Not so Swift

[MKSheppard]

Linky, Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Jack Kelly: Not so swift
Real questions remain on Kerry's war record
Sunday, August 15, 2004

Accepting the Democratic nomination for vice president, John Edwards said of John Kerry, "If you have any question of what he is made of, just spend three minutes with the men who served with him then." The Democratic National Committee is trying hard to keep you from spending a minute with most of the sailors who served with Kerry during his abbreviated tour in Vietnam, because they have unflattering things to say. The DNC is threatening to sue television stations which run a commercial produced by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Of the 23 officers who served with Kerry in Coastal Division 11, only one supports him for president. Two others are dead, and four want nothing to do with politics. The remaining 16 have declared him "Unfit for Command," the title of the book written by former Lt. John O'Neill, who took over Kerry's swift boat, PCF-94, when Kerry left Vietnam.

The Swifties charge Kerry didn't deserve two of the three purple hearts he was awarded, or either of his medals for valor, the silver star and the bronze star.

According to Kerry, his first taste of combat came on his first mission, on the night of Dec. 2, 1968. He was with two sailors in a Boston whaler on a night patrol. They saw sampans, presumably crewed by Viet Cong, unloading on a peninsula. They opened fire, and the Vietnamese ran for cover. In the "engagement," Kerry suffered a scratch on his arm from a piece of metal.

Kerry's account to his biographer, Douglas Brinkley, gives the impression that he was in command of the whaler. This was not so. Lt. William Schachte, later an admiral, was the officer in charge. Shachte said the Vietnamese never fired on the boat, and the sailors who were with Schachte and Kerry said they couldn't remember any return fire.

Shachte said Kerry's scratch was self-inflicted. He had fired an M-79 grenade launcher too close to the shore. It struck a rock, and a fragment of metal ricocheted and struck Kerry. Louis Letson, the doctor who treated Kerry (he put a Band-Aid on the cut) said the metal fragment looked like a piece from an M-79 grenade.

The Kerry campaign has charged that Letson didn't treat Kerry, because the log recording his treatment was signed by J.C. Carreon. But Letson was the only physician assigned to Cam Ranh Bay at the time. If you've ever been to a doctor's office, you may have noticed that the doctors themselves rarely do the paperwork. Carreon (who died in 1992) was Letson's corpsman.

Kerry received his third purple heart, and his bronze star, for an action on March 13, 1969. Kerry alleges he was wounded in the right buttock by the explosion of an underwater mine under an accompanying swift boat. Jim Rassmann, an Army Special Forces officer, was knocked off Kerry's boat by the mine explosion. Kerry was awarded the bronze star for coming back "under heavy fire" to fish Rassmann out of the water. Rassmann and the sailors on Kerry's boat support Kerry's story.

But sailors on the other swift boats say there was no enemy fire. From the text released by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: "The force of the explosion disabled PCF-3, and threw several sailors, dazed, into the water. All boats, except one, closed to rescue the sailors and defend the disabled boat. That boat -- Kerry's boat -- fled the scene. ... After it was apparent there was no hostile fire, Kerry finally returned, picking up Rassmann who was only a few yards away from [Jack] Chenoweth's boat which was also going to pick Rassmann up." (Chenoweth is one of the members of the group.).

There is no reason to suppose that Rassmann is lying, but there is also no physical evidence to support the Kerry/Rassmann account. No sailors were injured by gunfire; there were no bullet holes in Kerry's boat, or any other boat.

Kerry's wound, moreover, had occurred not during the mine explosion, but earlier, when he tossed a concussion grenade into a pile of rice, according to Larry Thurlow, an officer who was with Kerry at the time.

Rassmann, in his Aug. 10 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, said Kerry was injured in the mine explosion. But Kerry told his biographer, Douglas Brinkley that "I got a piece of small grenade in my ass from one of the rice bin explosions."

