SwiftVets.com

[kmudd]

! found another Kerry lie. In the following Kerry claims he was always shot at first.

http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200408160842.asp

Paying tribute to Alston's service during a speech before a South Carolina veterans' group in May 2002, Kerry said, according to an account in The New Republic, "He [Alston] sat up in a turret above my head in the pilot house — firing twin fifty-calibers to suppress enemy fire from ambushes. We were extremely exposed — [b]always shot at first....
But in this one he wasn't shot at first.[/b]
http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/04/27/Politics/Purple.Hearts.Three.And.Out-656749.shtml

According to Kerry's own description in Douglas Brinkley's Tour of Duty, the Dec. 2, 1968, mission behind what he has claimed to be his first Purple Heart was "a half-assed action that hardly qualified as combat." Indeed. Kerry was stationed with Coastal Division 14 at Cam Ranh Bay. At that time he piloted a small foam-filled boat, known as a Boston Whaler, with two enlisted men in the darkness of early morning. The intent, apparently, was to patrol an area that was known for contraband trafficking, but it was an undocumented mission. Upon approaching the objective point, the crew noticed a sampan crossing the river. As it pulled to shore, Kerry and his little team opened fire, destroying the boat and whatever its cargo might have been.

[Polaris]

*snicker*

'Tis a tangled web you weave when you strive to deceive.....

This needs to get out. IMHO what needs to be done is to keep the pressure on....make everyone else take notice of yet one more Kerry fib. This seems to be the best bet....a slow erosion of Kerry's credibility...
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-Polaris

Truth is Beauty

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Ditto on the snicker! LOL!

I love it - it's turning into Chinese water torture at this point!

33 years of payback - I love it when you can watch karma happen.
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~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[JohM]

Well I hate to say it, but the being shot at first is probably true. Though not for heroic purposes.

Consider, you're in an almuninum hulled vessel that can be heard for miles. Jungle is on each side. The enemy has the tactical advantage as to where they wish to prepare their attack. They're in the weeds not in a bivoac area waiting for you. So OF COURSE the VC got the first shot off.

It is only after the VC was engaged that counter measures could be maneavured to take on the enemy. You read accounts of what these guys did, most of them had wounds due to the close quarter combat encountered. And rarely did they have the element of surprise.

So yes it is probably true that Kerry never fired first -- becuase he rarely had the chance to if ever!

JohnM

[ccr]

But what about the unfortanate "sampan incident"? Kerry's swift boat fired first on that one.
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Whose side is John Kerry really on? Take this quiz and decide for yourself.

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[4moreyears]

REVENGE IS A PLATE BEST SERVED COLD.

That statement is a bit misleading since it's not revenge which is sought...just the truth.
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kerry returned to the United States on July 22, 1971, held a press conference publicly calling on President Nixon... for the surrender of the United States to North Vietnam.

[kmudd]

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=3539

For Tom Wright and most other Swift boat officers, there were two commandments: 1. Protect the crews. 2. Win. As for Tom Wright’s 44 Boat; “we won every engagement, start to finish. I got the crew home; a few nicks, but we made it.”

Working with call sign “Boston Strangler” became problematical. “I had a lot of trouble getting him to follow orders,” recalls Wright. “He had a different view of leadership and operations. Those of us with direct experience working with Kerry found him difficult and oriented towards his personal, rather than unit goals and objectives. I believed that overall responsibility rested squarely on the shoulders of the OIC or OTC in a free-fire zone. You had to be right (before opening fire). Kerry seemed to believe there were no rules in a free-fire zone and you were supposed to kill anyone. I didn’t see it that way.”

In Wright’s view, it was important that the enemy understood that Swift boats were a competent, effective force that could dominate his location. To do that, you also had to control the people and their actions; to have them accept Swift boat crews and their authority. You couldn’t achieve that by indiscriminate use of weapons in free fire zones

[ord33]

Since Kerry said he was always fired upon first, that certainly negates any credibility of his statement that he participated in free-fire zones which were "war crimes" under the Geneva Conventions, indisciminantly firing upon anyone/everyone. (Not that his free-fire zone comment was not already unsubstantiated!)

[kmudd]

Kerry got his Silver Star I think when he shot a wounded VC .But that VC had a rocket launcher.He didn't fire it I don't think.

[kmudd]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/8/11/115426.shtml


"An enemy soldier sprang up from his position not 10 feet from Swift Boat 94 and fled," the combat award reads. "Without hesitation Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry leaped ashore, pursued the man behind a hootch and killed him, capturing a B-40 rocket launcher with a round in the chamber."

And Kerry has done nothing to incorporate Bellodeau's role in subsequent accounts of the encounter with the enemy fighter.

In a 1996 interview, Kerry makes no mention of the first shot whatsoever.

"It was either going to be him or it was going to be us. It was that simple. I don't know why it wasn't us - I mean, to this day. He had a rocket pointed right at our boat. He stood up out of a hole, and none of us saw him until he was standing in front of us, aiming a rocket right at us, and, for whatever reason, he didn't pull the trigger - he turned and ran."

[rbshirley]

[producehawk]

just the differences in what you guys are pointing out in this thread, and Kerry's story should be enough to finish him off. Kerry needs to resign.

[kmudd]

http://www.aim.org/publications/guest_columns/fielder/2004/mar18.html


However, that may soon change, if Senator Kerry will only cooperate. In early March, 2004, the Washington Times revealed a statement by former assistant secretary of defense W. Scott Thompson, who recalled a conversation with former chief of naval operations Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Zumwalt, who commanded naval forces in Vietnam, and had personally decorated Kerry, said that Kerry had created "great problems" for him and other Navy brass... "by killing so many non-combatant civilians and going after other non-military targets." The admiral reportedly added, "We had virtually to straitjacket him to keep him under control..."

Kerry had his first Purple Heart within 24 hours of taking command of his swiftboat on December 1,1968, and accumulated 3 such decorations for "wounds," but never spent a day in the hospital. Unfortunately, Kerry will not permit his treatment records, nor his recommendations/citations for valor, to be disclosed. Further, Kerry's biography, "Tour of Duty" by Douglas Brinkley, reprises a 2001 appearance by Kerry on Meet the Press wherein Kerry admitted to committing "the same kinds of atrocities as thousands of others" (thousands?), during his brief 5 months in the combat zone. (There were no daily acts of compassion?)

[SJorgensen]

Unfortunately Kerry will lie even when the truth would serve him better. It could be pathalogical. After one of his speeches I heard him lie again about something that I knew had been exposed as a lie and that he was fully aware of the truth. On April 9th I wrote this inquiry to C-Span but got no reply:

Dear C-Span,

On April 7th or April 8th I watched a speech by John Kerry. In the footage after the speech where Kerry was followed through the crowd I heard him tell a lie to a person in the audience. Is this going to be re-broadcast? I hope this part of the footage is not edited off when it is posted to your website.

The footage that I am seeking is where John Kerry is talking to two well-dressed businessmen-looking guys who were left of center in the picture and they spoke with Irish accents. At the end of their discussion John Kerry tells them that he is half Irish. This has been an issue before and John Kerry knows it to be a lie. His official statement is that he doesn’t tell people this and only corrects them when they assume he is Irish.

The issue is explained in this article:

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/835631/posts

I specifically heard him say to two people that he was half Irish.
Please tell me if you are going to play this footage again.

Thanks,

Spencer Jorgensen

[Scott]

Spencer,

Don't hold you breath. I can smell the burning videotape from here.


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Bye bye, Boston Straggler!