Kerry "Corrects Record," "Seared" Memory of Christmas in Cambodia Now "Mistaken Recollection"

Wednesday, August 11, 2004 | Kristinn

[brothers4thID]

Thanks for the update. I think we need to start pushing the message of WHY Kerry's lies and exaggerations about Vietnam make him unfit.

When confronted with "Bush lied, people died" idiocy respond with:
"Senator Kerry stated before the US Senate that American forces in Vietnam were committing, on a daily bassis, war crimes. He then met with North Vietnamese leaders to help negotiate a peace. Thousands of South Vietnamese died after the fall of that country."

Kerry lied and South Vietnamese died. And if it wasn't a lie then why is he so shy to bring it up now?

[kristinn]

No one has said he supported the plot. The problem folks have with his 'involvement' is that , contrary to his statements denying his attendance, records show he was there and there is no evidence that he reported it to the FBI or any other law enforcement organization.

[Conservative_boy_in_Bangkok]

is that really how far he was? I my goodness by SE Asia standards he was no where near Cambodia. I'm curious how wide is Vietnam ( i know it's but it is pretty narrow)? Was he closer to Saigon the Cambodia?

[mountaineer]

John Kerry's Vietnam Service Timeline (according to him, at least, until he amends it to reflect better recollections) -

February 18, 1966 Kerry formally enlists in the U.S. Navy

August 22, 1966 Kerry reports for Naval Officer Candidate School at the U.S. Naval Training Center in Newport, Rhode Island

December 16, 1966 Kerry receives commission as an Ensign
January 3, 1967 Kerry reports for duty at the Naval Schools Command at Treasure Island (CA)-Takes 10 week Officer Damage Control Course

March 22, 1967 Reports to U.S. Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center (CA). Receives training as a Combat Information Center Watch Officer.

June 8, 1967 Kerry reports to USS Gridley-serves in several capacities
February 9, 1968 USS Gridley departs for a Western Pacific (WESTPAC) deployment, to engage in operations in support of the Vietnam War. Ship spends time in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam, at Subic Bay in the Philippines and in Wellington, New Zealand

February 10, 1968 Kerry requests duty in Vietnam He lists his first preference for a position as an officer in charge of a Swift Boat (designated PCF for Patrol Craft Fast), his second as an officer in a patrol boat (designated PBR, for Patrol Boat River) squadron

May 27, 1968 USS Gridley sets sail for the US

June 6, 1968 Kerry arrives in Long Beach the day after Senator Robert F. Kennedy is killed in Los Angeles

June 16, 1968 Kerry promoted to Lieutenant, Junior Grade

July 20, 1968 Kerry leaves Gridley for specialized training at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, CA in preparation for service as commander of a Swift Boat. These unarmored, but heavily armed, fifty foot aluminum hulled patrol boats depended on speed and agility when engaging the enemy.

November 17, 1968 Upon completion of his training, Kerry reports for duty to Coastal Squadron 1, Coastal Division 14, Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam.

December 1968
through January 1969 Kerry commands PCF-44

December 2, 1968 Kerry experiences first intense combat; receives first combat related injury.

December 6, 1968 Kerry moved to Coastal Division 11 at An Thoi on Phu Quoc Island

December 13, 1968 Kerry moved to Coastal Division 13, Cam Ranh Bay

December 24, 1968 Kerry involved in combat during the Christmas Eve truce of 1968. The truce was three minutes old when mortar fire exploded around Lieutenant Kerry and his five-man crew. Reacting swiftly, John Kerry and his crew silenced the machine gun nest.
January 22, 1969 Kerry and other Swift boat commanders travel to Saigon for meeting with Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, Commander Naval Forces Vietnam (COMNAVFORV), and Gen. Creighton Abrams, Commander United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam (COMUSMACV)

Late January, 1969 Kerry joined his 5 man crew on PCF-94

Late January through
Early March, 1969 Starting in late January 1969, this crew completed 18 missions over an intense and dangerous 48 days, almost all of them in the dense jungles of the Mekong Delta. Kerry's crew included engineman Eugene Thorson, later an Iowa cement mason; David Alston, then the crew's only African-American and today a minister in South Carolina; petty officer Del Sandusky of Illinois; rear gunner and quartermaster Michael Medeiros of California; and the late Tom Belodeau, who joined the crew fresh out of Chelmsford High School in Massachusetts. Others rotated in and out of the crew. The most intense action came during an extraordinary eight days of more than 10 firefights, remembered by Kerry's crew as the "days of hell."

February 20, 1969 Kerry and crew involved in combat; Kerry receives second combat injury – Kerry earned his second Purple Heart after sustaining a shrapnel wound in his left thigh.