The Kerry campaign so far has responded to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth not by refuting their accusations, but by attacking their motives and their character. The Swifties are a Republican front group, Democrats charge, even though O'Neill says he voted for Al Gore in 2000. Co-author Jerome Corsi is an "anti-Catholic bigot." Since Corsi is a Catholic who regularly attends Mass, this charge is unlikely to be true, and is in any case irrelevant, since it has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of what the Swifties charge.

Kerry could clear up much of the confusion if he would authorize release of all his military records. His failure to do so suggests there may be something he doesn't want Americans to know.

[StarshipTitanic]

You JUST heard of this crap?

[Elfdart]

Shepster's post and the article he linked remind me of what Joe Pesci, playing a defense attorney giving an opening statement, had to say after the prosecutor gave his:

"Yeah, everything he said was bullshit."

The Swift Boat shysters couldn't lie straight in bed. They can't even keep their own stories straight!

Larry Thurlow (one of the Swift Boat liars) claims Kerry didn't deserve his Bronze Star because when he pulled Lt. Rassman into the boat (after Rassman was thrown into the river by a mine explosion), there was no gunfire and thus, no danger to anyone. Thurlow was thrown out of his own boat into the mud, and was picked up by another boat. But Thurlow received a Bronze Star for the very same incident! So if Kerry and Rassman are lying and Kerry didn't deserve his medal, Thurlow didn't deserve his, either. Flopping in the mud in and of itself is not Bronze Star-worthy.

Not a single one of these lying scumbags actually served on the same boat as Kerry, so how they would know what happened and whether Kerry deserved his medals is a mystery. Actually it isn't: They're making shit up! Not a single one can produce a single document or contemporary account that disputes Kerry's version of what happened. Quite the contrary. George Elliot gave Kerry top marks in his performance review. On the other hand, the men who actually served on Kerry's boat back his story. Crewmate Jim Wasser said:

"If John Kerry came to us and said he had one more mission and we're going to hell, he'd have a full crew" -- Jim Wasser [Dallas Morning News, 7/29/04]


The desperation of Bush and his supporters is obvious. This article Shepster cites from the same Scaife publication that has had a necrophile obsession with Vince Foster's corpse for over a decade and is still peddling the "Ron Brown was shot" conspiracy theories truly is the bottom of the sewer. The problem for Dubya's supporters is that the deeper he reaches into the sewer for something to throw at Kerry, the more his sleeves smell like shit.

[Darth Wong]

Of the 23 officers who served with Kerry in Coastal Division 11, only one supports him for president. Two others are dead, and four want nothing to do with politics. The remaining 16 have declared him "Unfit for Command," the title of the book written by former Lt. John O'Neill, who took over Kerry's swift boat, PCF-94, when Kerry left Vietnam.

I'm sick of this deceptive bullshit being brought up over and over. None of those men ever saw him firsthand in combat. As Jon Stewart said, they served with him only in the same sense that Snoopy served with the Red Baron.

[aerius]

I'll take the words of Dick Marcinko over those swiftboat officers, including John Kerry. To paraphrase, "there were officers who sat around and did paperwork and put each other in for Silver Stars because they heard some gunfire one day, and others just plain stole their medals".

I wouldn't be surprised if Kerry got his purple heart from breaking a fingernail and his Silver & Bronze stars for knowing which end of the gun the bullet comes out of. I's also say those veterans are having a big case of sour grapes, and that a lot of them are guilty of pulling the same kind of shit. Bottom line is who the fuck cares? I certainly don't.

[MKSheppard]

I'm sick of this deceptive bullshit being brought up over and over. None of those men ever saw him firsthand in combat. As Jon Stewart said, they served with him only in the same sense that Snoopy served with the Red Baron.

These other officers commanded Swift boats of their own, and it was SOP
for Swift boats to operate together.

[Elfdart]

To claim that the crew of one swift boat would know for certain what did or didn't happen to another is like saying members of infantry squad "A" would know for a fact that a member of squad "B" didn't earn his medals when the other men of squad "B" squad say he did.

These Swift Boat douchebags from the commercial give frauds and charlatans a bad name.

