Kerry caught, in yet another lie, in his 1971 testimony!

JOHN KERRY TESTIMONY April 22, 1971 United States Senate ^ | 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"...I can cite many, many instances, sir, as in combat when these men refused to fight with us,
when they shot with their guns over tin this area like this and their heads turned facing the other way.
When we were taken under fire we Americans, supposedly fighting with them, and pinned down in a ditch,

and I was in the Navy and this was pretty unconventional,
but when we were pinned down in a ditch recovering bodies or something

and they refused to come in and help us, point blank refused. I don't believe they want to fight, sir..."

[shield]

Yummy Yummy Yummy!!! Thanks for the ping!!

[Eaker]

I think it's possible Kerry wasn't lying here.

So we have to cherry pick this liar's site for a particle or glimmer of the truth?

Just how damn sad is that? This freak wants to be your boss and you are giving him the benefit of a doubt that he might not be lying THIS TIME!!!!

Good God smell the frigging coffee.

[conservative in nyc]

The "we" included Medieros and Thurlow; there was only one body. More from Brinkley's article:

A few minutes after all the Nung were ashore, the Swift crews heard a loud but muffled explosion inland. A voice came over the radio: "Can you come back in here and pick up a body? I've got one of my boys killed by a booby trap."

Mike Medeiros jumped ashore to join PCF-53's Thurlow, taking a couple of U.S. military-issue ponchos to carry back the mercenary's remains. Kerry secured his boat and followed the others ashore. "The Nung seemed to be wandering around almost aimlessly, unaware that one of them had bought the ticket," Kerry wrote in his journal. Their leader came up to him and told him where the dead body was. "I remembered easily who he was," Kerry wrote, "the loud, boisterous, fat, impish man who was something of a ringleader among the Nung and who had endeared himself to everyone by his funny face." The Americans started down to where Bac She De, the Nung mercenary, had died. Moments earlier Kerry had asked, "Is it bad?" The Nung leader had replied "that you could put him in 'a bucket,'" Kerry wrote. "I walked more carefully, looking where each step went so that I wouldn't trigger another trap."

And if the point of the quote is that Kerry thought the South Vietnamese troops were wimps, from later in the article:

Mike Miggins, the U.S. Army adviser to the local ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), told Kerry the problem was most likely that the Popular Forces didn't want to fight alongside the mercenaries. Then the Ruff-Puffs' leader got on the radio with the ARVN district chief and spent the next half-hour arguing in frenzied Vietnamese about something. An agitated Kerry and crew just stood by helplessly as the bureaucrats on hand engaged in a political debate over the present situation. Having had enough of this, the mercenaries' leader "called his perimeter men and told them to fake a firefight, hoping this might excite our Viet colleagues into battle," Kerry reported. "The next few minutes were filled with tremendous thunder, as though the whole war was being fought in front of them, but it was to no avail. Some of the South Vietnamese got up and looked around and some others cocked their single-fire rifles, but by and large they just milled around. Then they just walked back and got onto the boats and sat down."

While most of the "Cream Puffs" -- as Kerry liked to call the Popular Forces after that -- scampered back to the boats, a few of the bravest made little forays around the area in front of them, where they turned up a substantial cache of Chinese-made grenades, ammunition and one or two land mines. One group found some wire leading down into the water and pulled it up slowly and carefully. No mine was attached, but there was a string of batteries at the other end. "They were American-issue, and we realized that the VC had been planning a reception for us in this very spot should we have tried sometime in the future to make a landing," Kerry recorded. "I could just see us beaching and unloading troops into a volley of claymores and underwater mines."

[conservative in nyc]

Yes. I am giving Kerry the benefit of the doubt that he's not lying here. I'd rather stick with the things we know aren't true (like Christmas in Cambodia --- even Brinkley now says it's not true), than try to claim he's lying about something that turns out to be true, since it's plausible and consistent with what he has told Brinkley.

There's no question Kerry's a serial liar. But the way the RAT media works, we have to be pretty sure he's lying before leveling any charges, or they will use the one mistake to claim we have no credibility at all. That is what they have been trying to do.