February 28, 1969 For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving with Coastal Division ELEVEN engaged in armed conflict with Viet Cong insurgents in An Xuyen Province, Republic of Vietnam, on 28 February 1969. Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry was serving as Officer in Charge of Patrol Craft Fast 94 and Officer in Tactical Command of a three-boat mission. As the force approached the target area on the narrow Dong Cung River, all units came under intense automatic weapons and small arms fire from an entrenched enemy force less than fifty-feet away. Unhesitatingly, Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry ordered his boat to attack as all units opened fire and beached directly in front of the enemy ambushers. The daring and courageous tactic surprised the enemy and succeeded in routing a score of enemy soldiers. The PCF gunners captured many enemy weapons in the battle that followed. On a request from U.S. Army advisors ashore, Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry ordered PCFs 94 and 23 further up river to suppress enemy sniper fire. After proceeding approximately eight hundred yards, the boats again were taken under fire from a heavily foliated area and B-40 rocket exploded close aboard PCF-94; with utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his boat only ten feet from the VC rocket position, and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy. Upon sweeping the area an immediate search uncovered an enemy rest and supply area which was destroyed. The extraordinary daring and personal courage of Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire were responsible for the highly successful mission. His actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

March 13, 1969 For heroic achievement while serving with Coastal Division ELEVEN engaged in armed conflict with Viet Cong communist aggressors in An Xuyen Province, Republic of Vietnam, on 13 March 1969. Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry was serving as Officer in Charge of Patrol Craft Fast 94, one of five boats conducting a SEA Lords operation in the Bay Hap River. While exiting the river, a mine detonated under another Inshore Patrol Craft and almost simultaneously, another mine detonated wounding Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry in the right arm. In addition, all units began receiving small arms and automatic weapons fire from the river banks. When Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry discovered he had a man overboard, he returned upriver to assist. The man in the water was receiving sniper fire from both banks. Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry directed his gunners to provide suppressing fire, while from an exposed position on the bow, his arm bleeding and in pain and with disregard for his safety, he pulled the man aboard. Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry then directed his boat to return and assist the other damaged boat to safety. Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry’s calmness, professionalism and great personal courage under fire were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry is authorized to wear the Combat “V”.

March 17, 1969 The policy of Coastal Squadron One, the swift boat command, was to send home any individual who is wounded three times in action. After sustaining his third wound from enemy action in Vietnam, Kerry was granted relief under this policy.

Early April, 1969 Kerry departs Vietnam

April 11, 1969 Kerry reports for duty at the Military Sea Transportation Service, U.S. Atlantic Fleet in Brooklyn, NY.
January 1, 1970 Kerry promoted to (full) Lieutenant

January 3, 1970 Kerry requests discharge

March 1, 1970 Kerry’s date of separation from Active Duty

April 29, 1970 Kerry listed as Registrant who has completed service
http://www.johnkerry.com/about/john_kerry/service_timeline.html

---

I missed the part where he twice met with Viet Cong and North Vietnamese officials in Paris.

[OXENinFLA]

[Jhensy]

The mainstream media's got no choice but to cover this Cambodia thing, now that the tale's being retracted.

This is gonna go nuclear.

[Conservative_boy_in_Bangkok]

I Hope ur right.

[doug from upland]

I agree. I have no doubt that he voted no and was so concerned about the repercussions of that meeting that he quit immediately to distance himself from the crazies. But, yes, he should have reported it to the FBI.

[fooman]

thats nukular

[mwl1]

The RATS are admitting to this mistake as a signal to the MSM to move on, nothing to see here... just an honest mistake.

It will probably work.

[isthisnickcool]

Today John Kerry gave a press interview and said that "everyone is mistaken. I never meant that I was in Cambodia! I meant I was in Camelot!" Here, I can prove it!

After the interview Kerry put on back brace, popped a bunch of pills, sat down in a rocking chair and demanded that "Marilyn come in here and sing happy birthday Mr. President to me!".

Kerry also released new plans to "Get that damn Castro!" and also that "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade!" Kerry told reporters that "at age 43 I'd be the youngest president ever!"

[SpinyNorman]

For the record (and note that it is a BRITISH paper, not a so called "unbiased" US media outlet):

---

Revealed: how 'war hero' Kerry tried to put off Vietnam military duty
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 07/03/2004)

Senator John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate who is trading on his Vietnam war record to campaign against President George W Bush, tried to defer his military service for a year, according to a newly rediscovered article in a Harvard University newspaper.

Senator Kerry on the campaign trail in Iowa

He wrote to his local recruitment board seeking permission to spend a further 12 months studying in Paris, after completing his degree course at Yale University in the mid-1960s.

