Posted on 08/19/2004 5:02:20 PM PDT by OESY
According to the records, Kerry claimed in the casualty report he prepared on March 13, 1969, that he was wounded as a result of a mine explosion. Within a short period, he presented his request to go home on the basis of three Purple Hearts. By March 17, 1969, Kerry’s short career in Vietnam was over.
Regarding the action on March 13.1969, Kerry’s medals were once again a complete fraud. Notwithstanding the fake submission for his Bronze Star, Kerry was never wounded or bleeding from his arm. All reports, including the medical reports, make clear that he suffered a minor bruise on his arm and minor shrapnel wounds on his buttocks. The minor bruise on his arm would never have justified a Purple Heart and is not mentioned in the citation.
This leaves only Kerry’s rear-end wound. This wound, like the Cam Ranh Bay wound, was of the minor tweezer-and-Band-Aid variety. How did Kerry receive a shrapnel wound in his buttocks from an explosion of an underwater mine, as his report suggests? Many participants in the incident state that neither weapons fire nor a mine explosion occurred near Kerry during the incident.
Larry Thurlow, an experienced, genuine hero and PCF veteran, commanded the boat behind Kerry on March 13, 1969. Thurlow was on the shore with Kerry and a group of Nung soldiers (mercenaries working with the South Vietnamese) that morning of March 13, 1969. Thurlow recalls that Kerry had that morning wounded himself in the buttocks with a grenade that he set off too close to a stock of rice he was trying to destroy. The incident is all too reminiscent of the M-79 grenade Kerry exploded too close to some rocks on shore, causing the wound at Cam Ranh Bay that resulted in his first Purple Heart. As the Boston Globe biographers note:
“At one point, Kerry and Rassmann threw grenades into a huge rice cache that had been captured from the Vietcong and was thus slated for destruction. After tossing the grenades, the two dove for cover. Rassmann escaped the ensuing explosion of rice, but Kerry was not as lucky – thousands of grains stuck to him. The result was hilarious, and the two men formed a bond.
Very probably, the incident Rassmann describes that resulted in Kerry’s self-inflicted wound is the very wound that Kerry used to claim his final Purple Heart. Indeed, Kerry’s report for that day mentions the rice he destroyed. He dishonestly transferred the time and cause of the injury to coincide with the PCF action later in the day and claimed the cause of the injury was the mine exploding during the action.
By March 1969, most of Kerry’s peers at An Thoi were aware of his reputation as an unscrupulous self-promoter with an insatiable appetite for medals. But no one actually understood what Kerry pulled off. When Thurlow finally realized that the PCF 3 incident was the same incident described by the Kerry advertisement and in Tour of Duty, Thurlow instantly knew that Kerry had used the PCF 3 mine explosion and tragedy for its crew as his ticket home. Thurlow was astounded by the metamorphosis that had taken place in the explanation of Kerry’s wound: from Kerry’s own grenade as a cause, which Thurlow knew about; to a grenade error by a friendly forces in the absence of hostile fire (Kerry’s secret journal and Tour of Duty; and then finally to the mine explosion (Kerry’s report and Purple Heart citation).
Unfortunately for Kerry, he ended up telling the truth by mistake. On page 313 of Tour of Duty and evidently in his secret journal written on or about March 13, 1969, which is quoted in the book, Kerry relates his injury from the rice stock explosion, although he tries to place the time and context of the incident later in the day and tries to claim that it resulted from friendly forces (the Nungs) but at a time in which there was no hostile fire:
The Nung blew up some huge bins of rice they had found, as it was assumed, as always, that these were the local stockpiles earmarked to feed the hungry VC moving through the Delta smuggling weapons. “I got a piece of small grenade in my ass from one of the rice-bin explosions and then we started to move back to the boats, firing to our rear as we went.”
