In the local (Medford, which adjoins Central Point; also it says he is from EAGLE POINT; miles away.) paper, this guy says that Kerry's boat DIDN'T tow the #3. He says, without stating which boats, that the #3 had another boat moored to each side of it to take it back to base.
He says they were ALL running "wide open" to get out of there.
He makes it sound like it only took a few minutes, start to finish, rather than the hour to hour & half.
http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2004/0826/local/stories/01local.htm Swift boat memories
Eagle Point vet who was there backs Kerry’s assertion that bullets were flying the day he won two medals on a river in Vietnam
By PAUL FATTIG
Mail Tribune
Robert E. Lambert doesn’t plan to vote for John Kerry.
But the Eagle Point man challenges claims by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that there was no enemy fire aimed at the five swift boats, including the one commanded by Kerry, on March 13, 1969 on the Bay Hap River in the southern tip of what was then South Vietnam...
...The five swift boats were operating off U.S. Coast Guard cutters farther out in the bay on March 13....
..."We were done with our OPs and on the way back out to sea," Lambert recalled. "We were exiting the river. Kerry’s boat went through, then the 43 boat."...
...The six-member crew was stunned and shaken by the blast; the boat was running free....
..."It was running wide open — we were all running wide open, trying to get out of there," he said....
...Lambert, who reached down to help Thurlow aboard, was awarded the Bronze Star for his "courage under fire," according to his citation.
"We went right back to the 3 boat and he (Thurlow) went back on the boat," he said. "We got the 3 boat off the sandbar, got a boat tied to each side of it and down the river we went."
This guy has some real credibility problems, that someone much more qualified than I should look at.
The local story should be referenced, as it seems closer to an un-spun account of an interview, than what the AP put together using it, with other matterial and spin added.
Hell, the AP can't even get his home town right.
Lambert:
..."We were done with our OPs and on the way back out to sea," Lambert recalled. "We were exiting the river. Kerry’s boat went through, then the 43 boat."...
...The six-member crew was stunned and shaken by the blast; the boat was running free....
..."It was running wide open — we were all running wide open, trying to get out of there," he said....
"We went right back to the 3 boat and he (Thurlow) went back on the boat," he said. "We got the 3 boat off the sandbar, got a boat tied to each side of it and down the river we went." These bolded points don't seem to match the exhaustively researched story and graphics featured in the big Washington Post article.
The rabidly anti-Bush WPost gives a pretty fair account of the March 13 incident, if you can ignore a totally imaginary, "unidentified" second explosion the newspaper invents to cover Kerry's butt.
The graphic shows Kerry in panic flight going up the river away from the group--the only one who bailed--and he ran 3 miles along the opposite bank from the mine explosion--dumping Rassmann along the way. Kerry bruised his shoulder/arm in his reckless flight--but will get a Purple Heart for yet another self-inflicted injury.
But right now, the key point in this graphic history is the one thing that is not mentioned at all in the highly focused detail of the action--the Washington Post's illustrated history contains NO DESCRIPTION--NO MENTION WHATSOEVER OF A HOSTILE FIREFIGHT.
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The River, The Mission, The Ambush
Washington Post ^ | 8-21-2004 | Thorp, Spirito, Kirkman
Posted on 08/22/2004 1:48:37 AM EDT by XHogPilot
The Mission, The River, The Ambush. On March 13, 1969, John F. Kerry participated in the mission that has become a centerpiece of his campaign for the presidency- and his account has been disputed by some fellow Swift boat veterans. The dispute focuses on when and how Kerry was injured on the mission, and whether the force of five Swift boats came under Vietcong fire after one was hit by a mine on the Bay Hap River. Here are the events of the mission and ambush, according to eyewitness accounts and U.S. Navy reports:
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
TOPICS:
The local story should be referenced, as it seems closer to an un-spun account of an interview, than what the AP put together using it, with other matterial and spin added.
Hell, the AP can't even get his home town right.
Local newspaper accounts are usually the source of AP reports, as supplied by local newspapers that are AP members. The AP is nothing more or less than a co-op service of those member papers.
Another interesting question: Where is the PCF-94 now? Was it one of the boats abandoned to the North Vietnamese on 30 April 1975? Or one of those "rescued" by the South Vietnamese Navy and one maverick US Naval advisor to their riverine force, most of which were transferred to the naval forces of the Phillipines?
My bet is that nobody wants to golooking under that particular rock, knowing what it could lead to.