[StarshipTitanic]

I'm sick of this deceptive bullshit being brought up over and over. None of those men ever saw him firsthand in combat. As Jon Stewart said, they served with him only in the same sense that Snoopy served with the Red Baron.

These other officers commanded Swift boats of their own, and it was SOP
for Swift boats to operate together.

Your post != records of Kerry's boat serving together with the liars' boats.

[Knife]

To claim that the crew of one swift boat would know for certain what did or didn't happen to another is like saying members of infantry squad "A" would know for a fact that a member of squad "B" didn't earn his medals when the other men of squad "B" squad say he did.

These Swift Boat douchebags from the commercial give frauds and charlatans a bad name.

Bad example, a platoon (where those squads would be based) is a small comunity, you can't shit with out everyone knowing about it. You know everyones girlfriends, bad habbits, and bussiness.

Combat only serves to magnify this close bond. I'm not an expert on Riverine operations, but I'm sure that Kerry and crew operated in a large context than just his boat crew. What happened in the squadron (or whatever) would be pretty well known by all.

I'm not saying that I either believe the newly made pundints, but its not that I explicitly trust Kerry either.

[Wicked Pilot]

I find it ironic that while the Republican party spends so much time sucking military cock, if an actual war hero (by official military accounts and records no less) has the audacity to *gasp* be a liberal, then he is automatically a liar, a cheater, unpatriotic, and undeserving of earned decorations. I wonder what they would say about me if I ever ran for president.

[Darth Wong]

Here's the problem: they can't find any evidence of him ever doing anything bad in Vietnam (or they surely would have produced it by now), so they're reduced to claiming that all of the evidence of him doing anything good is exaggerated, and that somehow this makes him unfit to be president. Meanwhile, look at the chimp they're peddling ...

[Jessie Stamos]

Is "John Kerry isn't that much of a war hero" the worst thing that can be said about him?

[Elfdart]

But it's not just Kerry. It's the crew of his boat plus a Special Forces lieutenant who was temporarily assigned there -and who was the one who put in Kerry for the Silver Star, although Kerry got the Bronze instead for that action. If Kerry's lying, so are they.

Besides, these sleazy pricks came out of the woodwork 36 years later in the service of John O'Neil (one of Watergate felon Charles Colson's thugs) and Jerome Corsi (a Jew-hating, anti-Muslim bigot who claimed the Pope supports "boy-bumping"). After Corsi's neo-Nazi ravings were exposed on mediamatters.org, O'Neil went on Hardball to claim that Corsi didn't write the book, he only edited it! So you don't have to open the book to spot the first lie -it's on the cover!

[Elfdart]

Just as I suspected, Larry Thurlow is a lying sack of shit.

By Michael Dobbs

Updated: 11:12 p.m. ET Aug. 18, 2004Newly 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 The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."

As one of five Swift boat skippers who led the raid up the Bay Hap River, Thurlow was a direct participant in the disputed events. He is also a leading member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a public advocacy group of Vietnam veterans dismayed by Kerry's subsequent antiwar activities, which has aired a controversial television advertisement attacking his war record.

In interviews and written reminiscences, Kerry has described how his 50-foot patrol boat came under fire from the banks of the Bay Hap after a mine explosion disabled another U.S. patrol boat. According to Kerry and members of his crew, the firing continued as an injured Kerry leaned over the bow of his ship to rescue a Special Forces officer who was blown overboard in a second explosion.

'Constant enemy small arms fire'
Last month, Thurlow swore in an affidavit that Kerry was "not under fire" when he fished Lt. James Rassmann out of the water. He described Kerry's Bronze Star citation, which says that all units involved came under "small arms and automatic weapons fire," as "totally fabricated."

"I never heard a shot," Thurlow said in his affidavit, which was released by Swift Boats Veterans for Truth. The group claims the backing of more than 250 Vietnam veterans, including a majority of Kerry's fellow boat commanders.

A document recommending Thurlow for the Bronze Star noted that all his actions "took place under constant enemy small arms fire which LTJG THURLOW completely ignored in providing immediate assistance" to the disabled boat and its crew. The citation states that all other units in the flotilla also came under fire.

