Free Republic

My lawyer readers will immediately recognize this as an invitation to Kerry supporters to make a motion for partial summary judgment on the SwiftVets' claims. This short paragraph from a New York Times article perfectly illustrates the liberal media's widespread characterization of the results to date of the SwiftVets' campaign (boldface added): Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which drew national attention with advertisements making unsubstantiated attacks against Mr. Kerry's military service, has less money and uses several strategies to stretch its dollars, said one of its leaders, John O'Neill. To find a similar example from the blogosphere, one need look...

Eagle Point vet who was there backs Kerry’s assertion that bullets were flying the day he won two medals on a river in VietnamBy PAUL FATTIG Robert E. Lambert doesn’t plan to vote for John Kerry. But the Eagle Point man challenges claims by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that there was no enemy fire aimed at the five swift boats, including the one commanded by Kerry, on March 13, 1969 on the Bay Hap River in the southern tip of what was then South Vietnam. Lambert, now 64, was a crew member on swift boat PCF-51...

Even a blind man can see that the Press is desperately trying to kill the Swift Vet story. They've tried ignoring them, but that didn't work. Then they (i.e. the New York Times, Washington Post, etc.) tried character-assassinating them, but that's not working either (it's not that easy to slash down 250+ people). The latest attempt is the New York Times' dumb idea that showing that a Swift Vet seven years ago was Karl Rove's father's mother's uncle's sister's cousin's nephew's godson's best friend's lawyer would cause voters to "naturally" assume that Bush is mind controlling all 250+ Swift Vets...

Military records support Kerry's account of Vietnam service BY Joseph L. Galloway Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - Military records back John Kerry's account of his service in Vietnam and have backed at least two of his accusers into a corner. Kerry this week was forced to defend himself against accusations by a group of fellow Navy veterans of Vietnam that he was a liar and a coward. The charges were made in a book and in an attack ad that polls show have chipped away at Kerry's standing with veterans in three critical states - West Virginia, Wisconsin and Ohio....

Swiftvet Larry Thurlow, a highly decorated veteran will appear on Scarborough Country at 10 PM EDT on MSNBC to discuss the book "Unfit for Command". Don't miss it !

According to an after-action report for the afternoon of March 13, 1969, John Kerry's unit of five Swift boats encountered enemy automatic and small-arms fire from both banks along a 5,000-meter stretch of the Bay Hap River in Vietnam. Three enemy mines were detonated, the report states, one of which damaged Kerry's boat. According to that same report and a separate casualty report, Kerry received a minor contusion on his arm and shrapnel in his buttocks from the incident. On the basis of these two reports, Kerry received a Bronze Star--and importantly, his third Purple Heart, which allowed him to...

John Kerry is an authentic hero, and he has the medals to prove it. So we can be sure there are good answers for the persistent questions swirling about his celebrated war stories.     Just because Sergeant York and Audie Murphy never had to answer questions about their medals doesn't mean that Monsieur Kerry -- who never got the French Legion d'Honneur, come to think of it -- doesn't have the right answers to questions about his.     Monsieur Kerry is busy on the hustings, posing as the dashing, decisive, straight-shooting, torpedos-be-damned commander in chief the nation needs, and he will have...

..................... But, as The Washington Post reported yesterday, Mr. Thurlow's own Bronze Star Navy citation describes "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units." The Post story does not address several crucial facts. First, it seems likely that one after-action report was used for both Navy citations and inevitably would describe the same version of events. No one can now say who wrote this after-action report. In a statement yesterday, Mr. Thurlow said, "I am convinced that the language used in my citation ... was language taken directly from John Kerry's report." Two other crewmen, Dan Odell...

Responding to a Washington Post article questioning his veracity, an eyewitness critic of John Kerry's war record insists military records cited in the story are based on a fraudulent after-action report by Kerry himself. The Post reported today that newly obtained military records of Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, contradict Thurlow's claim that Kerry was not under enemy fire when he pulled U.S. Army Special Forces officer James Rassman out of the Bay Hap River after a mine explosion March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for that event, as did Thurlow,...

