Posted on 08/26/2004 1:52:53 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - WASHINGTON -- A Navy report filed five days after a disputed incident in Vietnam supports John Kerry's version and contradicts critics who say the Democratic presidential nominee never came under enemy gunfire when he won two medals.
The Navy task force overseeing Kerry's swift-boat squadron reported his group of boats being fired on during the March 13, 1969, incident. Some of Kerry's critics, including several men who were on other boats that day, say there was no enemy gunfire during the incident that won Kerry a Bronze Star and his third Purple Heart.
The March 18, 1969, weekly report from Task Force 115, which was located by The Associated Press during a search of Navy archives, is the latest document to surface that supports Kerry's description of the event. Crew members on Kerry's boat and a special-forces soldier Kerry pulled from the water that day insist there was enemy fire, and they have appeared on behalf of the Kerry campaign.
The task force report twice mentions the incident and both times calls it "an enemy initiated firefight" that included automatic weapons fire and underwater mines used against a group of five boats that included Kerry's.
Task Force 115 was commanded at the time by now-retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the founder of the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has been running ads challenging Kerry's account of the episode.
A member of the group, Larry Thurlow, said he stood by his assertion that there was no enemy fire that day. Thurlow, the commander of another boat who also won a Bronze Star, said task force commanders probably relied on the initial report of the incident. Thurlow says Kerry wrote that report.
The document, part of thousands of pages of records housed at the Naval Historical Center, is one of several that say Kerry and other servicemen were shot at from the banks of the Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969.
The anti-Kerry group has not produced any official Navy documents supporting its claim.
Kerry has denounced the assertions from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as lies made as part of a Republican smear campaign. Most of the group's members and early financial backers are Republicans.
Bush campaign lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg resigned Wednesday, a day after acknowledging that he had given legal advice to the anti-Kerry group. One member of the group who appeared in an ad, Ken Cordier, was a volunteer member of the Bush campaign. The campaign cut its ties with Cordier last week.
President George W. Bush has said his campaign had nothing to do with the veterans group and that all advertising by outside groups should cease. An anti-Bush group has run television ads saying Bush shirked his duty in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.
Kerry highlighted his Vietnam service during the Democratic convention last month, recounting the March 13 incident and having the special-forces officer, Jim Rassmann, join him on stage.
On that day in 1969, Kerry's PCF-94 swift boat was part of a five-boat group heading downriver. An underwater mine exploded under another boat, PCF-3, injuring its crew members. Kerry's boat was then hit by another explosion that knocked Rassmann, an Army Green Beret, into the water. Kerry hurt his right arm in the explosion.
Kerry turned his boat around to rescue Rassmann, pulling the soldier into the boat with his injured right arm, while the other boats rushed to help PCF-3. All the official Navy reports on the incident say the boats were under heavy fire from the riverbanks at the time. Those records include the official after-action report, citations for Bronze Stars awarded for heroism that day and now the Task Force 115 report.
The weekly report cites the incident twice, referring to its code name of Sea Lords 358. The first reference says the boats "encountered an enemy initiated firefight with water mines and automatic weapons fire." The second reference also mentions "an enemy initiated firefight ... with water mines and automatic weapons."
Thurlow, the commander of another swift boat who won a Bronze Star for helping the crew of PCF-3, insists there was no enemy gunfire during the incident. The citation and recommendation for Thurlow's Bronze Star, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, also mention enemy fire, however.
Thurlow's medal recommendation, for example, says he helped the PCF-3 crew "under constant enemy small arms fire." That recommendation is signed by George Elliott, another member of the anti-Kerry group. It lists as the only witness for the incident Robert Eugene Lambert, an enlisted man who was not on Kerry's boat who also won the Bronze Star that day.
Thurlow says his Bronze Star documents are wrong.
Kerry's campaign has released copies of the after-action report and Kerry's Bronze Star nomination and citation for the incident, but not the weekly report.
And this report was based upon......John Kerry's report. Is there a brain anywhere in the media...
I read the first line, and was almost going to read the whole thing to see if they bothered to point out that the report was based on a report that Kerry filed. My guess is not worth seeing.
So, is this a regurgitation of the spot report written by Kerry merged into the written report?
Well, I guess that settles it.
So, is this a regurgitation of the spot report written by Kerry merged into the weekly written report?
And what are these Navy records based on? John Kerry's after action reports?
That is not the point at issue.
The point at issue is whether John Kerry commanded his boat into enemy fire while retrieving Rassman.
The SBVT say that there was no enemy fire when JFK2 returned to pick up Rassman.
The TRUTH will be known, after Kerry signs SF180 and releases ALL the records...
I don't doubt for a moment that "records" can be found that refect Kerry's version of events....since he wrote them... NOW - lets see all the records and have Kerry respond to the charges from OTHER men that were there and dispute his version....
Semper Fi
A_R
Another example of the MSM feverishly doing the work of the Kerry-Edwards 2004 Committee.
But you just don't get it. These were invisible bullets with no mass which don't leave bullet holes. The worst kind.
ping
The issue here, is the accuracy of those reports, and whether all relevant documents have been released...
As JFnK himself noted with regard to the Bush "AWOL" allegations:
"Just because you get an honorable discharge does not in fact answer that question." - JFnK
Do they fill out reports that say "No one shot at us today"?
So AP,
Who wrote the "Official" After Action Report?
Would that be John Kerry - You dumb shills?
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