Posted on 08/14/2004 2:04:20 PM PDT by Wisconsin
Apparently David Alston was not wounded in head on January 29 when Lt. Peck was wounded.
yes 1.
Question for anyone who knows. There was a black guy that served with Kerry, who really hated him. I remember a comment by him that all Kerry wanted to do was save his lily white ass.
This guy was a multi tour VN vet as a gunners mate.
I have to assume it's not Allston, anyone remember his name?
Thanks for the info but stockpirate said crewmembers and I thought (s)he was giving new information. Kerry's fellow commanders have long opposed him - it used to be two but one recently withdrew his support leaving the number at one. Perhaps that is what stockpirate meant.
Thread lat night concerning Alston never served with Kerry. Looks at photo to deterrime if it was doctored.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1191488/posts
Freeper maggiefluffs addressed this issue in this post. It appears the Observer confused Alston's injury with an injury to another Swiftie.
I do agree that raising the issue in public is permature, however. Someone should ask Kerry point-blank whether Alston ever served on any boat he commanded, and if so, when.
I ordered the DVD that has this picture on the cover. It's called "Brothers in Arms". I'll see how the events portrayed mesh with what we've heard so far.
I googled for it, and if this is the one, maybe he's the guy in the photo that's on the office wall, the one who doesn't look a whole lot like Alston, as someone pointed out on another thread tonight.
Was the photo with Gardner doctored so that it looks like Alston was in it?
Evidence Shows Crewmate Rev. Alston Never Served Under Sen. Kerry
"..Only problem with the above statements is that the are flat out false because David Alston was never a crew member under Sen. Kerry nor could he had ever participated in combat operations with Sen. Kerry because they were from two different boats. From December to January 29, 1969 Sen. Kerry commanded the PCF-44 while David Alston was the Gunner onboard the PCF-94 under Lt.(jg) Peck. On January 29, 1969 both Peck and Alston were wounded and hospitalized. We know Alston was wounded on that date because his causality report was made available briefly by the Kerry Campaign before they removed it. Here is what it said:
AWFA: GMG2 DAVID MARION Alston, USN, 99T 57 46 BRAVO: ACTIVE DUTY, ATTACHED TO COASTAL DIVISION ELEVEN AT AN THOI, RVN CHARLIE: INJURY, HOSTILE FIRE DELTA: 29, JAN 69, 1030H, SONG CUA LON - SONG BO DE, WHILE SERVING AS FORWARD GUNNER ABOARD PCF 94, ENGAGED IN CORDON AND SEARCH OPERATIONS IN THE ABOVE RIVER, GMG2 Alston RECEIVED SHRAPNEL WOUNDS TO HIS HEAD WHEN PCF CAME UNDER INTENSE HOSTILE ROCKET AND A/W FIRE. ECHO: CONDITION GOOD, PROGNOSIS GOOD. PRESENCE OF NOK IS NOT MEDICALLY WARRANTED AS REPORTED BY CORPSMAN. FOXTROT: MRS. IDA MCQUILLAR Alston, MOTHER GOLF: NOK NOT OFFICIALLY NOTIFIED. REQ NOK NOT REPEAT NOT BE NOTIFIED. HOTEL: SERVICEMAN TREATED BY CORPSMAN AND MEDEVACED TO 29TH EVAC HOSP. BINH THUY. 2. PATIENT ABL TO COMMUNICATE WITH NOK. 3. NO FURTHER INFO WILL FOLLOW.
This confirms the date of David Alston's wounds, but it does not tell how seriously wounded David Alston was. There is no military medical records available for David Alston, and you cannot go by the causality reports description of good and prognosis is good because they will always say that even if you had both legs shattered -- and then there is the fact no medical doctor had yet evaluated him. But we can today see the severity of the wound Alston suffered as shown below from as Rev. Alston stood before recent Democratic Convention delegates...."
Thank you very much texasbluebell
that is exactly the name I was looking for!!
There's a game going on, Alston is the "black crewmember" that never really served with him. Gardner was the "black cremember" that served with him.
Who was it we heard from at the DNC?
IOU-1
from left, Gene Thorson, David Alston, Thomas Belodeau, Del Sandusky, and John Kerry.
I have not found a picture of Gardner, so I can't say he could be the One in Kerry's office photo.
Please see posts 70 and 71, I don't think he's black after all.
There is something missing.
There was a black GM that really berated Kerry, said he was a chicken-sh!t, worried about covering his lily-white butt.
This is worth the research.
Can't be Alston as this guy hated Kerry. I remember reading his story, he had been ion VN for a year before Kerry ever got there, and stayed after Kerry left.
Oh, so a different one than this Gardner?
Well, I googled on that term though, lily-white you-know-what, and Gardner is the name that comes up.
Reference the one black gunner he had for a while. "He was more interested in saving his lily white ass"...
Found this on FR from 7/16/04
Ok I admit I was wrong.... Here's the quote:
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. "I've told a few of my friends that he was an asshole," Gardner says....
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."... Then there is Gardner's 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 didn't go to sea," he averred. "But he always tried to park it away from the action and hide."... 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. He's done. He got flipped out of the boat, he went straight down. That's 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 I'm gonna shoot and I'll ask questions later 'cause I ain't goin' back in a body bag.'" At various times in our interview he complained about Kerry "running around with Hanoi Jane"...
I grew up in Brooklyn, and never heard a white guy say another white guy was covering his lily-white ass.
But this is the story I was thinking of. Sorry folks.
Garnder isn't black the last I saw
IMO .. the photo is NOT doctored .. however it is very possible the photo was taken before Kerry took over the boat
I'll take it at face value that Gardner is white. It's just a very strange expression for a white guy. I think that it why I assumed it was a black crewmember.
Of all the people that served on boats with Kerry, Gardner was by far the most experienced.
Sandusky is the one I expect to crack first.
I've heard some use that expression in Philly where I grew up
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