Unless one believes in the amazing coincidence that Kerry got two wounds in the same place on the same day and from the same type of incident, then Kerry’s wound of March 13, 1969, was not the result of hostile fire at all but, once again, simply a self-inflicted minor wound about which he lied to get a Purple Heart. Whatever the facts of the March 13 incident, it seems incontrovertible that: (1) Kerry lied in the Bronze Star citation about having any arm wound other than a minor bruise; and (2) Kerry fraudulently secured a Purple Heart by falsely attributing his self-inflicted “piece of small grenade in my ass” to the mine explosion hitting PCF 3 or to any other hostile action.
In addition to fabricating wounds from hostile fire to gain his third Purple Hear, a Bronze Star, and a quick trip home, Kerry falsely described the incident in his 1969 operating report, in his campaign biography, in his advertising, and even on his 2004 campaign website. On March 13, 1969, Jack Chenoweth commanded the boat in front of Kerry, and his gunner, Van Odell, had a clear view of the entire incident. Dick Pease commanded PCF 3, which was blown up by the mine that day. None of these Swiftees recognized the incident as described by Kerry in his report, by Douglas Brinkley in Tour of Duty, or on Kerry’s website. They were furious when they realized Kerry’s fraudulent account.
In reality, Kerry’s boat was on the right side of the river when a mine went off on the opposite side, under PCF 3. The boat’s crewmen were thrown into the water. The officers of PCF 3 were injured by the explosion and suffered concussions. A Viet Cong sympathizer in an adjoining bunker had touched off the mine. Besides the mine exploding under PCF 3, there was no other hostile fire and there were no other mines, according to Chenoweth, Odell, Pease, and Thurlow. The boats had begun firing after the mine exploded, but they ceased after a short time because of the lack of hostile fire.
Despite the absence of hostile fire, Kerry fled the scene. The remaining PCFs, in accord with standard doctrine, stood to defend the disabled PCF 3 and its crewmen in the water. Kerry disappeared several hundred yards away, returning only when it was clear that there was no return fire.
Chenoweth (who received no medal) picked up the PCF 3 crewmen thrown into the water. As a result of the explosion, PCF 3’s engines were knocked out on one side and frozen on 500 RPM on the other side. The boat weaved dangerously, hitting sandbars, with a dazed or unconscious crew aboard. Thurlow sought a secure hold on his boat so he could jump across and board PCF 3. However, he was thrown into the water as his first attempt to board PCF 3 failed and the boat hit the sandbars. Later, Thurlow brought PCF 3 to a stop, and the boat slowly began to sink.
During the incident, Jim Rassmann had fallen or had been knocked off either Kerry’s boat or PCF 35. When he was spotted in the water, Chenoweth’s boat, with the PCF 3 crew aboard, went to pick him up. Kerry’s boat, returning to the scene after its flight, reached him about twenty yards before Chenoweth.
Kerry did the decent thing by going a short distance to pick up Rassmann, justifiably earning Rassmann’s gratitude. The claim that Kerry “returned” to a hostile fire zone is a lie according to Chenoweth, Thurlow, and many others. Meanwhile, the serious work of saving PCF 3 continued.
Kerry’s false after-action report, prepared to justify his medals, reports “5,000 meters” – about two and a half miles of heavy fire, about the same distance as a large Civil War battlefield. Not a shot of fire was heard by Chenoweth, Thurlow, Odell, or Pease. Kerry’s false after-action report ignores Chenoweth’s heroic action in rescuing the PCF 3 survivors and Thurlow’s action in saving PCF 3, while highlighting his own routine pickup of Rassmann and PCF 94’s minor role in saving PCF 3.