The Swift Boat vet who came under attack on Thursday for saying that John Kerry didn't deserve his Bronze Star because he wasn't under enemy attack at the time has been corroborated by another Swiftvet who witnessed the episode. In its first serious coverage of the Swiftvet controversy so far, the Washington Post obtained the citation for Larry Thurlow's Bronze Star, which was awarded for the same action that earned Kerry his medal. Thurlow's citation claims that he came under "constant enemy small arms fire," a description seized on by Kerry backers to discredit all the Swiftvets' claims. Thurlow maintains,...

CLELAND: ...I‘ll get shot three times, and I‘m going to bring that shrapnel home so I can be a war hero. BROWN: He literally got shot. There‘s no question about any of those things. So what else is there to discuss? How much he got shot, how deep, how much shrapnel? MALKIN: ... Why don‘t people ask him more specific questions about the shrapnel in his leg. They are legitimate questions about whether or not it was a self-inflicted wound. MATTHEWS: What do you mean by self-inflicted? Are you saying he shot himself on purpose? Is that what you‘re saying?...

ANNOUNCER: We'll sort through the charges and countercharges and the political implications and talk to a Kerry critic whose own claims are being questioned.

Kerry’s March 13, 1969, “Medals” According to the records, Kerry claimed in the casualty report he prepared on March 13, 1969, that he was wounded as a result of a mine explosion. Within a short period, he presented his request to go home on the basis of three Purple Hearts. By March 17, 1969, Kerry’s short career in Vietnam was over. Regarding the action on March 13.1969, Kerry’s medals were once again a complete fraud. Notwithstanding the fake submission for his Bronze Star, Kerry was never wounded or bleeding from his arm. All reports, including the medical reports, make clear...

Here is my captured closed captioning causing Kerry credibility concerns. Chrissy Matthews LOVES KERRY!!! He kept trying to get Mr. Thurlow to spin it fifty different ways... TV Channel 65 Thu Aug 19 18:03:29 2004 certainly. Let me ask but the quote that you have in this ad. It says, these are your words speaking in the advertisement. When the clips were down, you could not count on john kerry. Why do you say that? >> The main reason i say that is because it became apparent oriole that john kerry had a master plan that went far beyond the...

Swiftvet John O'Neill will appear on Hannity & Colmes on Fox News at 9 PM EDT and Swiftvet Larry Thurlow will appear on Hardball on MSNBC at 7 PM EDT.

Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events. In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day. But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to...

Last week, Crushkerry.com broke a major story about the Democrat National Committee’s distribution of so-called “Brown Books,” unofficial hatchet-job biographies about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. According to a source at the DNC, the “Brown Books” contain damaging military records, medical and psychiatric records, credit records, divorce records and more. You know … all the things we’re entitled to know about John Kerry, but he won’t tell us. In our story we predicted a campaign of character assassination would commence at around the same time the book Unfit for Command would be released in an orchestrated attempt to discredit...

Below is the e-mail address for the writer in todays Washington Post who tried to screw over the Swift Vet Thurlow using his records. dobbsm@washpost.com

CNSNews.com) - A member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has alleged that John Kerry's own report 35 years ago was the basis for the military records that the Washington Post used in an article Thursday seeking to discredit the veteran, Larry Thurlow. At issue is whether Thurlow, Kerry and others were subjected to hostile gunfire on Vietnam's Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969, as military records obtained by the Washington Post indicate. Thurlow currently asserts that there was no gunfire, a contradiction of the military records cited in the Washington Post article. The Post was not able to...

Statement by Navy Veteran Van Odell, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, in Rebuttal to Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, August 19, 2004 A courageous, soft spoken man of the Midwest, Larry Thurlow has a heart bigger than the great plains and a commitment to truth and honesty that is boundless. He is under attack, because John Kerry is feeling the heat of truth at the hands of this honest man and others like him. The Kerry Campaign is attacking the truthfulness of this man and the Bronze Star he so richly deserves for his actions on March 13, 1969. I was...