"One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other."well that's a bald faced lie!!! kerry got the SS for shooting a kid in the BACK not that day on the river.
Posted on 08/21/2004 8:50:15 AM PDT by Pikamax
CHICAGO, Aug. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- "There were three Swift Boats on the
river that day in Vietnam more than 35 years ago -- three officers and 15 crew
members. Only two of those officers remain to talk about what happened on
February 28, 1969.
"One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a Silver
Star for what happened on that date. I am the other."
(Photo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040821/CGSA002-a
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040821/CGSA002-b http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040821/CGSA002-c
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040821/CGSA002-d )
So begins William Rood's compelling account of events that happened more than 35 years ago. The article appears in the Sunday, August 22 edition of the Chicago Tribune. Rood, now night city editor for the Chicago Tribune, earned a Bronze Star for his part in the operation. Rood has chosen to break more than three decades of silence in defense of the men who served alongside him. "It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there," Rood writes. "What matters most to me is that this is hurting crew men who are not public figures and who deserved to be honored for what they did. "My intent is to tell the story here and to never again talk publicly about it." William Rood's complete account will appear in the Sunday, August 22 edition of the Chicago Tribune, available Saturday in Chicago and online at chicagotribune.com. Chicago Tribune Managing Editor James O'Shea said Rood has refused all interview requests up to now, including some from the Tribune's reporters. "Bill is a modest man and he didn't want his harrowing combat experiences to become engulfed in a political campaign. "As the coverage of Senator Kerry's war record has intensified, though, Rood decided to come forward with his story, primarily, he says, because Kerry's critics are telling stories that Rood knows to be untrue. The false accounts are casting doubts on the actions of those men who served with and under Rood, men who are not public figures running for president but brave, ordinary Americans, war veterans whose courage, Rood believes, should not be diminished by a heated political campaign."
NOTE: William Rood will not be available for further comment or interviews. Deputy Managing Editor George de Lama and reporter Tim Jones are available.
SOURCE Chicago Tribune
William Rood
WRood@tribune.com
His handlers:
George de Lama
gdelama@tribune.com
Tim Jones
TXJones@tribune.com
What a minute, doesn't this guy have ties to Richard Clark?
E-mail the staff of the Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/site/chi-newspaperemail.htmlstory
"One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other."well that's a bald faced lie!!! kerry got the SS for shooting a kid in the BACK not that day on the river.
On March 16, 2001, 32-year-old Tracy Droz Tragos typed her father's name into Yahoo.com and hit 'Search.' Two and a half years later, the results of that search are chronicled in BE GOOD, SMILE PRETTY, a film that documents Tracy’s journey to find the father she lost in Vietnam. Lt. Donald Glenn Droz was 25 when he died; Tracy was three months old.
Four months after the completion of BE GOOD, SMILE PRETTY, Tracy, her husband, and her mother went to Vietnam to visit the place where Lt. Donald Glenn Droz had been killed. Chris, Tracy's husband, kept a diary of their trip.
Tracy's journey began with an article she found about the ambush that killed six men, including her father
What she found on the Web that night was "Death of the 43," a first-person, detailed account by a witness to an ambush in the Mekong Delta that destroyed a Navy swift boat and killed six men, including her father, Lt. Donald Glenn Droz.
After waiting two days, Tracy called her mother to tell her of the article. Thus began a conversation between the two on film, with Tracy gently but insistently probing her mother, Judy Droz Keyes, to dredge up and piece together old memories and to flesh out and give life to the shadowy figure of her daughter's dreams.
Together they open a long-buried trunk, examining the contents—photographs, champagne bottles, letters, home movies, audiotapes of phone conversations—like shards of pottery and artifacts from some ancient civilization. Who was this man? What was he like? What is his legacy? Many of his letters signed off with "Be good, smile pretty," a closing which Tracy later came to view as something many people do in burying their grief rather than facing it.
Tracy's film odyssey takes her from Berkeley, California to Rich Hill, Missouri, her father's hometown, and then on to the United States Senate, the United States Naval Academy, the cotton fields of Selma, Alabama, suburban Illinois, New York City, Santa Rosa, California and places in between, to talk with relatives and her father's comrades from Vietnam. These men (including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts), now in their 50s and 60s, are the age her father would have been had he survived. [snip]
There are likely reasons why some of these vets refuse to come out, or are awfully reticient (like Rood) when they do.
Notice the "BoBs" were pulled from appearances recently and Kerry had to drag Rood kicking and screaming into this story.
Doesn't matter. The subject has moved on to the VVAW.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2096936
Page 302: Bill Rood, another officer, called Kerry "Ichabod," as in Crane.
Yep and I don't think Rood or the few pro Kerry Vets want to defend the VVAW. Its just too ugly and I can understand their retience.
Rood and Kerry helped fund the documentary.
Somebody needs to a FOIA on Rood and see what he did stateside after the war. I think it'll be eyeopening.
It does to me. Hit and run, standard Crap tactic.
see if this gets you what you want:
http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/info.html
Rood is a pawn of his bosses at the Chicago Tribune.
If you do a Google on Rood you find some antiwar connections.
Where was he in 1970-71?
Again-thanks for making it so convenient. The links you provided matter.
NO he's talking about the February 28 Silver Star incident, not the Mar 13 Bronze Star one.
I can understand why he wouldn't want to answer to reporters - he knows as well as anyone and better than most how his statements might be misconstrued or misrepresented. It also sounds to me like he wants to make very specific statements with very specific language - choose his words carefully. That way, whatever he might say, is technically true.
Rood works for the Chicago Tribune and his handlers work for the Chicago Tribune. He is just following the orders of the Chicago Tribune editorial board.
The clash between the Rood and the "Unfit for Command" author(s) here regards the quality of the fight and tactics. It's fit for tactical decision games, that's it. Kerry did his duty that day in the fight and the brass gave out medals.
Rood declined futher discussion and interview. That's, because he doesn't want to go beyond the obfuscation to comment on the real matter of Kerry's honesty and loyalty. After Kerry's short time in country, he was discharged and sided with the commies and lied about what his countrymen were up to and propagandized for the commie enemy.
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