[… missed the intro …]
Hannity: Well, thank you all for being with us, by the way, Van … look, you spent three of the four months with John Kerry; what did you see and what did you learn about John Kerry and why are you involved in this effort?
Van: Well, John was one of the officers that was prominent because of his presence, so to speak … but I’d like to say that what I learned of him is that he lied about what went on in Vietnam as far as the atrocities that he purported happened. Ah, he also filed false reports about actions we were in, specifically when he earned his Bronze Star and Purple Heart … I was there at that action and during that time, the things that he wrote about were just not true. And I did not find out until years later that he received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for that action which he shouldn’t have.
Hannity: uh huh he claims, van, in this … when he got back from Vietnam, he claimed and admitted to committing atrocities … he admitted … he said I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of others. Among the other things that he admits to, he violated the Geneva Convention and that he was involved in search and destroy missions and that he burned down villages. Did you ever see any of this when you were with him?
Van: Let me make this specific … we were all volunteers, we in the Navy were all volunteers to be in Vietnam, we are patriotic people, we came back and are now productive citizens and have been for years. We did not commit atrocities [spoken with emphasis]. In my twelve months there [my emphasis added], I never saw, heard, or read of any atrocities committed by Swift Boat sailors. Uh, and the second part of that, I’d like to say if atrocities occurred as purported by John Kerry, why didn’t he report them while he was a naval officer, that goes against the Geneva Convention …
Hannity: [speaking over Van], I understand that but I mean this is very a serious charge … but er can we just assume then that he committed these atrocities in the one other month that he wasn’t with you?
Adm. Hoffman: Let me break in here
Hannity: Yes sir, Admiral Hoffman
Adm. Hoffman: He accused of that before the Senate in 1971 and he never specified one atrocity at that time and it has been 35 years and to this day John Kerry has not specified …
[weather alert interrupts my recording]
[unk speaker]: ... but very little specifics that can ever be checked so when Naval Investigators went in to find out what had happened, there wasn’t much they could get their hands on. They did discover that a number of the VVAW [Vietnam Veterans Against the War] participants upon whom John Kerry based his testimony were not in the Navy or were not who they said they were and weren’t able to verify any atrocities. John Kerry’s own testimony, his own report, that he had committed atrocities was similarly vague.
Hannity: Yeah, but now there are people apparently in this new book – I haven’t gotten my copy yet, as I understand it there is a copy waiting for me when I get to Fox tonight, of this book Unfit to Serve – they have quotes from other soldiers that, where they were there when he [Kerry] ordered the killing of animals, and this one allegation, they witnessed him killing a teenaged, young Vietnamese boy that was in a loin cloth.
Van: That was where he earned his Silver Star. And there’s much controversy about that. And if he did uh, at one point in his writings he said he did the cooty [???] draw and shot him, where you can’t shoot wounded prisoners; if he did that, he’s guilty of war crimes.
Hannity: Well, he admits that he committed war crimes. I mean, we have his own words … I’ll play it for you when we get back. He admits that already …. We know that.
Adm. Hoffman: Well, if he [verbal emphasis] admitted it, he certainly never reported it. Furthermore, did he ever report one of his shipmates, that is his fellow ONC or enlisted men … I recall … I don’t recall, I got a report from one of the former officers that he did witness Kerry beaching his boat one day and, uh, destroying the …
[darn, weather alert goes off again!!! I suspect a conspiracy! Of all the times to have a break]
Adm. Hoffman: … has just come out recently.
Hannity: Gentlemen, let me put you on hold here because we gotta take a scheduled break here … but I, too many questions I have, I can’t let you go yet. Roy Hoffman is with us, Rear Admiral, US Navy retired. Uh, he was in charge of John Kerry and the Swift Boat Vet guys. Uh, Van Odell is with us; served with John Kerry in Vietnam, he was a Gunners Mate … Scott Swett is a part of the uh, Swift Vets … uh, what is the name of your web site again?
Scott: The name of the site is swiftvets.com. I’m actually the author of another site, wintersoldier.com that focuses
Hannity [talking over]: ok, on that book
Scott: … Kerry’s war crimes
Hannity: hang on one second, we’ll take a break, we’ll come back with all these guys … and of course we gotta ask the question why they decided to come out and talk about their time with John Kerry [segues into station break]
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