Posted on 08/22/2004 3:32:40 AM PDT by 7.62 x 51mm
Every candidate for public office probably has some excess baggage to carry around that he’d rather not have. With Senator John Kerry, it’s undoubtedly his anti-Vietnam War activism that followed his heroic naval service in Vietnam.
John Kerry and I were shipmates in the guided missile cruiser USS Gridley (CG-21) in 1967 and 1968. He served as First Lieutenant, the officer in charge of the deck division, and I was Executive Officer, or second in command. I remember him as a serious and intelligent young ensign, seemingly mature beyond his years. The skipper and I were mightily impressed with him in spite of his inexperience. He had excellent verbal skills and great poise so we assigned him a collateral duty as Public Affairs Officer. Because of these duties and his basic responsibilities for seamanship evolutions and the overall external appearance of the ship, I had close, daily contact with him. To put it another way, I would be all over his case, if the ship wasn’t shipshape. Turns out he didn’t need too much supervision in that regard. He was a fine division officer and his men obviously respected him.
We deployed from San Diego to the Vietnam theatre in early 1968 after only a six-month turnaround and spent most of a four month deployment on rescue station in the Gulf of Tonkin, standing by to pick up downed aviators. It was a fairly grueling tour of duty. Our helicopter was shot up trying to rescue a downed pilot and the door gunner was killed. The crew performed well and John Kerry’s performance in all aspects of his duty was outstanding. Drafting his fitness reports was an exercise in the use of superlatives. In fact, of the thirty or so officers, I counted him in the top half dozen, no mean feat for an ensign.
I tried to interest him in a naval career. Silly me! It was obvious he had bigger fish to fry. I drafted the favorable endorsement on his request for Swift Boat duty on the rivers of Vietnam, were he distinguished himself in combat. Before he left, he gave me his bridge coat and several other uniform items, saying that he wouldn’t be needing them in the “brown water” navy.
Aside from a Christmas card and an aborted telephone call, I didn’t hear further from John until I read about his anti-war antics including his appearance with Hanoi Jane Fonda and the famous episode of throwing medals onto the capitol steps during a protest.
While he was protesting against the war, many of us were still fighting in it. Many of us felt betrayed that one of our own, a decorated hero, would give comfort to the enemy by such actions. Think what you want about the wisdom in getting involved in that war, two presidents, both Democrats, committed the armed forces they commanded to fight it. Make no mistake; actions by the likes of Fonda and Kerry were damaging to our morale, gave aid and comfort to the forces we were fighting and altered the eventual outcome in a manner less favorable to the United States than if they had kept their mouths shut. The time for anti-war protests is before the war starts.
There is no question that John Kerry earned his decorations and that he put his life at risk in the service of his country. There is no doubt in my mind, moreover, that he has the intelligence to serve as president. But there is also no doubt in my mind that his anti-war activities while our troops were still fighting, dying and being tortured in filthy Vietnam prisons were despicable.
For that reason, even aside from his anti-defense voting record in the Senate, he is one ex-shipmate that I could never support as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Here are the comments of Phil Carter, RD2, on some of the items in the TOUR OF DUTY coverage of Kerry's time on GRIDLEY. He urges everyone to read it for themselves.
I was an E-5 radarman on the USS GRIDLEY and was onboard from 1965 until May of 1968. My principal role in 67 and 68 was to prepare intelligence information to brief the rescue helo pilots and the ship’s officers. I received a commendation from CINCPACFLT for this activity. I stood quite a few CIC watches with Ensign Kerry where we discussed many things, including the war. I was college educated, had traveled extensively in Europe before the Navy and spoke French, so there was some commonality despite my being enlisted. By that time, I was on my 3rd cruise and against the way the war was being waged. He was not, as I recall.
I am a registered independent and have no axe to grind with him. I gave him a reasonably large campaign contribution in the mid 1990’s and visited with him for about 30 minutes in an alcove outside the Senate chambers in 1996 when I was in DC on business.
Ensign Kerry was a fine young officer. He came aboard as a boot Ensign on June 8, 1967 and quickly impressed the senior officers in his chain of command. His fitness reports were outstanding. His privileged upbringing with experience in yachting and flying a private plane gave him a leg up on the other Ensigns.
When I read “Tour of Duty”, I became concerned because the material on Kerry’s time on GRIDLEY appeared in many instances to be exaggerations and in some cases figments of an overactive imagination.
Here are my observations on the sections that bothered me:
1. Kerry never talked about his time on GRIDLEY. He says on page 74 that it is because “nothing much of note” happened while he was onboard. He uses words like monotony and tedious, when, despite being a boot ensign he was given every opportunity for responsibility by Captain Slifer and Commander Kelly (XO). He came aboard designated for Electrical Officer (80100), a grunt position in the Engineering Department and spent four months in that position. He was assigned duty as First Lieutenant, as Commander Kelly recalls, because of his knowledge of seamanship and his experiences with small boats and sailing. Besides being responsible for the decks of the ship, the First Lieutenant is also responsible for the ship’s small boats. He also was assigned collateral duties as Public Affairs Officer. Despite all the responsibilities he was given, he gives the impression that serving on GRIDLEY was somehow beneath him. He certainly had less of an opportunity to collect “gongs” there.