When Chenoweth’s boat left a second time to deliver the wounded PCF 3 crewmen to a Coast Guard cutter offshore, Kerry jumped into the boat, leaving the few remaining officers and men the job of saving PCF 3, which was then in terrible condition, sinking just outside the river. Kerry’s eagerness to secure his third and final Purple Heart evidently outweighed any feelings he may have had of loyalty, duty, or honor with regard to his fellow sailors. Thurlow and the brave sailors who saved PCF 3 and towed it out did not seek Purple Hearts for their “minor contusions.” Indeed, several of the PCF 3 sailors did not seek or receive Purple Hearts. Chenoweth, Odell, and their boatmates who fished out and saved the sailors of PCF 3 likewise had no thought of seeking medals but only of rescuing their comrades and saving PCF 3. Kerry, however, portrays himself towing the disabled PCF 3 to safety after saving it. Another lie: The damage control done on PCF 3 was done by Thurlow. While Kerry’s boat, PCF 94, participated in towing PCF 3, Kerry was no longer on it for most of the trip (he was safely on the Coast Guard cutter), and Thurlow and Chenoweth are certain that Kerry played no role in saving PCF 3 or its crew.
When Chenoweth and Thurlow (as well as several other Swiftees who were there on March 13, 1969) first saw the Kerry ads, they believed the event that Kerry had described in his campaign biography and that was portrayed in his campaign television ads (as well as in the medal citations) had to be different events involving different people. What they had experienced on March 13, 1969, was so unlike the incident Kerry described that they could not imagine he was describing the same event. They were horrified when they finally realized Kerry had received medals for the incident they remembered.
Rassmann appeared for a spontaneous embrace of Kerry at a campaign event in Iowa. He was understandably grateful to Kerry for fishing him out of the river, and he was evidently happy to participate in the “no man left behind” version of the story being told by Kerry in his “war hero” mode. As with most Kerry campaigns, Iowa ended with Kerry, the Vietnam hero. Still, the other Swiftees who learned of Kerry’s fraudulent citations and ads felt betrayed. William Franke writes,
You’ve just got to make them understand. We went out to operate and survive. We had no time to deal with the crap of John Kerry. We weren’t thinking of self-promotion like him. Just survival and doing the job. We didn’t want him around and we were happy he was gone.
Tom Wright, another PCF commander at An Thoi, discussed John Kerry with several other Swiftees on base right after the March 13 incident. They were aware of the three Purple Heart rule that sounded like “three strikes and you’re out.” John Kerry could be sent home. So Wright approached Kerry one night and proposed to him that several fellow Swiftees on the base felt that it might be best for everybody if Kerry simply left. The next thing Wright knew, Kerry was gone, the exact result Wright hoped to achieve.
Kerry followed up the March Purple Heart with a request to head home, the only Swiftee in the history of Coastal Division 11 to do so before the end of a tour, except of course, those who suffered a serious wound. Kerry arrived home in New York, completing his “one-year tour” in the record time of four months. According to his biography, when he got off the airplane at Kennedy Airport in New York to meet his fiancée, Julia Thorne, Kerry was supposedly so “bandaged” that “some of it was sticking out.” Whether this was just another example of Kerry political theater is not clear. It is certain that Kerry had only a minor bruise on his arm and a minor self-inflicted wound on his buttocks from some two weeks earlier. It is unclear how either of these wounds could have accounted for bandages “sticking out” from his clothing.
In his 1971 debate on the Dick Cavett Show with John O’Neill, Kerry made it seem as if his decision process to leave Vietnam had been tortured:
The fact of the matter remains that after I received my third wound, I was told that I could return to the United States. I deliberated for about two weeks because you have an opportunity to go, but I finally made the decision to go back and leave of my own volition because I felt I could do more against the war back here…. When I got back here…I wrote a letter through him [an admiral] requesting that I be released from the Navy early because of my opposition.
This “deliberation” was once again a complete lie. Kerry was “wounded” on March 13, 1969, on the Bay Hap River, but by March 17, 1969, at 7:42 a.m., his request for reassignment to the United States (having been typed up far away in An Thoi and signed by the commander there) was at the Navy Department in Washington. His subsequent request to leave the Navy late in 1969 mentions nothing about his “opposition to the war,” but only his ambition to run for Congress.
