Posted on 09/30/2007 1:28:52 PM PDT by Fedora
Thanks for the analysis. My suspicion is that he withheld the medical report in order to keep the corpsman on the signature from being identified. Where he would’ve gotten an after-action report remains a puzzle to me. Presumably if Kerry saw action that day others in his unit did as well, so it might be informative to see if anyone else in Kerry’s unit engaged in any documented combat that day. If Kerry has a Purple Heart from a day when no one else in his unit engaged in combat, that would be close to a smoking gun, I should think.
As I posted earlier -
“With every drink and every “Oh Wow” from the reporter the stories get stretched even further. His self inflicted booboo at Cam Rahn Bay wasn’t the result of his ignorance but the result of intense enemy action. The self inflicted wound down in the Delta caused by a few grains of rice hitting his butt become an intense enemy action.”
Thanks for the links! That refreshes my memory a bit. The first link seems to imply Kerry first contacted Alston in 1996. Did they have any known contact before that? My real question is whether the Alston story goes back to the time of Tiede’s article in 1972 or whether it first appears much more recently in Kerry’s promotional material.
Or rather I should say, that the first public mention of Kerry's contact with Alston seems to be from 1996. On closer reading I see it does allege that Alston was invited to Kerry's wedding in 1970, though I'm curious whether that was ever mentioned publicly before 1996. I have some articles on Kerry's wedding but they don't include a guest list that I recall.
A load of #6 shot has 225 pellets. Maybe that’s what they meant.
That I don't know.
.30 .30,
.50
Yep. That stuff would do it.
“Kerry’s boat “took 188 enemy hits”
I am late to this thread, but it is my recollection, from reading the book, Unfit for Command, authored by the SwiftVets, that wether or not Kerry’s boat took “188”, “200” or “50” hits, there are/were damage assessment records for his boat that documented those “hits” as having occurred prior to the incident they are ascribed to.
When speaking of actions that higher officers took, with regard to approving awards and medals for incidents in question, in Kerry’s record, one cannot discard Kerry’s own hand, directly or indirectly, in the action reports that, in the Navy code of honor, the higher officers would not generally question in paper work passed up to them. Their approval cannot alone substantiate the basis, the factual basis of any claim - other than the singular fact that they signed a paper that was sent up to them; a report/citation they simply assumed to be correct.
Additionally (if not already mentioned in the thread), in one case mentioned in Unfit for Command, Kerry was denied an award citation by his commander (the “wound” needed only a bandaid), and then Kerry later resubmitted it to that commander’s replacement.
The replacement knew nothing of the events in question, had not been present, in command, during the events and had he been present they would have been related to him by other officers at the time as well, some of whom also had transferred out. The replacement had no context of experience in the events and took Kerry’s word of honor as a Navy officer, and approved the citation. [As best I can recall from Unfit for Command - unless my Alzhiemers is kicking in today]
Yes, there was some mention of some precombat problems with the boat’s condition. It was mainly mechanical deterioration type of problems, though, not primarily bullet damage, and nothing anywhere near as extensive as 188 or even 50 hits.
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