2. Page 78 – “motivate 400 swabbies” – The First Lieutenant is responsible only for the personnel of 1st Division, not the entire crew. 1st Division had a roster of about 30 in 1968. To the extent that other divisions had responsibility for deck space, their officers would have been responsible for motivating them.
3. Page 87 has Kerry “shuttling sailors and provisions” between GRIDLEY and KITTY HAWK in a small motor whaleboat out in the Gulf of Tonkin. The regular method of travel between the two ships was via helo. That is how I went over to the KITTY HAWK. If such an event did occur, it would have been unusual and hardly a shuttle.
4. Later on page 87 Kerry talks about Olongapo in the Philippines. He talks about bloated corpses floating in the river and starving women with babies dying of malnutrition. Now Olongapo was a wild and wooly town that existed solely for the entertainment of the US Navy, but in over three years of calling there, I never saw a single instance of either thing happening. Kerry uncovered this in his first visit. If this was from his letters home then he was certainly writing for dramatic effect. Balderdash.
5. The trip to Danang – GRIDLEY went into Danang for briefings before going to Northern SAR. This section is so full of hyperbole that the urge to giggle is almost uncontrollable. “The panic and pressure onboard GRIDLEY, strapping on a .45, wondering if I would have to use it, B-52’s howling overhead”. A B-52 over Danang would have been so high that only contrails would have been visible, cloud cover permitting. David Simons confirmed my recollection that during our brief stay in Danang Harbor, the sky was overcast to the point of being ominous.
More seriously, no one can remember John Kerry going ashore. I was part of the shore party that went to Monkey Mountain. We were taken in a screened in truck (to protect against grenades being tossed in) and made to unload our .45’s. The driver said that he did not want us newbies to shoot anyone by accident.
Neither Commander Kelly nor LCDR Rueckert (Kerry’s immediate boss) can recall approving a trip ashore for Ensign Kerry. The author uses remarks of David Simons IC2 as a lead in to the Danang section. I spoke to David and he has no personal knowledge of Kerry going ashore at all. He did talk to a researcher and made some generic remarks about Danang but had never discussed Danang with Kerry. He recalls arguing with the researcher because he tried to put the words “cowboy” in his mouth, which ended up in the book.
There is no mystery about the “gruesome site of a pile of dead VC.” We saw no sign of anything like this. However, our escort to Monkey Mountain did tell us how the VC bodies were stacked up on the LZ’s after the TET Offensive, which had been several months before. Ensign Kerry would have been told this story by members of the shore party.
If, indeed, he got to the pier, because he was in charge of the motor whaleboat, it certainly would not have been within his purview to wander Danang, eating dog meat and drinking beer in a bar (under arms). It also seems amazing that he had all these observations on Vietnam in such a brief visit.
6. In command – Again with the hyperbole. Kerry makes much about being “in charge” of the ship after the Captain and XO. The OOD is in charge of the operation of the ship during his four hour watch but hardly in charge of the ship. Kerry qualified almost immediately as OOD(P), in port OOD but that is a given. For much of his time onboard he would have been Junior Officer of the Deck when underway. Although his fitness report as of 22 March says "he is qualified as OOD(I) now" (Independent steaming – with no ships or land anywhere near) , only OOD(P) is listed under duties. His Fitness Report from July 1968 lists two months as OOD(I) which would mean he qualified after leaving the war zone.
Some of these points may be perceived as picky, but they seem to show a deliberate effort in his writings of the time to build a mystique for a future political career showing him as a great leader, father confessor to the ship and astute analyst of political and military happenings.
That is not to say that Kerry was not a good officer. He was and to my recollection was well liked. Did he stalk the passageways showing his future presidential timber? Absolutely not. A reporter from the Chicago Tribune actually asked me that. When I told him that he was just another goofy Ensign, he was horrified and did not use that quote.
I corresponded with a CNN Producer who was working on Kerry's bio that was shown on July 25. I provided them with three or four photographs of Kerry on GRIDLEY but they were uninterested in anything else I had to say.
Jim Hampton who was a BT2 at the time writes:
I was the BT on the forward Fueling station. Kerry was the Deck officer in charge of it. I came up to man the station for fueling and Kerry informed me that we would fuel at 50 PSI and he wanted 15-10-54321 standbys to secure. I informed Hinderliter BT1 and the oil king of the order. Before Hinderliter had a chance to respond LCDR Butts came on the line from Main Control (Fwd Engine room) and said to put Kerry on my phone line. For everyones info, the fueling phone system was on a speaker in the two enginerooms. Lcdr Butts informed Kerry he was responsible for hooking up the hose and unhooking it and seamanship on the fwd fueling station. The oil king would fuel the ship. That was my contact with Kerry while he was aboard.
Enlighten me...what is the "brown water" navy?
Ummmm .. I guess this means Brinkley will have to do another revision on his book huh?
Brown water Navy is small boats, riverine craft, not ocean going craft like the Gridley was.
