Posted on 08/11/2004 12:02:30 PM PDT by Brian Mosely
KERRY/CAMBODIA UPDATE: I promised a while back to see if I could get a look at the Boston Herald story -- where Kerry says he remembers spending Christmas, 1968 in Cambodia and hearing President Nixon deny that troops were there -- in original form. The quote's genuine, and here's an image. Sorry it's a bit hard to read: it's a scan of a fax of a photocopy of a microfilm, sent to me by a helpful reader who works at the Herald.
But what's really interesting is the context -- see the full scan here -- which is all about Kerry's Vietnam experiences as they relate to Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Unlike Al Gore and Love Story, Kerry doesn't claim that the movie is about him -- but he sure draws parallels. In fact, the passage that everyone has been quoting actually reads like this, when you include the prior sentence that people haven't been including:
On more than one occasion, I, like Martin Sheen in "Apocalypse Now," took my patrol boat into Cambodia
In fact, I remember spending Christmas Day of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese Allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real. But nowhere in "Apocalypse Now" did I sense that kind of absurdity.
So Kerry's Vietnam experience was like Apocalypse Now, only it was more so.
How much this adds to the debate isn't clear to me -- but in case anyone was doubting the provenance of this particular quotation, well, I'm satisfied now that its authenticity, if not its veracity, is pretty clear.
Presumably, some big-time journalists are even now interviewing people and combing the records to see if this version of Kerry's 1968 Christmas was correct. (For other, inconsistent, versions, click here.) And for those -- apparently unclear on my age and suspecting me of draft-dodging -- who want to know where I was spending my Christmas in 1968, it was in Heidelberg, Germany. I got a train, and an SST model kit.
A Spear?
And I was in Guam, working in Guam Memorial Hospital, having just seen the Bob Hope Show, and preparing to return stateside on New Year's Eve.
Actually, if we can get samples of writing that are known to be from his typewriter (typed letters to people in the States from Vietnam) and compare them to the citations, it would prove it one way or another.
They're spending another chunk of their diminishing credibility to help this guy. Hope they still think it was worth it in a few years.
UPDATE: Well here's a report:
For the first time, Sen John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, has been left floundering by allegations that he invented a key episode of his decorated wartime service in Vietnam - a central plank of his election platform. . . . the Kerry campaign was left in verbal knots after a new book accused the senator of inventing stories about being sent, illegally, over the border into neutral Cambodia. . . .
In newspaper articles, interviews and at least one Senate speech, Mr Kerry has claimed that he spent Christmas 1968 inside Cambodia, at a time when even the US president was publicly denying that American forces were inside that country.
He has cited the missions as a psychological turning point, when he realised that American leaders were not telling the truth to the world about the war in south-east Asia.
The Kerry campaign responded, initially, that Mr Kerry had always said he was "near" Cambodia. Then a campaign aide said Mr Kerry had been in the Mekong Delta "between" Vietnam and next-door Cambodia - a geographical zone not found on maps, which show the Mekong river running from Cambodia to Vietnam.
Michael Meehan, a Kerry campaign adviser, told ABC Television: "The Mekong Delta consists of the border between Cambodia and Vietnam, so on Christmas Eve in 1968, he was in fact on patrol . . . in the Mekong Delta between Cambodia and Vietnam. He was ambushed, they fired back, he was fired upon from both sides, from the Cambodian side of the border and the Vietnam side during that day in 1968."
The map accompanying the story makes short work of that geographical absurdity. I hope that if Kerry's elected, he'll find some advisors who can read a map. (You can see a bigger, and clearer, map here, if you're interested.)
Fascinating scan, Meek.
The bio blurb under Kerry's name is interesting -
It lists Lt jg - Mekong Delta -
later spokesman anti-war movement
in 1972 ran unsuccessfully for ... congress
"From 1976-79, Kerry was first assistant district attorney for Middlesex County.
He is now a private attorney practicing in Boston." [Aug 1979]
*****
I assume that he was in law school during 1972 to 76, most law schools take 3 years. I guess his trust funds and his reserve officer paycheck supported his wife and children for these years.
