Posted on 08/18/2004 8:24:34 PM PDT by Callahan
Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.
In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day.
But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Knew this was a good thing. Just heard on a preNoon news blurb on a Boston station that Kerry was fighting back against charges leveled at him. This is the first mention of this in the local media! The word is out.
This tactically is what riverboats did during VN. One of their missions was to draw out the VC by getting them to fire at them. On these types of missions there was usually a few black ponies hanging around, if not some attack helos.
Well the issue is in the open now. Fire for effect.
Is there any specific documentation for this? I'd like to be able to back that claim up to others I know who dispute the Swifties.
The Swifties say that Kerry fled down the river.
http://one-holy-catholic-apostolic.org/journal/2004/08/15.htm
Very interesting interview of Ted Peck!
So who is "Lambert", the eyewitness cited in the medal writeups?
Sandusky was the "eyewitneess" (on Kerry's boat) Lambert was also written up for an award in same action along with Thurlow..
http;//www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/bronze_star_recomendation.pdf
The only way Kerry's version fits is if he considered our outgoing fire as enemy fire.
Considering that Kerry was a NV sympathizer, he WOULD consider it enemy fire. So this citation would them make sense. And what was Kerry doing crossing in front of the other boats (to pick up Rassmann)when they were taking the enemy under fire? That would mask the other boats fire to the other bank. So the only explaination would be that the other boats had already ceased to fire, and crossing the formation would not be hazardous.
Thurlow's citation was written up using parts of Kerry's AAR. What Thurlow did took stones, jumping on an out-of-control vessel that had already been damaged by a mine and was burning. The crew of PCF-3 was incapacitated. So he earned the Bronze Star that he recieved.
All this means is the charge of Kerry being a lying sack of horse dung is hitting real close to home.
So if the same person wrote both citations, and it wasn't Thurlow, we can expect whoever it was wanted to keep the story straight.
So who wrote the citations?
If you look at the pdf, which is a scan of the original citation, Lambert is listed as the eyewitness.
Well we must be looking at two different things, from Kerrys site the recommendation lists D.l. Sandusky QM1 585 32 60 USN as witness on line 26 of the recommendation dated 23 March 1969.
Of course, all us military types know how accurate military records tend to be, especially in award write-ups /sarcasm.
Lambert was an eyewitness and was also awarded a Bronze Star. He is listed as RD-1, apparently an enlisted rating.
If you mean - Unfit for Command - I saw on the swiftvets site that the publisher under-produced. There's demand, but no product. They apparently are ALREADY on their fifth run, and won't even have produce half a million copies. Maybe the publisher just wasn't used to large runs - I don't know.
Read it somewhere. Check out the chapter in "Unfit for Command" available online.
RD-1 is Radarman First Class. (now call OS - operations specialist). What is kind of odd is that there were a lot of relatively high ranking POs on the boats. A Petty officer first class is an E6. Never new anyone who did that in one 4 year tour. I couldn't even go for E5 because you needed to have 2 years left in your service obligation to be considered.
I was at the publisher's (Regnery's) site yesterday and saw that you could order there. Didn't pursue as didn't need to order, so got no message on delays.
Probably faster to order from them and at least if they tell you it's back-ordered, you know it's true. Also, Amazon and B&N have shown their liberal colors too often in the past.
I could be wrong, but I don't think they did. This could just be more fanciful, falsified and fictitious 'reporting' from a paper known to favor one candidate in the Presidential election over the other. It could be they are referring not to Thurlow's citation, but to the Award Recommendation for Kerry, for the Bronze Star, in which both Thurlow and Lambert are also recommended, unknown to them. The language from the article appears to be taken from the exaggerated write up on this Award Recommendation form - which may have just been posted to Kerry's site. I've gone down the list of his pdfs, before. I don't remember seeing this.
That's just it - the documents. WHAT documents? Maybe they're just lying about it.
Could it be they are referring not to any citation given to Thurlow, but to the language of what may be a recently uploaded Award Recommendation - FOR KERRY? In that, both Thurlow and Lambert are recommended for Bronze Stars. But neither man would have seen this exaggerated write-up, likely from Kerry himself. And this was not the citation either would have received.
And have you also noticed that the Liberal media can report on this story but NEVER mention the name of the Swifties book? Check out CNN and MSNBC.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/19/kerry.attackads/index.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5751284/
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