Anti-Kerry Vets to Release Book About Kerry War Fabrications--BREAKING

Drudge Report ^ | 8/3/04 | Matt Drudge

[I'm ALL Right!]

A veterans group seeking to deeply discredit Democrat John Kerry's military service will charge in the new bombshell book UNFIT FOR COMMAND:

Two of John Kerry's three Purple Heart decorations resulted from self-inflicted wounds, not suffered under enemy fire.

All three of Kerry's Purple Hearts were for minor injuries, not requiring a single hour of hospitalization.

A "fanny wound" was the highlight of Kerry's much touted "no man left behind" Bronze Star.

Kerry turned the tragic death of a father and small child in a Vietnamese fishing boat into an act of "heroism" by filing a false report on the incident.

Kerry entered an abandoned Vietnamese village and slaughtered the domestic animals owned by the civilians and burned down their homes with his Zippo lighter.

Kerry's reckless behavior convinced his colleagues that he had to go -- becoming the only Swift Boat veteran to serve only four months.

The Kerry campaign is planning to vigorously counter the charges and will accuse the veteran's groups of being well-financed by a top Bush donor from Texas, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

"They hired a goddamn private investigator to dig up trash!" charged a top Kerry adviser traveling with the senator late Tuesday. "This is pay for play, and the dirtiest of all dirty tricks ever played on a candidate for the presidency. How low can they go?"

Kerry supporters are comparing the effort by the veterans to the Arkansas State troopers tell-all against Bill Clinton.

UNFIT FOR COMMAND will not be released until August 15.

The names. The details. All on the record.

Beginning tomorrow, the DRUDGE REPORT will break the embargo.

[secretagent]

Remember how overjoyed we all were when the Arkansas troopers spilled their guts on Bubbah?

Was that real or did it get debunked? I remeber some reporter (Brock?) confessed to making stuff up about Clinton. Big backfire for anti-Clinton folk.

Anyway, John E. O'Neill doesn't seem like one to fabricate, and seems pretty smart. I assume he has carefully done his homework.

[patriciamary]

All Kerry has to do is release all his military records including medical records to the public.

[patriciamary]

Great these must be released too!~!!

[dk/coro]

If you think this picture is scary, you ought to see the one of Kerry taken when he woke up the next morning after his wedding to the Witch -- and took a good look at what he had married!!

Now, that shot would turn your blood to ice in a heartbeat !!

Cheers !!

[dwilli]

The trooper were news for a few days then faaded away, popping up every once in a while on talk shows.

A book of this type has to be factually correct. If a part can be didcredited, it affects the entire publication.

[struwwelpeter]

Similar article, translated from a Russian news site:

Veterany postavili pod somnenie geroizm Johna Kerry (Veterans cast doubt on John Kerry's heroism

[Babu]

I have been watching this book on Amazon's bestseller list for a week, and it has been in the Top 10 all week, and is #7 right now! And that is based on Pre-Orders, since the book isn't released until Aug 15!! Amazing!! And Tommy Frank's book is #2 right behind the 911 Commission book. People are really paying attention to this election campaign.

This book is apparently going to hit big, and likely will be a bombshell.

Hey John, why the long face??

[bray]

"They hired a goddamn private investigator to dig up trash!" charged a top Kerry adviser traveling with the senator late Tuesday.

You mean like the Clinton's did?? This could be interesting??

Pray for W and Our Troops

[Mike1973]

Dear Mr. Kerry.

You go to Vietnam with your video camera and spent 4 monthes there and receive 3 Purple Hearts, 1 Silver Star and 1 Bronze Star. Wow, that must be some kind of record. By the way, it is usually not a good thing to earn a Purple Heart, most Vets try not to get those. Meanwhile, you come back to the states, testify for some committee and tell them that you committed war crimes and you knew that other Vietnam Vets did the same thing. At some point and time you take your medals or ribbons and chuck them over some wall in protest against the war.
Meanwhile other Vietnam Vets are coming home, most without being recognized for their achievements and risking their life in Vietnam. Only to be greeted at the airport by Anti-war protesters calling them "baby killer" and throwing feces at them.
Gee, no wonder they don't like you. Maybe if you knew a Vietnam Vet you would understand why you cashing in on your Vietnam vacation would upset them.

