SwiftVets.com

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

We need to construct a FAQ - Frequently asked questions - file.

There is the official Swifts' FAQ at:
http://swift4.he.net/~swift4/index.php?topic=FAQ

There is another FAQ for operating phBB software here:
http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/faq.php

But, the one here in R&R will cover the questions that will get posted in the forum as news breaks.

"Why served on the same boat is a red herring."

"What is a Standard Form 180 or a DD Form 180and why do you guys want Kerry to fill one out?"

"Who finances this group?"

"Who paid for the ads?"

There are MANY more. When someone posts a topic with a question or two that has been answered here, we can point them here and delete the topic, clearing up space on the front page.

There is a HUGE amount of information on the main forum but it is BURIED in duplicate topics and people are not usually inclined to read many pages back.

If some of you could pick just one question that you've seen over and over and answer it here as comprehensively as possible, we can compile an FAQ to which we can direct the repeated inquiries and keep them from filling up the board.

Part of the left's plan is to engage us in conversations that distract from our purpose. Ask a question, get a pointer to the FAQ, thread locked, then deleted in a few hours.

Thanks in advance - I know you all already do a lot, so I almost hate to ask, but we're really snowed in!

Thank you!
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[gkdechow]

Why are so many people who weren't on his boat involved in this?

How about a "Fire Company" several fire trucks with several men on each truck. They live together in the same firehouse. They eat at the same table. They pee in the same comode. They fight the same fires. They don't ride on the same truck. By the way, they do risk their lives for each other.



(Excellent analogy, George - thanks! EJ)

[gkdechow]

Anyone out there that will swear that they heard Kerry or one of his crew say the "next JFK from Massachusetts" while they were in Nam.
The picture of Kerry with Jack Kennedy in the cockpit of the sailboat while he was dating Jackie's 1/2 Sister. When was it taken? How old was Kerry? Was JFK president yet? Did kerry know the Kennedys before he dated Jackie's sis or was there a motive for dating her?

Any purposefull act or reaction that seems to indicat an overall plan or goal of building a political resume.

[jrsdad]

A FAQ would be excellent to send with the SBVFT on interviews and to supporters in the media who will be hit with a very organized and vicious attack with no regard for truth.

Q: Why do SBVFT say different things today than they said in the past?

A: Many who served above Kerry only knew of his actions from reports he wrote, which others who were involved in the same actions disagree with. Many were unaware that he had earned the first Purple Heart (all of his crew and CO had rotated out of Vietnam) and no one remained who had participated in the action when he received it. Today, many of those who served with Kerry are getting together with others for the first time to hear what really went on. It is not that they have changed their story, it is that they have learned different facts. As they come together and share stories, the real situation has emerged which the SBVFT are attempting to publicize.

On 9/10/01, airlines advised flight crews to not resist hijackers because at worst they would be delayed. On 9/11, the airlines changed their policy. Were they hypocritical?


Q: Why have these people come forward today about things that happened 35 years ago?

A: Many did not know what Kerry was claiming until the publication of "Tour of Duty". The movement began when people learned of how Kerry was distorting events they had participated in. As they started coming together to discuss these false claims, the real extent of Kerry's fabricated past started to become clear. It was more the publication of the book than Kerry's presidential bid that created SBVFT.


Q: How can these SBVFT argue with the facts recorded in Kerry's citations and the Navy reports?

First, there are severe discrepancies between the various written reports made available by the Kerry campaign both internally and with the recollections of Kerry's veteran supporters, much less between the reports and the SBVFT statements. There are discrepancies between Kerry's various biographies and his recorded statements over the years, discrepancies that go beyond missing a few unimportant details. The stories related by Kerry's vet supporters change from year to year, month to month, and sometimes day to day, so there can be no claim that the facts are firmly established.

Second, it is claimed that Kerry wrote most of the spot reports himself; several officers in his division have admitted that they let the more junior officer write them because it was a pain and they preferred to unwind after a mission. The citations are based in part on the recommendations themselves, which the Kerry campaign has refused to release. We know Rassmann wrote the Bronze Star recommendation, but as someone who admittedly was under water most of the time after falling off the boat (which boat? No one is sure, least of all Rassmann) he was not the best witness to what was going on. We do not know who recommended Kerry for his first Purple Heart - we do know who didn't, and that was his CO who refused to put him up for it.


Q: How can anyone attack a war hero for his service?

