Posted on 05/04/2006 1:13:03 PM PDT by Phil Harmonic
Two years ago, Charleston's Billy Schachte was caught in the undertow of presidential campaign debates over the circumstances of John Kerry's first Purple Heart. He had commanded Kerry's first Vietnam combat mission and his recollection of the experience was very much different than Kerry's published account.
Today, this tussle over truth and confusion simmers on just beneath the public's attention. That's likely to change soon. Television news veteran Marvin Kalb and his daughter are working through a Harvard-based grant to publish a book that will include commentary on the effectiveness and the credibility of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and Schachte's personal role in the 2004 campaign.
Billy Schachte was a hesitant player on America's biggest political stage. Next time, he says, he will not be so reluctant. He has a pointed response to Marvin Kalb's inquiries and to anyone else who wants to join the discussion: facts define truth and truth cures confusion; Senator Kerry should release all his military records and his personal chronicle. The disagreement can be settled accordingly.
[snip]
In early 2004, New Orleans-based historian Douglas Brinkley published "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War." Kerry recalled he was in command of the skimmer, and his version includes engaging enemy sampans and then being wounded in an exchange of fire and that's how he said he qualified for his first Purple Heart.
"According to him, I was not even in the boat," the admiral says. "I was astonished. A rookie would never be put in command, and his account of how he was wounded in his first mission is just incredible."
[snip]
...the admiral and many others were nagged by the looming questions: How could Kerry be so confused, and how did he qualify for his first Purple Heart award?
(Excerpt) Read more at charleston.net ...
Count me in on that!
Hey, hey, ho, ho, Kerry, sign your one-eight-oh!
Kerry isnt confused . He is a Liar. He wont sign the Form 180 because it will prove he is a liar.
I hope the swiftee's take their fight with Kerry to Massachusetts/ Even though the population there has been bought off by pork they should know the truth.
You need to be precise about this. Imprecision opens a door that Kerry propagandists will drive a Mack Truck through.
Kerry HAS signed a Form 180. What he HASN'T signed is a Form 180 authorizing unrestricted PUBLIC access to his military records. Nor has he authorized anyone but his "hagiographer", David Brinkley, access to his Vietnam-era private joutnals. I wonder if Kalb has been granted a key to the inner sanctum? If he has?...well...you be the judge as to Kalb's predisposition going in.
Kerry Hangs Back From Disclosure to All
The NY Sun June 9, 2005 Josh Gerstein
http://www.nysun.com/article/15135
Did Kerry really release Navy records?
Chicagao Sun Times June 9, 2005 THOMAS H. LIPSCOMB
http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-lip09.html
Distribute these url's!
Links to Anti Kerry sites
212 LINKS
News reports,
Viper's Vietnam Veterans Page
http://members.aol.com/ga1449ga/links/links.html
EXPOSE HANOI KERRY!
MUST SEE WEBSITE!!!!
http://www.kerrystreason.com/index.html
Full details here!
http://stophanoikerry.150m.com
Yes
or will this be an unbiased assesment of the facts?
No
This'll bring some nuts out of the woodwork!
He released some of them in a shell game, and the DMB (DriveByMedia) pretended he released them all.
You need to be precise about this. Imprecision opens a door that Kerry propagandists will drive a Mack Truck through.
Kerry HAS signed a Form 180. What he HASN'T signed is a Form 180 authorizing unrestricted PUBLIC access to his military records. Nor has he authorized anyone but his "hagiographer", David Brinkley, access to his Vietnam-era private joutnals. I wonder if Kalb has been granted a key to the inner sanctum? If he has?...well...you be the judge as to Kalb's predisposition going in.
In addition to not releasing his records to the public, when he actually did sign the 180 and release records to reporters who were decidedly friendly towards his agenda, he only submitted the 180 to the department of the Navy instead of the National Records Archives in St, Louis. The Navy only possesses a subset of Kerry's records (which he had already vetted by selectively transferring from the NRO to the Navy.)
It's all a big shell game that the DBM is more than happy to play along with.
UPDATE III: I asked Swift Boat Veteran For Truth John O'Neill for a comment, he tells me:
'We called for Kerry to execute a form which would permit anyone to examine his full and unexpulgated military records at the Navy Department and the National Personnel Records Center.
Instead he executed a form permitting his hometown paper to obtain the records currently at the Navy Department. The Navy Department previously indicated its records did not include various materials.
This is hardly what we called for. If he did execute a complete release of all records we could then answer questions such as (1)Did he ever receive orders to Cambodia or file any report of such a mission (whether at Christmas or otherwise); (2) What was his discharge status between 1970 and 1978 (when he received a discharge) and was it affected by his meetings in 1970 and 1971 with the North Vietnamese? (3)why did he receive much later citations for medals purportedly signed by Secretary Lehman who said he did not know of them; (4) Are there Hostile Fire and Personnel Injured by Hostile Fire Reports for Kerry's Dec. 1968 Purple Heart (when the officer in charge of the boat Admiral Schacte, the treating Surgeon Louis Letson, and Kerry's Division Commander deny there was hostile fire causing a scratch) awarded three months later under unknown circumstances. '
FYI...there is nobody every received orders for Cambodia...until the overthrow....I was the 3rd airplane to land in Pnom Phenh....behind a Thai Airliner and a C-130...the day after the ruckus. Kerry is a liar...pure and simple...oh by the way that was in 1970....a few years after the coward went back to Taxxachussets...
The thing that annoys me, is that Lefties will argue that Kerry has released his records, due to the limited release of documents Kerry made to his sycophant at the Boston Globe.
marinebrat is exactly correct.
The poo poo is about to hit the rotary cooling device and Hanoi John is fixin' to get a face full! It's time that spineless, back-stabbing, lying scumbag gets exposed for pile of $hit he really is.
>>This will be a slime job on the Swift Boat Vets - it is probably the first salvo in Kerry's attempt to run for President again in '08.
Not necessarily. If, say, he's a Hillary supporter, he may be looking to validate the SBVT, and knock Kerry out of the race.
>>I'm unsure at this point as to Kalb's motivations, nor who, if anyone, might be motivating him.
Hard to tell from the FEC database as well. This is the only result from a contributor query on Kalb, Marvin:
KALB, MARVIN
CHEVY CHASE, MD 20815
RETIRED
BARTH, ANDY
VIA ANDY BARTH FOR CONGRESS
11/30/2005 1000.00 26990206507
Total Contributions: 1000.00
Let's be even MORE exact. Kerry did NOT release his records to 3 "news organizations". He released his records to SPECIFIC, named reporters at each news organization.
Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe
Glen Johnson of the Associated Press
Steve Braun of the Los Angeles Times
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