[ArmyBratproud]

I am just curious, Mr.Kerry...

How would you and you're campaign know to be prepared to counter these charges of a YET TO BE RELEASED book....if the charges are not true...

[The Bandit]

Kerry has two major problems with this book:

1) Facts.
2) It is his fellow officers who served with him making the charge. O'Neil may not have served with kerry, but there are 18 of them who did.
3) Kerry's crewmembers lying on Kerry's behalf won't help his case. After the convention Fred Short, who was on stage with Kerry, came out saying Kerry was shot and he saw it.

Kerry has a uphill battle to discredit this book.

[for-q-clinton]

Personally, I don't think that this will go very far. Fact is John sKerry did serve in Vietnam and he could have gotten killed (in fact I'm surprised he didn't manage to get himself killed as reckless as he is). Yes, he inflated his medals, but he had to be over there to be able to inflate his record. It will matter to those that are already against him, but not people on the fence.

Possibly contrasting his war record with his anti-war rhetoric when he got home may have a slight impact. Letting everyone know he admitted to committing war crimes, will help. But then again it may back up the notion he's willing to do what it takes to win the war on terror.

Our best bet is to let this book come out, but don't flaunt it. Focus on his senate voting record. His liberal policies and his lack of leading anything in the past 30 years.

[No Surrender No Retreat]

Liberals cry foul when the real truth emerges. Kerry is a POS including his, "Club Med" wife. We all can see why kerry would not release his award recommendations. He can be tried for commiting crimes while on active duty. I do hope the NIS will look into this Senator Felony's crimes. Bush/Cheney 2004

[The Bandit]

Personally, I don't think that this will go very far.

I would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact Kerry makes the issue his calling card. This is a central issue to who and what Kerry is all about. It matters.

[Sofa King]

Liars do love to claim victimhood.

[Republic]

I suppose....but in a sense, I fall into that category of people who actually envision kerry with a gun shooting helpless animals left in an abandoned village just for the fun of it. WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT? Were these animals a mortal threat to this freak? It makes me sick. And it must have made those men who watched him do this sick, as well.

This is such a character issue-I thank GOD the village was abandoned. Kerry seems unbalanced and unable to hold steady to anything in his life except ambition, and in his case, a creepily exaggerated sense of self-importance and destiny.

I believe Teh-ray-Zaaaa knows exactly what she has married. No wonder she is floundering so weirdly-defending the indefensible is wearing.

Just consider the men and women who drown ( reputation wise ) as they attempted to defend billy klinton while he was commander of his own swift boat-the United States of America.

[zarf]

This will never break the evening news.

[dazn68]

knew several of these ticket punchers flying in country to do their cameo get decorated then get the hell out.. rest of us just kept our heads down and prayed for end of tour.. don't know how this piece of work ever thought he could pull this off unless he figured those of us who were there for longer than a 'kiss-kiss' moment would get selective amnesia about his combat 'parade' followed shortly by his performance with hanoi jane and madame bingh.. maybe he figures the fog has set in so no one can see..

[anglian]

Navy Vets: Kerry Unfit to Serve
by David Freddoso




Wounded Vietnam veteran Joseph Ponder approached the podium on crutches. The Swift Boat veteran nearly broke into tears as he took his turn speaking against his old war comrade, Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.).

"My daughters and my wife have read parts of the book Tour of Duty," he said, referring to Douglas Brinkley's recent biography of Kerry, released this year in time for Kerry's presidential bid. "They wanted to know if I took part in the atrocities described."

Ponder and about 20 other Swift Boat veterans appeared at a May 4 press conference at the National Press Club to denounce Kerry for falsely accusing Vietnam veterans of war crimes while simultaneously showing off his brief war service to get elected President.

The event was ignored by some news organizations--including the Associated Press--but was reported by several others.

"We left a lot of friends on the field, and we don't appreciate a guy who lied about it and continues to lie about it right up to the present," said John O'Neill, the group's spokesman. "We believe, based on our experiences with him, he is totally unfit to be commander in chief," O'Neill said.