[ruoflaw]

Good work! I bet there is much more, in testimony over time and in newspaper articles and magazine interviews at that time. I was a proofreader for a small town newpaper at the time and I believe there were a number of newspaper stories off the UPI feed into the press office. I bet Time Magazine would have alot of this info in their archives.

[Chi-townChief]

For some reason, these Vietnam photos of Kerry remind me of that old home movie footage of Bigfoot.

[Endeavor]

What are "Ruff Puffs?" And "gongs?"

[conservative in nyc]

From what I've read, the Ruff Puffs were the non-U.S. forces that were advised by the special forces. Whenever you see RF/PF in an after-action report, it's a reference to the Ruff Puffs. RF/PF was actually an acronym for something else that escapes me.

Kerry was transporting some Ruff Puffs on the morning of February 13, before the mine incident.

I don't know what gongs are.

[austingirl]

He was mighty, might busy in the four months he was in Vietnam. One month of training, 2 swift boat units in 3 months, secret missions to Cambodia, 5 medals in the 3 months - wow! A regular superhero, bwahahahaha!

[Endeavor]

Thank you.

[mass55th]

That last paragraph reminds me of Hillary's outrageous claims of Chelsea jogging down by the World Trade Center on 9/11, and Chelsea's claims that as she headed toward the subway on 9/11, she was wondering about Bush's tax cuts. What imaginations these Demoncrats have.

[Eaker]

What are "Ruff Puffs?

Regional Forces and Popular Forces.

And "gongs?"

I didn't see "gongs" in the post but I did see "Nung mercenaries" which were Chinese mercenaries used by the Army instead of Army special forces.

[blackie]

"Kerry Lied and Good Men Died!"

"Kerry Fled and Good Men Bled!"

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"The "we" included Medieros and Thurlow; there was only one body. More from Brinkley's article:"

Brinkley has already been proved a liar.

The after action report shows ONE body count.

So did Kerry lie under oath OR in the after action report?

Quit your game playing.

[Monkey Face]

I lost four people I loved in VN, just so sKerry could embellish his lies. I HATE that! But I will also do all I can to make sure sKerry loses this election! Who needs him when we have so many antagonists around the world???

sKerry may think he is pulling the wool over the eyes of the USA and many parts of the world, but between now and Nov 2, he will expose himself for the phoney he is. And I will do all I can to help him!

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Washington Post 8/21/04

"Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published
Kerry's full military records on their Web site
(with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year),
they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records.
A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information.
A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan,
said he was not authorized to release the full file,
which consists of at least a hundred pages. "

[crazyhorse691]

I am so glad that you are not on Kerrys side. I commend you on another job well done.

[brazzaville]

Good afternoon.
What a swine kerry is.

My last tour in 1970 was as a RF/PF advisor in Advisory team 44. My district headquarters was in Binh Chanh southwest of Saigon. PF's(Popular Forces) were militia who lived in the hamlets they tried to protect. They were organized as platoons and were mostly armed with WWII weapons, Garands, carbines and Thompsons. They weren't elite troops, for sure, but when well led, they did their best.

Regional Forces(RF's) were companies raised within districts. They operated as independent and as battalions. The Major who ran our RF's had been fighting communists since 1953. My guys worked in an area to the northeast of where kerry was but the terrain was identical.

So john kerry is scornful of the people he helped sell down the river. In November those people will likely show him how they feel about him.

Michael Frazier

[conservative in nyc]

Yes, Kerry hasn't been honest about his service in Vietnam.

Yes, Kerry needs to sign Standard Form 180 and release all of his military records.

Yes, the Kerry campaign is lying when they say they have released all of Kerry's records.

Yes, it is extremely suspect that Kerry hasn't signed the form and released all of his records --- he's hiding something.

But that doesn't change the fact that Kerry's "dead bodies in a ditch story" is at least partially supported by his authorized biography and tangentially mentioned in the March 13 after-action report. Were there bodies? No. There was just one. Did Kerry say there definitely were bodies? No. He was "recovering bodies or something". Is Kerry exaggerating? Yes. He always does. Is this story a total lie, like Christmas in Cambodia? I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here until there is more proof this story is a lie.