I wonder why he did not stay as assistant DA? Did he have the same effect on his peers and co-workers there as he did in the Swift Boats Unit.
Another mostly hidden bio note is that he met his first wife in 1963, when he was 19. She is the twin sister of his college roommate. Kerry was visiting the Thorne's beach home on Long Island during the summer after his freshman year. According to another news article "she remained with him through college and two tours of Vietnam." They married in 1970. The marriage was solid until he ran for office in 1972.
So they were friends/lovers? for 7 years, but two years after marriage, she had had enough.
I detect a pattern here!
PS: I think his roommate ex-brother-in-law is still close to him, and working on his campaign.
There's a man who leads a life of danger
With every quote he gets a little stranger
And every speech he makes, the truth is always at stake
Odds are he won't live to see November
Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your brain
Beware of pretty faces that you find
A pretty face can hide an evil mind
Ah, be careful what you say
Or you'll give yourself away
Odds are you won't live to see November
Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your brain
------ lead guitar ------
Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your brain
Swingin' on the Riviera one day
Boatin' in Cambodia on the next day
Oh no, you let the wrong word slip
While kissing Teresa's lips
The odds are now she'll leave you broke tomorrow
Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your brain
Secret agent man....
ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION
The reference to not 'living' to see November means his campaign - period! Nothing nefarious is meant. It's only a parody song (for all you FBI lurkers)!
I saw a rep for Kerry spin on Brit Hume's show last night, but did not have time to really focus on who the spokesman was. His story was that Kerry was not there on Christmas Eve, but he did ferry Navy Seals in to Cambodia on other occasions, after Nixon was elected!
I suggest that JFnK task at least one campaign worker to read our threads, before they try to sell an new lie.
They ought to buy O'Neil's book and read that, too, before they embarass themselves by showing their ignorance.
To these anti-war limpwristed socialists, Seals, CIA, Green Berets, Vietnam, Cambodia, 50-ft high bridge boat, Boston whaler, are all distinctions without a difference.
I would like to know how he can contend he was in Cambodia 50+ times over 30+ years and now call that a "misstatement."
By contrast, Bush has had to provide exacting details of his day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month whereabouts during Vietnam with minute precision and zero tolerance for error.
The double standard is sickening, devastating to our country, and, sadly, the MSM and Kerry campaign are getting away with stonewalling this story.
There is NO chance that a fifty foot long twenty feet high "castle" profile Swift boat would be used to sneak ANYBODY into Cambodia. If it was ever done at all, it would have been a PBR (30 footer) or an even smaller boat, like a boston whaler, or a native sampan. But a big fat tall Swift boat? Ridiculous! The only times SEALs would ever travel on Swift boats would be to be moved from A to B, and NOT into areas known to be under enemy observation.
That's NOTHING!
Last night I shot an Elephant in my pajamas.
How he got in them I'll never know.
© Groucho Marx
BTTT
Oh but, John of Arc has his "lucky hat", given to him by a CIA guy.
Back at his base, a weary, disconsolate Kerry sat at his typewriter, as he often did, and poured out his grief. "You hope that they'll courtmartial you or something because that would make sense," Kerry typed that night. He would later recall using court-martial as "a joke," because nothing made sense to him -- the war policy, the deaths, and his presence in the middle of it all. (*Yeah right... joke my toe.)
In an intense three months of combat following that Christmas Eve battle, Kerry often would go beyond his Navy orders and beach his boat, in one case chasing and killing a teenage Viet Cong enemy who wore only a loin cloth and carried a rocket launcher. Kerry's aggressiveness in combat caused a commanding officer to wonder whether he should be given a medal or court-martialed. Kerry would watch in despair as a crewmate killed a boy who may or may not have been an innocent civilian. He would angrily challenge a military policy that risked the death of noncombatants.
**Seems like "courtmartial" was thrown around alot. And maybe not just at him, possibly his crewmates?????????)
King of Cambodia endorsement, hmmmmmm. That's got my curiosity stirred.
I second that!
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