A: Kerry gets no pass for being a "war hero" when the pertinent issues are a) whether his actions were indeed worthy of commendation and b) what his involvement was in generating the paperwork that resulted in those commendations. If he did not deserve the commendations, then he gains no respect which would entitle him to be given a pass on anything. Kerry alone made his service and his medals an issue in the current campaign. If he made his voting record the central issue, or his fidelity to his spouse, or his business success, each of these would have been what people would have focussed on - his supporters in building up that record, his detractors in investigating and illuminating that record.


Q: Isn't this really about vets being angry with Kerry for his anti-war activities after his service in Vietnam?

A: No. These are two separate issues, both real and substantial, but unrelated. It is a predictable attack to try to impeach the criticisms of the SBVFT regarding Kerry's Vietnam service by referring to anger over his VVAW actions. They stand independent; there may well be SBVFT who understand (and even participated) in the VVAW protests who still do not condone Kerry's medal-seeking activities. There are undoubtedly vets who hate Kerry for his VVAW activities who care little about his medals. A fair media would educate themselves on the issues and present both as independent concerns. Neither stands or falls based upon the other.


Q: This is all ancient history. Perhaps Kerry did some foolish things in the past, as did President Bush, which experience and maturity have placed far behind him. Why make such a big deal of it now?

A: Again, Kerry is the one who has constantly brought up his 4 1/2 months in Vietnam over the years, and has made it the central theme of his campaign in an effort to convince voters he can be counted on in the perils the nation faces. He has repeatedly asserted claims (about Cambodia, about Spec Ops, about his heroism, about his philosophical evolution in Vietnam) throughout his career. Rather than renounce errors in his past, he has elevated this short period of time to the point where everything else in his career fades. Thus it is not ancient history - he is saying, "Vote for me, because I am a hero from Vietnam." If he was not the hero he claims, then people need to know so they don't vote for him based upon false information. It also boils down to character - if he indeed manufactured his heroism, if he took credit for actions of others, if he imperiled those serving with him, if he lied about his accomplishments, and continues to lie today, then his character today is at issue.

(added 8/29)

Q: Why all the fuss over “Christmas in Cambodia”? What difference does it make whether Kerry embellished a story or even made one up? He wasn’t given any medal for it that is being challenged.

A: The Christmas in Cambodia fable is important for at least two reasons. The first is that is shows that Kerry is not above making up stories about his record out of whole cloth that are denied not only by those who oppose him in the SBVFT (Steve Gardner) but members of the crew of PCF-44 who support Kerry (Bill Zaldonis and Steven Hatch).

The second, more troubling thing is how Kerry has used the story. It first emerged in a letter he wrote when “Apocalypse Now” debuted, when he wrote to the Boston Herald on October 14, 1979:

"I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."

While self-aggrandizing, this was not a dangerous use of the fable. But one of the next times Kerry used the story was important – it was during a 1986 Senate committee hearing in a debate on U.S. policy toward Central America:

"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."

Kerry used the story to illustrate why he opposed President Reagan’s proposed intervention in other countries’ internal affairs. He had learned, on his secret mission to Cambodia, not to trust the government or its actions of intervention. He used the story to sway other Senators to oppose Reagan on foreign policy. Put uncharitably, he made up a story to convince people to go along with his position which he could not support as strongly otherwise.

This goes beyond questioning the honesty and character of someone who makes up stories. It goes to the ethics and integrity of a politician who will say anything to try to get his way, no matter the truth of it.

That is a dangerous trait in a President.


Q: These people in SBVFT didn’t serve with Kerry. The men who did serve with him support him. Why should we believe SBVFT when they weren’t even on the same boat?

A: The crew member who served the longest with Kerry, Steve Gardner, is a member of SBVFT and a strong critic of Kerry. Several of those Kerry calls his “band of brothers” also did not serve on the same boat with him – only 8 of 12 he has routinely called on were actual crewmates on one of his two swift boats. Skip Barker was a skipper of another boat in Kerry’s division, yet Kerry has no trouble saying Skip Barker served with him, and has no trouble using him as a character witness. Kerry is in no position to claim the other 12 skippers of Swift boats who say he is unfit to be Commander in Chief who similarly served in Coastal Division 11 “did not serve with John Kerry.” Swift boats operated in groups of 2-6 on most missions; five were operating together on the day Kerry pulled Rassmann out of the river. They rode the rivers together, they supported each other, they slept in the same barracks and ate in the same mess halls


Q: Jim Rassmann was the Green Beret Kerry pulled from the Bay Hap river, for which Kerry was awarded the Bronze Star. He claims that there was shooting from the shore, while the SBVFT claim there was no shooting. Shouldn’t we believe the man whose life was saved?

