rescuing a Green Beret from drowning, killing a Viet Cong sniper, and saving 42 Vietnamese civilians from starvation. To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway they claim that in combat Kerry exemplified grace under pressure. But PCF-44 Gunners Mate Stephen M. Gardnerin a long telephone interview from his home in Clover, South Carolinahas a starkly different memory. Kerry was chickenshit, he insists. Whenever a firefight started he always pulled up stakes and got the hell out of Dodge. When writing my book Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War (William Morrow & Company) I interviewed all of Kerrys crewmatesall that is, except Gardner. They came from mid-size towns scattered across America including Kankakee, Illinois, and Ames, Iowa and Columbia, South Carolina. When first approached for interviews in late 2002 these Navy veterans told me they would enthusiastically campaign for their old skipper if he ever decided to run for president; theyve lived up to their promise. Whether its PCF-94s Chief Petty Officer Del Sandusky talking about Kerrys undaunted courage on TV campaign commercials or PCF-44s William Zaladonis explaining how Kerry never backed down, theyve been a united front. Nobody has campaigned harder for Kerry than his crewmates. Kerrys surprise victories in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary were, in part, a tribute to their unshakable conviction that Kerry was a born leader. When researching Tour of Duty some of these veterans proved extremely difficult to track down. Stephen W. Hatch, a boatswains mate who served under Kerry on PCF-44, proved particularly elusive. Eventually I located him in Niagra Falls, New York and he told me about his admiration for Chuck Berry guitar licks, rose tattoos and John Kerry. As my book went to press the only Swift crewmate I couldnt locate was Gardner. A quick count in the index of Tour of Duty shows that Gardners name appears on a dozen different pages throughout my narrative. He also periodically appeared in Kerrys war diaries. Still, my various inquiries to the U.S. Naval Historical Center, the Swift Boat Crew Directory and other outstanding reference outlets proved futile. So it was with a sense of genuine relief when PCF-44s Jim Wasser telephoned me last week with the news that Gardner had rung him up out-of-the-blue to discuss their shared days together in Vietnam. It was great Wasser told me. You know he fought bravely in Vietnam. He is still a brother. I miss him. I would like to see him. He then hesitated and went on. But he has developed a strange, negative assessment of Lieutenant Kerry. It shocked me. His memory is dead wrong. He remembers things so differently. He has some kind of weird grudge against Lieutenant Kerry. This was unexpected news. In Tour of Duty I portrayed the crew of PCF-44 as a true Band of Brothersit turns out they were a Band of Brothers minus one. A disappointed Wasser gave me Gardners telephone numbers, reminding me that PCF-44 gunners mate was nicknamed The Wild Man by his crewmates for his hair-trigger penchant for firing M-60s into the mangrove thicket. Let me know what you find out, Wasser told me. Im having trouble understanding where hes coming from. After interviewing Gardner for over an hour it essentially boils down to one word: politics. A strong supporter of President George W. Bush, Gardner is sickened by the idea of Kerry as president. Anybody but Kerry, he says. I know what a disaster hed be. So what brought Gardner out in the open? The answer turns out to be Rush Limbaughs talk show. Around the time of the South Carolina primary, Gardner heard Limbaugh say there was something fishy about Kerrys Vietnam service but he couldnt quite put his finger on it. I was driving down the road, and I hit that [radio] button and Rush was talking about Kerry and his campaign and how something just didnt feel right to him, Gardner recalled, his voice full of conviction. Something about what John Kerry did or was doing, just really didnt set right with him. And you know I served with this guy, and the bottom line to it is; harsh as this may sound or as good as it sounds to any Democrat, out there, John Kerry is another Slick Willy. Hes another Bill Clinton and thats exactly what he is. And Im telling you right now, that if John Kerry gets to be president of these United States, itll be a sorry day in this world for us. We cant stand another Democrat like that in there again. Well get our asses in such a sling this time; we wont be able to get out of it. And the bottom line to it is, I dont care how much John Kerrys changed after he moved off my boat, his initial patterns of behavior when I met him and served under him was somebody who ran from the enemy, rather than engaged it. If Id had Rushs 800 number, or known how to reach him, I would have called in. Gardner was born on January 3, 1948 in Portsmouth, Ohio. His family moved to the Lake Erie shore town of Port Clinton, Ohio when he was seven or eight years old. Shortly after his seventeenth birthday he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. My dad was in the navy, so I wasnt gonna be an army ground pounder, he recalled. I really liked boats and hunting. Shooting things. He attended gunnery school at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Waukegan, Illinois and was then sent to Swift boat school at Coronado, California, the same place where Kerry trained in August-October 1968. From therein late 1965Gardner was sent off to Subic Bay in the Philippines where he helped load Swift boats onto an LST and headed to Vietnam. Over the next three years Gardner served as gunner on four different Swift boats, each with a different commanding officer. His least favorite was his last: Lieutenant (j.g.) John F. Kerry of PCF-44. When