The real Kerry “homecoming” that most Swiftees will never forget occurred at St. Albans Naval Hospital in early April 1969, where Tedd Peck, the commander of PCF 94, lay recovering from terrible wounds that he suffered on January 29, 1969. Peck was horrified when he learned that PCF 94 and his crew had been turned over to Kerry after Peck had been wounded. He thought, “How could the Navy do this to me after all I’ve suffered?"
Still in pain and suffering from his wounds, Peck was stunned to see a well-groomed John Kerry pop into his room, complete with dress whites and attaché cord. “Kerry, you son of a bitch,” Peck said, “what the hell are you doing here? You were only there a couple of months.”
Kerry replied (lying about his own request to come home), “Tedd, the Navy decided it was time for me to come home.” Kerry explained that he was visiting the wounded as an admiral’s aide.
Within a short time, Kerry sought to recruit Peck for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), which Kerry described as a group he had organized. Peck, dumbfounded, ask Kerry, “John, how can you do this? All of our guys are still over there, in Vietnam?
Kerry had no answer.
We have never been given any more of a real answer from John Kerry than the one Tedd Peck received while lying in his hospital bed.
just checked Borders.com, and they have it listed, and you can order it either at your local store for pickup, or online, which sends you to Amazon.com (shipdate - 5-7 weeks). Sounds like that particular Borders the caller encountered has its own particular beef, and should be reported.
That sounds strange, 5-7 weeks. Wasn't delivery time on Slick Willie's book a week or less?
I 5-7 weeks the Swifties will either be history of Kerry will have withdrawn from the candidacy.
The story above may be seen to be in conflict with Larry Thurlow's statements.
In the above story, from the book, Unfit for Command:
What Actually Happened
On March 13, 1969, Jack Chenoweth commanded the boat in front of Kerry, and his gunner, Van Odell, had a clear view of the entire incident. Dick Pease commanded PCF 3, which was blown up by the mine that day. None of these Swiftees recognized the incident as described by Kerry in his report, by Douglas Brinkley in Tour of Duty, or on Kerry’s website. They were furious when they realized Kerry’s fraudulent account.
In reality, Kerry’s boat was on the right side of the river when a mine went off on the opposite side, under PCF 3.
Here is Larry Thurlow's statement taken during an interview, posted to FR at Was Rassman Even on Kerry's Boat? - reply no. 66:
THURLOW: My recollection of that day is still pretty vivid after all these years. And what I remember, Judy, is that the incident involving Mr. Rassmann, five boats had come out of the river after running an operation up in the canal earlier that day. Three boats were going through a fishing weir on the left side of the river that had put in place between the time we entered and when we were leaving.
I'm the third boat in that column left. In the column right, there are two boats. The lead boat is John Kerry's.
He's going through a rather small opening on the right bank that (ph) had been left in his boat. The boat leading our column, as it goes through that small opening almost simultaneously, is blasted completely out of the water by a command detonated mine.
As best as I have been able to discover, PCF 3 commanded by Richard W. Pees (some spellings have him as "Pease" even "WQees") was in the lead, left column. Next in that left column was either PCF 23 commanded by (no information linking Jack Chenoweth to PCF 23, but presumably it is Jack Chenoweth, though author Douglas Brinkley places Skip Barker as an OIC for the middle boat in the left column) or PCF 43 commanded by Don Droz. Third in that column was PCF 51 commanded by Larry Thurlow.
In the right column, is PCF 94 commanded by John Kerry, followed by either PCF 23 or PCF 43.
Douglas Barker's article, John Kerry's Final Mission in Vietnam, first page of four (found online), excerpt:
[Tthe boats gathered at the mouth of the Rach Dong Cung, prior to heading up that canal and conduction operations there ... ]
Finally PCF-94 arrived at the opening to the small Dong Cung canal, where it was to rendezvous with the Swifts skippered by Lieutenants Skip Barker, Don Droz and Larry Thurlow, who would join them bearing the South Vietnamese Popular Forces members (called "Ruff-Puffs") they had picked up in Cai Nuoc.