The revelation appears to undercut Sen Kerry's carefully-cultivated image as a man who willingly served his country in a dangerous war - in supposed contrast to President Bush, who served in the Texas National Guard and thus avoided being sent to Vietnam.

The Harvard Crimson newspaper followed a youthful Mr Kerry in Boston as he campaigned for Congress for the first time in 1970. In the course of a lengthy article, "John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress", published on February 18, the paper reported: "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."

Samuel Goldhaber, the article's author who is now a cardiologist attached to the Harvard School of Medicine, spent 11 hours trailing Mr Kerry and still remembers that the subject of the Paris deferment came up during long conversations about Vietnam.

"I stand by my story," he told The Telegraph. "It was a long time ago, and I was 19 at the time, so it is hard to remember every detail. But I do know this: at no point did Kerry contact either me or the Crimson to dispute anything I had written."

Sen Kerry's campaign headquarters in Washington refused an opportunity to deny the report. Despite repeated telephone calls from The Telegraph, a spokesman refused to comment. Another Democrat official said merely: "In Vietnam, John Kerry proved his patriotism beyond question. Everyone knows that."

A senior Republican strategist, who asked not to be named, said: "I've not heard this before. This undercuts Kerry's complaints about Bush and it continues to pose questions as to his credibility among ordinary Vietnam veterans."

He said it would fuel concerns over the way Sen Kerry made a name for himself by leading anti-war protests in Washington and Boston in the late 1960s and early 1970s after he had completed his service in the US Navy, even while his former comrades continued to fight and die.

A newly-published biography of Sen Kerry by Douglas Brinkley, A Tour of Duty, makes no mention of the requested deferment or planned year in Paris. At the time, it was still unclear just how long America would remain in Vietnam, and it might have seemed that a year's deferral of service could render enlistment unnecessary.

According to the Democratic Party's version of Sen Kerry's military history, he joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Harvard through eagerness to do his duty, and sailed with the Navy for combat as soon as he graduated in 1966.

Sen Kerry won a gallantry medal for his service as a gunboat captain on the Mekong Delta, and was honorably discharged with three "purple heart" medals after sustaining three wounds. He has consistently presented himself as a leader who argued against the war only after fulfilling his duty in the field. Supporters argue that his war record makes him a more trustworthy leader than President Bush, who served sporadically in the National Guard at home.

"This means that Kerry didn't jump into all that heroic service until he was pushed, and it is a very nice piece of information," said Lucianne Goldberg, a prominent Republican campaigner.

Republican strategists for President Bush were already investigating Sen Kerry's record of three wounds sustained in Vietnam. "We find that he had only one day off sick - with three wounds? What exactly were these wounds?" she asked.

Mr Goldhaber recalled that, during a day spent with Sen Kerry and one assistant during his congressional campaign, he had described his involvement, service and decision to oppose the war in great detail.

"I am not at all surprised that he wants to be president, because he exuded ambition from the word go," said Dr Goldhaber. "At the time, the idea that he tried to persuade the draft board to let him spend a year in Paris was just a detail."

A spokesman for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign declined to comment. (and tried not to laugh).

---

I love the "Navy Dove" moniker!! LOL!! Navy Dove, Senate Wuss!!

[OXENinFLA]

PING...................

[Viet-Boat-Rider]

WHERE IS THE PRESS INTERVIEWS OF THE 11 MEN WHO STOOD ON STAGE WITH KERRY AT THE DEM CONVENTION THAT HE CLAIMS WERE ON HIS BOAT? LETS ASK THEM WHAT HAPPENED. LETS GET AT THE TRUTH!

[Peach]

I'm sorry Henry, I don't remember that.

[tsmith130]

The mainstream media's got no choice but to cover this Cambodia thing, now that the tale's being retracted.

Wanna bet?! Their choice will be to cover it UP.

[Salvation]

Somehow "seared" and "mistaken" don't jive here! LOL! Another flip-flop for Kerry!

[mwl1]

I hope you are right, but I doubt it. He is getting a pass.

The tragedy is that news and journalism (what's left of it) in this country is becoming radically politicized like most of Europe -- very dangerous for the Republic.

[RogueIsland]

"I believe he's corrected the record to say it was someplace near Cambodia, but he is not certain whether it was actually in Cambodia but he is certain that there was some point subsequent to that that he was in Cambodia."

Huh????

[backinthefold]

 I picked this article off a link to the Kerry-Edwards web site (it may no longer be there).

 

This is happening quite a bit as of late huh? Caught in the lie, remove the evidence!

 

I saw this interview, you have to admit, the f'nkerry campaign have the spin down to a science