Posted on 08/23/2004 6:31:18 AM PDT by areafiftyone
Cambodian Reds were no military factor while young lieutenant was in Vietnam!
WASHINGTON – Did Lt. John Kerry really take his gunboat up the river into Cambodia territory as he continues to insist despite growing contradictions in his stories?
In the most celebrated telling of this story before the U.S. Senate in 1986, Kerry said: "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared – seared – in me."
Critics have pointed out that on Christmas 1968, Lyndon Johnson was president, not Richard Nixon – the president who ordered American troops to invade Cambodia beginning in April 1970, a year after Kerry had left Vietnam. Secret U.S. bombings of Cambodia began in 1969 – shortly after Kerry left Vietnam -- but there was no controversy about secret troop movements there.
In response, Kerry's campaign explained that Kerry was mistaken about the timing only – and that he visited Cambodia more than once on secret missions before leaving Vietnam in March 1969. None of Kerry's crew members, even those supporting his candidacy for the presidency, say they can remember any such excursions into Cambodia.
However, there is another problem with this story, Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin has found.
Kerry said his boat took fire from Khmer Rouge forces, the Communist army under the direction of Pol Pot.
The Khmer Rouge were unheard of in 1968 and 1969 and began their guerrilla campaigns to topple the Cambodia government in 1970, even then with only a handful of soldiers numbering perhaps 3,000, according to a variety of historians who have chronicled Pol Pot's eventual genocidal reign.
It was not until 1975, following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, that Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army, consisting mainly of teen-age peasant guerrillas, marched into Phnom Penh April 17 and effectively seized control of Cambodia.
Once in power, Pol Pot began a radical experiment to create an agrarian utopia inspired by Mao Zedung's cultural revolution, forcing millions of civilians out of the cities and into the jungles and fields. He renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea, systematically murdered those with educations and who spoke foreign languages, set up re-education camps and wrought what became known as the "Killing Fields," in which more than 2 million were killed.
"I don't know that anyone can actually say whether or not they were in Cambodia," John Hurley, the national director of Veterans for Kerry said to Fox News when first confronted with contradictions about who was president in 1968. "[It is a] very watery area. It is – there's no sign that says welcome to Cambodia. It is – it is obviously dusk and getting darker, and so they were in those waters."
Yet, Kerry very specifically referred to taking fire from Khmer Rouge in at least one account of his Cambodia venture.
Kerry's campaign has also said he was in Cambodia on a different mission with Navy Seals, but can provide no date for that mission.
"He was five miles into Cambodia, but what's happened is these two stories have gotten confused," said Hurley.
Kerry's spokesman Michael Meehan was even more specific: "During John Kerry's service in Vietnam, many times he was on or near the Cambodian border and one occasion crossed into Cambodia at the request of members of a special operations group operating out of Ha Tien. On Dec. 24, 1968, Lt. John Kerry and his crew were on patrol in the watery borders between Vietnam and Cambodia deep in enemy territory. In the early afternoon, Kerry's boat, PCF-44, was at Sa Dec and then headed north to the Cambodian border. There, Kerry and his crew along with two other boats were ambushed, taking fire from both sides of the river, and after the firefight were fired upon again. Later that evening during their night patrol they came under friendly fire."
Steve Gardner, a crewmate of Kerry on Christmas 1968, told the Globe of Kerry's claim to be in or near Cambodia: "Never happened."
I suppose most Navy vets would cut Kerry a little more slack for embellishing his sea stories if he'd just remembered to preface them with the disclaimer "This is no sh*t", as is the custom.
Wow, it sounds like Kerry was all over the map in just 4 months of services and adventures in Vietnam!
PS - The Rassmann 3rd Purple Heart incident, after which Kerry fled Vietnam after 3 months "in country", took place in March, 1969. That would mean that the 1968 Christmas in Cambodia story occurred during John Quixote's very first month on the job? Nay, his very first weeks? We are expected to believe that the CIA would use a brand new Swift Boat skipper to ferry their guys in?
More like Steve Martin's the jerk, if you stuck a uniform on him and gave him a typewriter.
Jus heard on Tony Snow radio show; Tony stated that Kerry had MRI after that bicycle fall. A nurse called in and said you cannot have MRI performed if you have any shrapnel in your body.
John Kerry is playing a real life Forrest Gump.
OMG! And he still had It? I want to see Kerry's medical record!!!
And a Vietnam Vet just called Tony and said if shrapnel piece small, body will reject it; it will eventually work it's way out of body. If it had been a larger piece of shrapnel, they would have operated and taken it out!
Christmas In Cambodia Essay Contest
Tell Us About YOUR Christmas In Cambodia
Have you ever experienced a life-changing event that never actually occurred? Was your personal "Road To Damascus," something you cut and paste out of a Martin Sheen movie, a Joseph Conrad novel or maybe even a Martin Sheen movie based on a Joseph Conrad novel? Does the story of this particular life changing event not only make you look brave and heroic, but your rivals look callow and criminal by comparison?
Do you think you can recite your tale in a booming voice echoing with righteous indignation or even with pitiable intensity while a credulous film starlet plays with your hair? If so, you might be the next winner of the Christmas in Cambodia Essay Contest.
Contest Rules:
1.Your story must not be true and should of course be written in the "first person."
2. You must explain how the experience described in your made-up-story changed your life.
3. Your story must include at least one important detail that is provably false. i.e. "and it was all Dick Nixon’s fault" even though Nixon wasn’t president at the time etc.
4. You must be the story’s only hero as well as its only victim
5. You must use the word "seared" two times in succession.
If you think you got what it fakes, send your Christmas In Cambodia story to:
Christmas In Cambodia Essay Contest
c/o John Kerry for President
Post Office Box 77247 Suite 700 Washington, DC 20003
Attention: Tawana Brawley
Entries must be postmarked no later than November 2, 2004.
If he was fired on, how did he determine the idenity of who was firing?
Kerry passed Walter Mitty territory three exits ago.
I think we should all listen to Bob Dole. He had a lot to say over the weekend about Kerry's so called "purple hearts". Kerry's stories change daily and he has not answered one question the Vietnam swiftboat vets have posed for him. Kerry keeps aiming his bombs at the White House, but President Bush wasn't there, his people were not there, and he has said nothing except that Kerry's service, from what has been written, was noble. Kerry's battle is with the million and half vets who served during those years who he (Kerry) trashed in everyway he could in front of Congress and the American people. Kerry is responsible for what happened to these brave men and women when they retured home and were spit upon and treated like garbage. The traitors who went to Canada were treated better than the vets coming home from war. Kerry's started the Blame America First movement. It sticks even today and in my book that spells TREASON.
He was on a whirlwind tour. Haven't you seen the movie?
No, but he's open to a campaign contribution if they're interested!
"We are expected to believe that the CIA would use a brand new Swift Boat skipper to ferry their guys in?"
Yeah....that's the ticket.
Doh!
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