last time this low life POS raised his head he was talking about getting the "Hot Skinny" from little scotty ritter!!! well i guess that's legal now hack... just don't be doing it around here
Posted on 08/28/2004 2:59:06 PM PDT by NavySEAL F-16
Proceedings: Next comes the inevitable question. Over the past six years, what fallout have you felt from the suicide of Admiral Boorda?
Hackworth: Well, May the 16th will never go away in my mind, for all my life. That the story I was about to write may have caused someone to commit suicide was shattering. And then the flak I took as a result of that was shattering as well.
Proceedings: What sort of flak did you take?
Hackworth: I took a lot of flak at work. I was gagged. I was not to speak about it. But I refused to go along with that. To my boss I said, "Look, if [radio talk show host Don] Imus or anyone else calls me, I'm going to tell them my point of view, rather than your institutional point of view." That got me in serious trouble.
Proceedings: At Newsweek?
Hackworth: At Newsweek. Then I took an enormous lot of flak in about 1,000 e-mails in 24 hours. Luckily, my son was here, and he and I processed and answered every one of them, which actually brought us closer together. It was probably the hardest time of my life, mostly in not knowing the truth. When I look back on it, through the perspective of distance, I ask myself how the system could produce someone of that high rank, who is that unstable.
The irony was this: on the 15th, I had surgery. The appointment with Admiral Boorda was set for the 16th. My doc told me on the 15th, "No way are you going to fly tomorrow." So I called [investigative journalist] Roger Charles and told him I wasn't going to be able to make it. The bureau chief of Newsweek [Evan Thomas] was going with him, so I thought I'd brief Roger on what I was planning to do. The last question was going to come as I pulled a photo of Admiral Boorda from my briefcase. I think it was the April edition of Defense Weekly, which showed him with the Combat V. I wanted to get Roger geared up to ask, "What's the story with the 'V' here?"
Proceedings: It was pinned to his Navy Achievement Medal, wasn't it?
Hackworth: Yes, it was. I thought Boorda would say, "That's a stock photo, silly. It was taken four years ago. I took the V off a year ago." We knew he'd taken the V off for a year. Roger had done the Freedom of Information Act stuff, and we had his files. So then it would have been no story. And I expected him to say, "Get out of my office, I'm running a navy here." Right?
As it turned out, Evan Thomas was the one who went. And instead of taking Roger, he took John Barry, the magazine's defense guy, probably because Roger wasn't a Newsweek guy. So Evan Thomas and John Barry were waiting in the office for Boorda, and I could fly in the next day. Boorda had agreed to the interview because he was told I was coming. I'm sure he thought, "Well, Hack's a salty guy and I'm a salty guy. We'll tell some war stories and that'll be the end of it." But then, suddenly, maybe in his paranoia or depression or whatever, he realizes he's got two big-time journalists marching into his office, and he won't be able to war-story his way out of it. I don't know.
Because I was trying to find out the truth, I later spoke to his sister, who told me he had been receiving out-of-Navy medical assistance for three years for depression.
Even so, to me this didn't make sense, when all he had to do was say that the photo—the only evidence we had—was a stock thing. The great irony of this whole story was, when I saw the photograph, I called my boss—the editor, Maynard Parker—and said, "Maynard, I want to try to get this photo. I've checked with the photographer, and he'll give me a copy and tell me when he took it."
He said, "Great."
"But," I told him, "he wants $500."
And Maynard said, "I'm not paying that for a photo!" But for $500 we would have known the story behind the photo beforehand, and we wouldn't have asked for the interview.
Proceedings: Admiral Boorda was getting pounded from many other directions, too.
Hackworth: Pounded by the Navy.
Proceedings: He was the enlisted man's admiral. He was the first non-Naval Academy officer to be CNO.
Hackworth: I admired that aspect of him
You noticed that, too.
A Freeper here had an e-mail correspondence going with Hack about Kerry and his medals.
It seems that Hack got a little miffed.
I saw that too and would say Hack got really Hacked-off.
Roger that, I think he is a little light in the combat boots.
He's got "that look" about him. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
It took the sumb*tch an awful long time, though...LOL!
Hackworth has ZERO cred. None whatsoever...
Btw, had you or anybody out there ever heard whether Sean Hannity ever officially disowned him as a frequent guest from his show?
Huck Fackworth! I served under Admiral Boorda when I was on the USS Saratoga. He was the Rear Admiral (one star, then referred to as "Lower half") in charge of our Carrier Task Force. Having risen from the enlisted ranks, he had the admiration of all of the men. He was one of the good ones.
last time this low life POS raised his head he was talking about getting the "Hot Skinny" from little scotty ritter!!! well i guess that's legal now hack... just don't be doing it around here
Incorrect. The Board for Correction of Naval Records determined, by unanimous vote in June of 1997, that Boorda was not and is still not entitled to wear the Combat V on either the Navy Achievement Medal or Navy Commendation Medal. The Clinton/Dalton/Zumwalt/Boorda family spin machines would like you to believe otherwise.
bump
Thanks for the corrction.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.