"It's like a Hollywood presentation here, which wasn't the case," Thurlow said last night after being read the full text of his Bronze Star citation. "My personal feeling was always that I got the award for coming to the rescue of the boat that was mined. This casts doubt on anybody's awards. It is sickening and disgusting."

Thurlow said he would consider his award "fraudulent" if coming under enemy fire was the basis for it. "I am here to state that we weren't under fire," he said. He speculated that Kerry could have been the source of at least some of the language used in the citation.

In a telephone interview Tuesday evening after he attended a Swift Boat Veterans strategy session in an Arlington hotel, Thurlow said he lost his Bronze Star citation more than 20 years ago. He said he was unwilling to authorize release of his military records because he feared attempts by the Kerry campaign to discredit him and other anti-Kerry veterans.

The Post filed an independent request for the documents with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, which is the central repository for veterans' records. The documents were faxed to The Post by officials at the records center yesterday.

Thurlow and other anti-Kerry veterans have repeatedly alleged that Kerry was the author of an after-action report that described how his boat came under enemy fire. Kerry campaign researchers dispute that assertion, and there is no convincing documentary evidence to settle the argument. As the senior skipper in the flotilla, Thurlow might have been expected to write the after-action report for March 13, but he said that Kerry routinely "duked the system" to present his version of events.

For much of the episode, Kerry was not in a position to know firsthand what was happening on Thurlow's boat, as Kerry's boat had sped down the river after the mine exploded under another boat. He later returned to provide assistance to the stricken boat.

Thurlow, an oil industry worker and former teacher in Kansas, said he was angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities on his return to the United States and particularly Kerry's claim before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that U.S. troops in Vietnam had committed war crimes "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

Anti-Kerry TV ad
" 'Upset' is too mild a word," said Thurlow, a registered Republican, of his reaction to Kerry then. "He did it strictly for his own personal political gain, and it directly affected every single one of us as we were trying to put our lives together."

Two other Swift boat skippers who were direct participants in the March 13, 1969, mine explosion on the Bay Hap, Jack Chenoweth and Richard Pees, have said they do not remember coming under "enemy fire." A fourth commander, Don Droz, who was one of Kerry's closest friends in Vietnam, was killed in action a month later.

The incident featured prominently in an anti-Kerry television ad produced by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth earlier this month. "John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star," says Van Odell, a gunner on PCF-23, one of the boats that came to the rescue of the stricken boat. "I know. I was there."

The Bronze Star controversy is also a major focus of an anti-Kerry book by John E. O'Neill, "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," which will hit No. 2 on The Post's bestseller list this weekend. The book accuses Kerry of "fleeing the scene" and lying repeatedly about his role.

Members of Kerry's crew have come to his defense, as has Rassmann, the Special Forces officer whom he fished from the river. Rassmann says he has vivid memories of being fired at from both banks after he fell into the river and as Kerry came to his rescue. The two had an emotional reunion on the eve of the Iowa Democratic caucuses in January, an event that some political analysts believe helped swing votes to Kerry at a crucial time.

The Bronze Star recommendations for both Kerry and Thurlow were signed by Lt. Cmdr. George M. Elliott, who received reports on the incident from his base in the Gulf of Thailand. Elliott is a supporter of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and has questioned Kerry's actions in Vietnam. But he has refused repeated requests for an interview after issuing conflicting statements to the Boston Globe about whether Kerry deserved a Silver Star. He was unreachable last night.

Money has poured into Swift Boat Veterans for Truth since the group launched its television advertisement attacking Kerry earlier this month. According to O'Neill, the group has received more than $450,000 over the past two weeks, mainly in small contributions. The Dallas Morning News reported yesterday that the organization has also received two $100,000 checks from Houston home builder Bob Perry, who backed George W. Bush's campaigns for Texas governor and for president.

Bush campaign officials have said they have no connection to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is not permitted to coordinate its activities with a presidential campaign under federal election law.