The Gridley was off Iran with us back in 1980.
http://rescueattempt.tripod.com/id5.html
ping to more truth from those who served with Kerry...
ping
Brown Water Navy is a term used to describe Naval river vessels, and crew, operating in the muddy waters off the coast and rivers in Vietnam.
Bump for later reading.
What's BREAKING NEWS about the Gridley?
Besides, doesnt the title essentially say it is an EDITORIAL?
That's a damned lie. When Kerry asked to transfer to Swift Boats, they were not part of the "brown water navy", they patrolled offshore.
Kerry left the Gridley, trained on the boats in the U.S. and then returned to Vietnam. Just before he got there, the Swift Boat assignment was changed and they became part of the "brown water navy".
And that is by Kerry's own admission.
By J. F. Kelly, Jr. Every candidate for public office probably has some excess baggage to carry around that he’d rather not have. With Senator John Kerry, it’s undoubtedly his anti-Vietnam War activism that followed his heroic naval service in Vietnam.
John Kerry and I were shipmates in the guided missile cruiser USS Gridley (CG-21) in 1967 and 1968. He served as First Lieutenant, the officer in charge of the deck division, and I was Executive Officer, or second in command. I remember him as a serious and intelligent young ensign, seemingly mature beyond his years. The skipper and I were mightily impressed with him in spite of his inexperience. He had excellent verbal skills and great poise so we assigned him a collateral duty as Public Affairs Officer. Because of these duties and his basic responsibilities for seamanship evolutions and the overall external appearance of the ship, I had close, daily contact with him. To put it another way, I would be all over his case, if the ship wasn’t shipshape. Turns out he didn’t need too much supervision in that regard. He was a fine division officer and his men obviously respected him.
We deployed from San Diego to the Vietnam theatre in early 1968 after only a six-month turnaround and spent most of a four month deployment on rescue station in the Gulf of Tonkin, standing by to pick up downed aviators. It was a fairly grueling tour of duty. Our helicopter was shot up trying to rescue a downed pilot and the door gunner was killed. The crew performed well and John Kerry’s performance in all aspects of his duty was outstanding. Drafting his fitness reports was an exercise in the use of superlatives. In fact, of the thirty or so officers, I counted him in the top half dozen, no mean feat for an ensign.
I tried to interest him in a naval career. Silly me! It was obvious he had bigger fish to fry. I drafted the favorable endorsement on his request for Swift Boat duty on the rivers of Vietnam, were he distinguished himself in combat. Before he left, he gave me his bridge coat and several other uniform items, saying that he wouldn’t be needing them in the “brown water” navy.
Aside from a Christmas card and an aborted telephone call, I didn’t hear further from John until I read about his anti-war antics including his appearance with Hanoi Jane Fonda and the famous episode of throwing medals onto the capitol steps during a protest.
While he was protesting against the war, many of us were still fighting in it. Many of us felt betrayed that one of our own, a decorated hero, would give comfort to the enemy by such actions. Think what you want about the wisdom in getting involved in that war, two presidents, both Democrats, committed the armed forces they commanded to fight it. Make no mistake; actions by the likes of Fonda and Kerry were damaging to our morale, gave aid and comfort to the forces we were fighting and altered the eventual outcome in a manner less favorable to the United States than if they had kept their mouths shut. The time for anti-war protests is before the war starts.
There is no question that John Kerry earned his decorations and that he put his life at risk in the service of his country. There is no doubt in my mind, moreover, that he has the intelligence to serve as president. But there is also no doubt in my mind that his anti-war activities while our troops were still fighting, dying and being tortured in filthy Vietnam prisons were despicable.
For that reason, even aside from his anti-defense voting record in the Senate, he is one ex-shipmate that I could never support as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
There has been a ton of stuff published, written, and spoken in the past two days on both sides. It is very clear to me that the purpose of the Kerry campaign is to obfuscate the issue to the point where Joe Average American decides this is too complicated to understand and gives up. I think that strategy may work for them in the in long run. I think the best we can hope for is that he loses even more of the veteran and active duty military vote and that people in the squishy middle have doubts in their minds. After that, it becomes a matter of the President hammering away at his Senate voting record from the convention until the election. At least, that's what I hope he does.
Looks like the CNN Producer already had his mind made up what he was going to write. Anything that an actual witness to the events he was going to report on wasn't going to change things.
Sorry, just got back up after sleeping-in this fine morning.
RaceBannon's post #4 answers the question about river traffic vs deep ocean craft.
Probably more than one by the time thing's hashed-out.
Every expose of John F(*cking) Kerry's myriad lies is breaking news, IMO.
He's got just enough rope to hang himself, and he's doing that, slowly.
And you're right about hammering away on a worthless 20yr "career" in the US Senate, where he accomplished nothing for the Peoples Republik of Massachusettes, and where he actively tried to subvert the US Military and Intel Communities of America. That's precisely where Bush&Co need to concentrate the withering fire.
Amen to that, but how was he returned to the US Senate so many times? Surely, there are some with functioning brains in The Peoples Republik of Taxachusettes? Ummm, maybe not.
Mmmmmmmmmm, coffee good. Waking back up.
The problem with john kerry is . . . he's john kerry, and that's hard to fix.
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