Douglas Brinkley may have done a poor job, but the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have not established by providing evidence --- logbooks, military records, repair depot logs, previous SITREPS, etc. --- the pertinent boat numbers and boats' crewmembers. They have not provided any accurate chart and backed it up.
Can I say that on Free Republic?
Of course not. That's a half-truth. I bet you can figure out what the other half is.
I bought mine a week ago at Barnes & Noble, NYC. Will try to check tomorrow if they still have copies and get back to you.
I had to download first an Acrobat update from Adobe.com, but then could open the recommendation (and the Citation) for Kerry's Bronze Star. I have transcribed the SUMMARY OF ACTION, which is the only "after-action" information I could find. If johnkerry.com had displayed a separate after-action report, it appears they may have removed it.
* * *
AWARD RECOMMENDATION, Bronze Star Medal, 23 March 1969
Para. 27 SUMMARY OF ACTION
On 13 March 1969, LTJG KERRY was serving as Officer-in-Charge of PCF-94 conducting a five boat Sea Lords operation in the Bay Hap river and Dong Cung (Gung?) canal together with ground forces. After sweeping the area for five hours, the boats extracted the ground troops and began exiting the river. Shortly after starting their exit, a mine detonated under one of the boats (PCF-3), lifting it two feet above the water and wounding everyone on board. Almost simultaneously, another mine detonated close aboard PCF-94, knocking 1st LT RASSMAN (sic) into the water and wounding LTJG KERRY in the right arm. PCF-51 immediately went to the aid of PCF-3 while PCF-94 provided cover fire. Shortly after LTJG KERRY was informed that he had a man over board, he immediately turned his boat around to assist the man in the water, who by this time was receiving sniper fire from the river banks. LTJG KERRY from his exposed position on the bow of the boat, managed to pull LT RASSMAN aboard despite the painful wound in his right arm. Meanwhile, PCF-94s (sic) gunners provided accurate suppressing fire. LTJG KERRY then directed PCF-94 to the stricken PCF-3, where his crew attached a line and towed the boat clear of danger. Throughout the entire action, LTJG KERRY proved himself to be calm, professional, and highly courageous in the face of enemy fire.
Source: www.johnkerry.com/More Issues/Rapid Response/View John Kerry’s Official Naval Records/Bronze Star Recommendation
* * *
Note there are many discrepancies between this account and "Unfit for Command" pp. 87-95, namely regarding the number of mines, hostile (and sniper) fire, the cause of Rassmann's being knocked overboard, the immediacy of Kerry turning his boat around, the extent of Kerry's arm injury, the absence of any reference to being wounded in the buttocks from the mine (or rice-bin grenade explosion), references to the Coast Guard cutter offshore, and the extent of Kerry's participation in towing PCF-3 clear of danger, courageous acts on the part of other crewmen, and last but not least the claim that Kerry was "calm, professional, and highly courageous in the face of enemy fire."
CROWLEY: We want to talk more about Larry Thurlow's claims about Kerry and what happened to them on March 13, 1969. Former swift boat commander Larry Thurlow joins us on the phone from Kansas.
Mr. Thurlow, thank you so much for being here. I want to try and just sort of set the stage for our audience.
You were on the same mission, although a different boat that John Kerry was on, along with other boats up the Mekong at the time that he was awarded a Bronze Star and you were awarded a Bronze Star. He says that you all were under fire. You have said that you were not
And now up comes your citation, which does several times say that you were under small arms fire. Can you justify the two of those for us?
LARRY THURLOW, FMR. SWIFT BOAT COMMANDER: Well, I can certainly try to explain why this would have happened. One point I would make, we were not on the Mekong River. We were on the Bay Hap River. [Song Bai Hap; see map.]
. . .
