Posted on 08/26/2004 10:13:07 AM PDT by pookie18
Steve Gardner on Rush (w/Hedgecock)Now!
great interview. Kerry is dead meat. "was Kerry ever in Cambodia?" "no sir". How do you know that? " I was his gunner and I was on the boat with him and if he was in CAmbodia, I would have been in Cambodia , and I never was in Cambodia." What do you think of what Kerry said? " I think he is a big LIAR. " this guy is great.
Your picture has PCF3 in it. Was it ever repaired and returned to service?
HUME: The historian Douglas Brinkley's book about Kerry and his Vietnam service, published to considerable acclaim some months ago.
O'NEILL: Exactly. For example, there's the sanpan incident, outlined in Kerry's book "Tour of Duty," in which it's undisputable it was a tragedy. There was a husband and a wife and a child and a baby, on a sanpan. The husband was killed. The child was killed. We don't criticize that, although it could be criticized. But what we did is get the actual report out of the Navy Archives and all of a sudden, there is...
HUME: Now, which actual report is this? This is the after action report that was filed by whom?
O'NEILL: By John Kerry on January 20, 1969, but which he has omitted from his Web site. That report, which went to Commander Elliott, shows no longer the child being killed, the child that John Kerry said in "Tour of Duty," would be seared in his mind forever. All of a sudden, it shows an entire squad, five Viet Cong on the boat that were never there in the real world being killed. It shows the mother and child as Viet Cong captured in action.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,129343,00.html <-- Link
partial transcript of "Special Report With Brit Hume," Aug. 17, 2004
I had to used the cached link on Google to access the webpage. I used 'Kerry "January 20, 1969"' as the search term.
Still looking for a citation that shows the January 20, 1969 incident included taking a cache of weapons, 5,000 pounds of rice, etc. And, if that is the official report, it makes sense, because Kerry wrote the official report.
All I know is what's on the page. You can e-mail the guy. Refer to my next post to you
http://brownwater-navy.com/vietnam/BoatsSwift.htm
| THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS ARE THE COURTESY OF CORPMAN BILL LUPPETI HM3
EMAIL: blupetti[ at ]pouch.com Rach Soi 1967-1970 |
|
|---|---|
 PHOTO 20 Swift Boats docked on the APL21 |
 PHOTO 21 Swift Boats docked on the APL21 |
Yes it was. There is a website that summarizes the history of each Swift Boat hull.
http://swiftboats.net/ <-- Long Page
This page corroborates that PCF-3 hit a mine on March 13, 1969, and the After action damage report that says PCF-94 hit a mine of March 13, 1969 is incorrect. The after action report should say PCF-3.
They won't. But that will only call attention to them.
THE PING!Thurlow also says he never even knew he had been submitted for a Bronze Star, and that it was sent to him a good 3 months after he left the Navy. He thought it was for jumping onto the #3 boat and saving the crew. The citation wording was very similar to Kerry's and was most likely, he surmises, based on John Kerry's sole account in the only after-action report filed with the Navy (a.k.a. "the official Navy record"). My speculation only, but I think he and the others would willingly give up any medals they thought were awarded under false pretenses.
Brand new ad featuring Gardner is out:
http://humaneventsonline.com.edgesuite.net/unfit_video3.html
Plus there is plenty of evidence already out there to support Bush. The Press Poodles have mostly ignored it , as it would interfere with their verson of the way "it oughtta be."
For example, when Bush went in, the F-102 was being flown in Vietnam by the Texas National Guard. The press has filed this fact in the bottom drawer because it runs contrary to their desired outcome.
Thurlow said he would give his up, if being under fire was any part of the basis for it.
!!! Wow .. gottarun and find a URL
Gardner was awesome. Totally believable. On Kerry's boat, saw everything, and said all the boats operated so closely, you could be on another boat and be right alongside and see it all. Totally on target and said he expects the slime machine to start blackening their reputations...and he will hit back.
I heard him on Hugh Hewitt the other night telling this story and it absolutely FLOORED me. He is QUITE emphatic about it all.
Kerry has given conflicting accounts of the sampan incident over the years.
When Michael Kranish ,author of
" John Kerry, The Official Biography By The Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best, " (page 91)
asked the Kerry campaign to square Gardner's account,
with Kerry's previous public accounts ( in 2003, Kerry said he didn't know when the boy died )
and the official report ( the crew took the sampan under fire,captured 1 woman and one small child, one enemy KIA-4 enemy fled or were KIA )
" the Kerry campaign did not respond.."
The Boston Globe reported that Douglas Brinkley, author of Tour of Duty, called Gardner after he first went public and in so many words,threatened him.
"Brinkley called Gardner. ....warned Gardner of a "firestorm" if the vet went public with his doubts about Kerry, and then hacked out an article attacking the former gunner's mate on Time magazine's website!"
" Hilariously, Kerry declined to talk to the Globe about Gardner's criticisms, but graced Brinkley with his opinion -- uncritically relayed by the historian -- that Gardner's stories were "made up."
Brinkley attacked Gardner the other night on Hardball as a liar- " because he lives in South Carolina and is a conservative."
Kerry in 2003 tried to back away from the dead baby in the boat, by saying " he didn't know when the boy died."
Steve said Kerry wrote up a spot report inflating the kills, calling them Vietcong, said he'd killed them all. Steve said Kerry was down below in the wheelhouse, supposedly checking the radar for approaching boats. Kerry didn't do his job, a constant complaint with him, and a boat surprised them. A man with a child, food, all sorts of stuff they weren't allowing through because the Vietcong up the river would get it all. The man reached for a gun, and Steve shot him, the bullet also killing the child in front of the man. He expected higherups to look into the incident because it shouldn't have happened. They weren't supposed to shoot civilians. All these years he couldn't figure out why there'd been no inquiry, and six weeks ago, found out what Kerry had written in the report, inflating the figures, calling them all Vietcong,and declaring that he'd killed them all. Said he didn't want Kerry as CIC, in charge of his children and grandchildren...perhaps sending them to war. Kerry is dangerous.
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