Posted on 08/11/2004 10:45:52 AM PDT by Carling
Crew Member Questioned Kerry's Silver Star in 1996
A Swift Boat veteran who was a member of Sen. John Kerry's crew when their boat was targeted in February 1969 by an enemy rocket launcher has refuted Kerry's claim that he single-handedly saved his crew from the attack - an account that earned the top Democrat the Silver Star.
Interviewed during Kerry's 1996 Senate re-election battle, Kerry crew member Tom Bellodeau told the Boston Globe that he - not Kerry - fired the shot that brought down the enemy fighter, who had aimed a loaded rocket launcher at their boat just after Kerry beached it on the Ca Mau peninsula.
"You know, I shot that guy," Bellodeau said, in response to an earlier Globe account that credited Kerry for his heroism. "He jumped up, he looked right at me, I looked at him," the Kerry shipmate explained. "You could tell he was trying to decide whether to shoot or not. I expected the guy on Kerry's boat with the twin 50s to blast him, but he couldn't depress the guns far enough. We were up on the bank."
Only after the enemy soldier was wounded, said Bellodeau, did Kerry leap from the boat onto the beach and pursue him around the back of a nearby hut, where Kerry finished him off.
Bellodeau's account is particularly damaging because he was actually a member of Kerry's Swift Boat crew - the group of Vietnam veterans the Kerry campaign has repeatedly offered up to respond to criticism of his war record by other Swift Boaters who were on different boats.
Kerry's Silver Star citation credits him alone for taking down the Viet Cong soldier, making no mention whatsoever of Bellodeau.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Quotes are copied from a 1996 Boston Globe article.
Is this the fellow I just heard about on the news who was up front at Kerry's convention? If he is the stress of knowing he was covering for Kerry must have gotten to him. He apparently died of a heart attack and I think he was only 65 or so.
Patrick Sullivan, who seems to know his stuff and is anti-Kerry, says Bellodeau was not a member of Kerry's crew.
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He was campaigning for Kerry in 1996. He claims he shot the guy first.
I've also seen him described as the rear gunner on Kerry's boat.
Does any of this invalidate his comments, which were meant to be SUPPORTIVE of Kerry in 1996?
Clearly shooting an injured man in the back is hardly the stuff of honor.
Well, wounded or not, if the guy is carrying a rocket launcher and could possibly turn it around and use it on your boat then he needs to be killed. There is nothing dishonorable about that - that is what the military is supposed to do. The point is however that this is just their job; from the accounts that I have read Kerry did nothing exceptionally heroric in this incident. Lots of people killed vietcong during the Vietnam war without getting a silver star.
It's time the press started to pin down some of these Kerry crew members - so far all we've heard is that they "support" him in general terms - lets get into some specifics - for instance, the story on one of Kerry's PHs was that the wound was so minor that his crew was laughing about him going for treatment and thinking he might get a medal - the press should start asking for details, unless they're afraid of what they might hear......
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