THURLOW: Certainly. On this day in question, the three boat, a PCF in front of my boat, was blown up by a water mine. Immediately, the boat I was on, the boat directly in front of me, the 23 boat, opened fire on the left bank of the river in case there would be an ambush in connection with the water mine.
If Larry Thurlow is correct, then PCF 23 (presumably skippered by Jack Chenoweth) was the no. 2 boat in line of column left, approaching the fishing weir near map grid coordinates VQ995770. That leaves PCF 43 (Don Droz) as no. 2 boat behind PCF 94 (John Kerry) in column right; and, Unfit for Command, is in error: PCF 23 ( Jack Chenoweth) was not the lead boat ahead of PCF 94 (John Kerry), and Van Odell did not have such a "clear view."
Mark
Kerry wants to show Johnson his wound in the Buttox, just like Forest Gump.
What a maroon.
DK
All reports that I've seen place Odell in the machine gun station above the pilot house. From that vantage point, about 20 or so feet above the water, he'd have a clear view of all of the boats regardless.
I agree with you - crazy, isn't it? However, I am guessing its a computerized version of CYA as far as delivery date - this way, they don't have panicky buyers, emailing them frantically, a week or two from now (I am assuming that at the moment, delivery date may be, to some extent, out of their control. I believe that the publisher is getting orders faster than they can print books. YAY!!!)
I can't wait to read this book, haven't been out to see if its in our local stores yet!
Just watching these guys, you know they are holding back some pretty serious ammo. They had to know they would be attacked and I think they have stuff in reserve that is going to blow Kerry completely away.
These Swift Boat Vets for Truth should hire you. Nice job of putting this disjointed information into some kind of coherent order.
Thanks!
So the question remains... Who wrote this after action report? Thurlow claims Kerry did.
Is there any way to check this out?
I heard this lady call Hannity in the last hour of his program. I may be wrong, but I think she was in New Jersey because Sean told her Borders was a good bookstore. She had been calling around to bookstores for the book. Now, it's possible I could have heard wrong...
As of 10am this morning Barnes & Noble, 82nd St @ Broadway, NYC (212-362-8835) has a dozen copies of "Unfit" left and will mail for $3.99 + book cost of $27.95.
"Kerry wants to show Johnson his wound in the Buttox, just like Forest Gump"
But-tox.....Bo-tox....Shome confushion shirley?
Run! Forest RUN!......for President
LOL ;o)
Hard to tell. The Award Recommendation was sent 10 days after incident from Cmdr, Coastal Div.11 (G.M. Elliott) to Cmdr, Coastal Sqdn ONE (endorsed by C.F. Horne III), approved by S. Edelman (Asst Chief of Staff for Persnl & Admin) -- all of which means we don't know who wrote the SUMMARY OF ACTION, though it was probably Elliott.
It is also probable there was a separate after-action report from which Elliott extracted and condensed the summary. Since no PCF commander has claimed he wrote it, Thurlow is probably right that Kerry wrote it.
BTW, the Recom. lists Thurlow and R.E. Lambert as also recommended for the Bronze Star. D.L. Sandusky, QM1, is listed as an eyewitness. Neither Lambert nor Sandusky are mentioned in "Unfit." The plot thickens.
Typo in the book itself, I would guess (Amazon still hasn't delivered the copy I ordered). Thurlow was OIC of the 53 boat.
I've got a copy coming from Amazon. It might actually get here, next week. But I'm guessing that middle of the week, what copies Regenery managed to print might start showing up in Costco and Wal-mart and such. And you won't get any grief buying it there.
LOL, you're right! We have a "hugh" super WalMart right by us, I will give them a call and see if they have it in stock, or are expecting it this week. I am so looking forward to reading Mr. O'Neill's book - and sharing the salient parts with my self-proclaimed "bleedin' heart liberal" cousin in FL (she always was the "slow" one in the family, and proclaims Michael Moore as her "hero" - go figure). If I can at least make her feel too ashamed to actually show up at the polls, I will have served my country well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.