describing Kerry he unloads choice adjectives, opportunist being his favorite. His most colorful phrase is claiming that all Kerry wanted to do was save his lily-white ass. Up until now he has kept his resentment mostly to himself. Ive told a few of my friends that he was an asshole, Gardner says. But Im not looking to make news. No two men remember combat exactly the same way so Kerry has been extremely lucky that 9 out of his 10 crewmen have almost identical stories about his valor during various firefights and skirmishes. But memories can vary from person to person; Gardner insists that the Kerry he knew in Vietnam was a singularly un-heroic figure. He dismisses the glowing eyewitness accounts of his crewmates Jim Wasser (Radarman), Bill Zaladonis (Petty Officer), Drew Whitlow (Boatswains Mate) and Stephen Hatch (Boatswains Mate) as bunk. Kerry sat some of them down and convinced them to buy into his side of what happened over there, he explains in bizarrely conspiratorial fashion with no evidence to back him up. When youre as persuasive as Kerry its not hard to make a guy change something that he saw. Gardners first bone of contention involves an incident that took place on the morning of December 29, 1968. PCF-44 was in a small canal just off the Co Chien River. They had been probing the waterway with another Swift boat on a minor Operation SEALORDS raid and on their way back had come under enemy fire. We went into a dangerous area that had numerous hooches and sampans, Wasser recalled. The enemy was thick. Once we got in the canal we took a lot of small arms fire, followed by mortar. Our adrenaline was racing; we went right back at them with all the firepower we could muster. Thats when Gardner got hit. As recounted in Tour of Duty by Kerry, Gardner had shouted: Theres somebody running over there Hes got a gun on the port side, on the port side! PCF-44s crew had been firing at thatched huts on their way out of the canal, and the reports of their own guns had muffled those of the shots being fired at them. Suddenly, Gardner shrieked, Im hit, and stopped firing for a moment. Before Kerry could ask his condition, Gardner shouted from his post: Ill be okay, and went back to firing his two .50s. There is a dispute between Kerry and Gardner about what happened next. Kerry insists that the engagement was over when the boats pulled out. We didnt leave until the mission was over and all the boats headed out together, says Kerry. He claims that only after the firefight was overand enemy fire had been supresseddid he order PCF-44 to head back to a primitive base at Dong Tam so Gardner could receive medical attention from the U.S. Armys Third Surgical Division, based in a makeshift hospital there. But Gardner asserts that Kerry was simply fleeing the firefight. He wanted to get out of the river to save his own ass, Gardner maintains. I was ready to keep going. When told of Gardners criticism of Kerrys order, all of PCF-44s other crewmen disagreed with the tough talking South Carolinians assessment. Kerry made the right command decision, Wasser, second in command of PCF-44, maintains. We went into a 30 or 40 yard wide canal, suppressed enemy fire and got out of there before we were killed. You just dont hang around to get shot at. Gardner doesnt know what he is talking about. Then there is Gardners bold claim that Kerry use to take PCF-44 four or five miles from shore every night so not to get shot at. When pressed how this could be so, since oftentimes they were 25 miles upriver, he backed down. Okay, when we were in the rivers we didnt go to sea, he averred. But he always tried to park it away from the action and hide. The other members of PCF-44 were incredulous when they heard Gardners claim. To Wasser it was erroneous to his memory, to Zaladonis just not true, to Whitlow false and to Hatch a falsehood. Which brought the interview to the crux of Gardners beef against Kerry. Gardnerwho remembers no important dates or times or localesclaims that Kerry once threatened him with a court martial. The incident happened when Gardner, who told me he had no trouble shooting gooks, saw a Viet Cong guerilla with an AK-47 in a boat and started firing. I lay the hammer down on him, Gardner explains. I just put a finger on the gun: boom, boom, boom, boom. Hes done. He got flipped out of the boat, he went straight down. Thats when Kerry came running out of the guntub screaming ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire. Then he turned to me and said, I ought to have you court-martialed for shooting. I said, Hmmph sorry big boy. When somebody brings a gun up on me Im gonna shoot and Ill ask questions later cause I aint goin back in a body bag. The hardnosed Gardner returned from Vietnam in February 1969; Kerry came home a month later. The two men havent spoken in nearly 35 years. Kerry has no recollection of any of Gardners accusations, including the threatening of a court martial. None of PCF-44s crew trusts Gardners memory. Today Gardner claims he works at Millennium Services (an insurance inspection company) and is bitter about Kerrys national prominence. At various times in our interview he complained about Kerry running around with Hanoi Jane after the war and having a rich wife. Andlike Limbaughhe is determined to convince people that Kerry is Slick Willy incarnate. When informed of Gardners accusations Kerry, campaigning in Texas, simply stated they werent true. He deserves respect because he served our country well, Kerry says of Gardner. I left the country thinking well of Gardner and even tried to find him several times. But his stories are made up. Its sad, but thats the way it goes in war, and especially in politics. And then he added: But dont ask me. I know the guys, my other crewmates, and theyll set the record straight.