---

Gross Distortions

O'Neill, who coincidentally commanded the same Swift Boat Kerry had commanded before he left Vietnam in 1969, used the press conference to unveil an open letter to Kerry with signatures from more than 200 of Kerry's fellow "Swifties."

Nineteen of the 23 officers who served with Kerry in Vietnam had signed the letter so far, as had nearly every officer who commanded Kerry for any substantial period of time, including retired Coast Guard Capt. Adrian Lonsdale, retired Navy Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, retired Lt. Cmdr. George Elliot, and retired Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard.

"It is our collective judgment that, upon your return from Vietnam, you grossly and knowingly distorted the conduct of the American soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen of that war," the letter reads. The letter also calls on Kerry to let the Navy publicly release all of his records. Kerry campaign spokesman Michael Meehan pointed out that most of Kerry's military records, though not all his military medical records, are available on his website.

At a hastily assembled press conference in the same building, three veterans backing Kerry's run for President dismissed the others as acting from political motives as part of a "Republican smear machine," as Kerry crewmate Del Sandusky put it.

But appearing on MSNBC that evening, O'Neill rejected such claims. "The problem John Kerry's got is that 100--or now 200 and some Swift people have signed this," he said. "There wasn't some conspiracy to put all Republicans or all Democrats in Coastal Division 11 back in 1969."

O'Neill, now a lawyer in Dallas, received the support of President Nixon when he debated Kerry over the Vietnam War on a special edition of the Dick Cavett TV show in June 1971. Kerry, then an organizer and spokesman for the left-wing group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, had testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971, that American troops were committing gruesome war crimes "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

"In 1971, I called him a liar, because he lied," O'Neill said of the debate, which took place when he was 26 years old and Kerry was 27.

In his April 1971 testimony, Kerry claimed that U.S. policy in Vietnam had already or would soon cause 200,000 Vietnamese to be "murdered" by the U.S. annually, and that the United States was the world's worst violator of the Geneva Conventions. He also called "bogus" the notion that communism was a threat to the United States and suggested at one point that as many as 80% of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam got themselves high on drugs every day in order to deal with the war--a claim he immediately retracted under questioning.

In the same testimony, Kerry also repeated several dubious and unexplored charges that had been made at the anti-war "Winter Soldier Investigation" in Detroit that year: "They told the stories at times 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 in addition to the normal ravage of war," Kerry told the committee.

Many of the speakers at the 1971 Winter Soldier event were later discovered to have lied about their Vietnam service or fraudulently used the names of real Vietnam veterans. In subsequent investigations by the military, none would sign an affidavit or help the military investigate atrocity claims.

Lonsdale, who commanded Kerry in An Thoi, remarked at the press conference that he recalled many conversations with Kerry during the war, but "never once heard Sen. Kerry say one thing about atrocities."

Asked about his 1971 testimony on NBC's "Meet the Press" last month, Kerry largely stood by his claims although he said the language he used to describe U.S. troops' actions may have been excessive. When the show's host, Tim Russert, pointed out that much of the Winter Soldier testimony had been discredited, Kerry replied, "Actually, a lot of them have been documented."

An Early Return

At the press conference, Hibbard said he remembered Kerry's first wound, which eventually won him a Purple Heart, as superficial and probably not the result of enemy fire. "He showed me a small scratch on his arm and a piece of shrapnel in his hand that appeared to be from one of our own M-79s," Hibbard said of the incident, adding that other members of Kerry's crew said they did not think they had taken enemy fire that night. Purple Heart awards can only be given for wounds received while in combat.

Kerry managed to return stateside after spending just four months in Vietnam because he received Purple Hearts for three injuries -- a fact O'Neill returned to again and again.

"The average person in Vietnam, everybody in our unit, unless they had a serious wound, spent 12 months in Vietnam," he told Human Events. "We had many people who were wounded three times. The only guy who came in early was Kerry. . . If he'd left that alone, it would be okay. But he's actually trying to turn that around into the centerpiece of his campaign. That's ridiculous."

[claudiustg]

Kerry brought all this on himself. He didn't have to bring this up and make it a centerpiece of his campaign, at least not for any logical reasons. Either he has really poor judgment, or the man has psychological problems. Either way there is no way this man should be a Senator, much less President.