|
|
Copyright © 2004 Time Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. |
Privacy Policy |
John Kerry is the warmest, kindest, most wonderful human being I have met in my entire life...
What I wrote wasn't very clear.
Pray for W and Our Troops
The longer he was in the Mekong Delta river system, the more Kerry's war notes reflected a distrust of his direct superiors. He also grew more and more uncomfortable with the tacit assumption that an American life was worth so much more than a Vietnamese life. Although he never saw the slightest evidence of bigotry, hatred, or cruelty of any kind in any of the men he served with on a Swift boat, or in any of his fellow Swift skippers, Kerry was troubled by the callous attitude he perceived coming from the top U.S. brass. Worse, it seemed to be trickling down into the enlisted ranks among men eager for promotions. He wrote in his war notes,
The popular view was that somehow gooks just didn't have very much personalitythey were ignorant slopeheads, just peasants with no feelings and no hopes. I don't think this was true among most of the officers and this made me wonder how much of it was feigned among the enlisted so that they would look good in the eyes of their more chauvinistic comrades.
Kerry was fortunate never to have a man of that disturbing ilk among his crew. He commanded five men on each of his boats. They could hardly have been more diverse in background, age (ranging from nineteen to thirty-seven), education, point of origin, or anything else except distance from their Yale-grad skipper's privileged upbringing.
"I know that most of my friends felt absolutely absurd going up a river holding a loaded weapon that was supposed to be used against someone who had never really done anything to you and on whose land you were now trespassing," Kerry wrote. "I had always felt that to kill, hate was necessary and I certainly didn't hate these people." In truth, he added, scanning the shore for suspicious movements to shoot at made him "feel like the biggest ass in the world." Kerry had explored similar feelings in a letter to his parents in December of 1968. Describing the sight of American soldiers and their Vietnamese girlfriends strolling down the streets of the U.S. rest-and-recreation-center city of Vung Tau one sunny afternoon, he reflected on the crucial difference between occupiers and liberators of war-torn places. "I asked myself what it would be like to be occupied by foreign troopsto have to bend to the desires of a people who could not be sensitive to the things that really counted in one's country," Kerry wrote in that letter. He had been considering Germany's occupation of France during World War II, he added, when "a thought came to me that I didn't likeI felt more like the German than the doughboy who came over to make the world safe for democracy and who rightfully had a star in his eye."
Less than three months later experience had brought him to another melancholy observation. He wrote in his war notes,
It was when one of your men got hit or you got hit yourself that you felt most absurdthat was when everything had to have a meaning in order for it all to be worthwhile and inevitably Vietnam just didn't have any meaning. It didn't meet the test. When a good friend was hit and perhaps about to die, you'd ask if it was worth just his life alonelet alone all the others or your own.
"But the ease with which a man could be brought to kill another man, this always amazed me," he went on. Even more troubling to him was the imprimatur the U.S. military accorded this coldheartedness. To illustrate his point, he referred to the messages that would come in from the brass at Cam Ranh, praising the Swifts' gunners whenever they had killed a few Vietcong, and ending "Good Hunting": "Good Hunting? Good Christyou'd think we were going out after deer or somethingbut here we were being patted on the back and receiving hopes that the next time we went out on a patrol we would find some more people to kill. How cheap life became."
Exactly, which accounts for paragraph upon paragraph trashing HIM before he even got to WHAT THIS GUY HAD TO SAY.
While I was in such an activist and anti-Kerry mood, I also left a voice mail at WBT radio for John Hancock, popular talk host there, who is not a Kerry fan.
Rush read this same article on his program today.
BINGO! Release the files Lurch!
Kerry no hero in ex-crewman's eyes
#39 contains a link to a local newspaper's online edition with an interview the local paper conducted with Mr. Gardner.
So, did Kerry request a PH for Gardner? What does Gardner know about Kerry's PHs?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.