A: By his admission, after falling off one of the Swift boats in the group of 5 (which one seems to be a real problem; Rassmann has said he was on Kerry’s boat and the boat behind Kerry’s, while the Kerry campaign fairly consistently says he was on the boat behind). According to Rassmann’s story, he dove to the bottom of the small river 5 or 6 times to escape the props of the boats overhead. He states that he was also fearful of being shot. Thus Rassmann was not in a position to see what Kerry’s boat or any other boats did. The skippers and crews of the other boats were in a better position to see what was going on, and exposed as they were, they were much more vulnerable to being hit by the small arms and automatic weapons fire Rassmann reports. Even though John Kerry reported that they went through 5000 meters (3.1 miles) of enemy fire, and reports indicate that it took an hour and a half to secure and tow the damaged PCF-3 boat to safety, there was no bullet damage to any boat or bullet wounds for the crews. All of the physical evidence supports the conviction of the SBVFT sailors that they were receiving no fire from the shore.

Mr. Rassmann's story has already been contradicted by the Kerry campaign in their admission that only Kerry's boat left the scene of the damage to PCF-3 while the other 3 undamaged boats went to the aid of the 3 boat. Mr. Rassmann has stated that when he looked up all boats had left and he was alone.


Q: Hasn’t the media exposed the lies of the SBVFT? Doesn’t Larry Thurlow’s Bronze Star citation for the action where Kerry pulled Rassmann from the river also state that they received enemy fire? Didn’t Captain Elliott retract his statement used by the SBVFT and state that he should not have said it?

A: To date, none of the claims of the SBVFT have been proven false. Larry Thurlow received his Bronze Star commendation three months after returning home from Vietnam; he states that he believed it was for his action in jumping from his boat to the disabled PCF-3 boat after it hit a mine, aiding the crew members, and preventing the boat from sinking. While his award does state they were receiving enemy fire, this reflects the spot report Kerry wrote. Thurlow does not have a copy of his actual commendation, and was not aware it stated they were taking fire. He has stated that if this was the reason he was awarded the medal, then it was as fraudulent as Kerry’s. Thurlow has agreed to sign the SF 180 form releasing all of his military records, which Kerry refuses to do.

Captain Elliot was interviewed by a Kerry biographer Michael Kranish and made a statement that he probably should not have stated that that Kerry shot a wounded, fleeing Vietcong in the back as he had not witnessed it. He stated that he is convinced from many sources that this happened (including Kerry’s earlier interviews in which he stated he was afraid the VC would turn and fire on him at any time). After reading The Boston Globe article in which he was quoted as backing down from his statements in the first SBVFT ad, Captain Elliot signed a new affidavit stating he was misquoted and reaffirming his support of his ad statements and support for the SBVFT. The media has presented this as a waffling, when the second affidavit was only needed to reaffirm the first after he had been misquoted in a newspaper article.

Quite the contrary, it has been the Kerry campaign that has had to admit that some of the charges made by the SBVFT are true. When faced with the charge that Kerry’s claim to have been in Cambodia on Christmas in 1968 was untrue, the Kerry campaign initially stated that Kerry had never said that, then when shown his Senate speech to that effect went silent for a couple of days, and finally came out with a defense that Kerry had not been in Cambodia in 1968 but had made at least one secret mission there in 1969. This has been denied by all of Kerry’s superior officers, by his crew (even those supporting him), and by U.S. officials responsible for dealing with complaints of incursions into Cambodia.

Similarly, Kerry had made it a point in the Democratic convention to claim that he was the only boat to return to pick up Rassmann because he would leave no one behind. The Kerry campaign (faced, in part, with Kerry’s recollections in his authorized biography, “Tour of Duty”) has since had to acknowledge that the other three undamaged boats did remain with the damaged PCF-3 boat after the mine explosion, so that actually no one had been left behind. Indeed, from his own statements (as well as his Bronze Star certificate) it is evident that Kerry’s boat was the only one that traveled down river, as he states he had to return “several hundred yards” to pick up Rassmann. A recent Washington Post graphic, created to illustrate the incident, shows Kerry’s boat as the only one fleeing downriver.

Finally, the latest admission that the SBVFT had the facts right occurred when Kerry campaign officials were quoted by Fox News saying that it was indeed possible that John Kerry’s first Purple Heart commendation was the result of an unintentional, self-inflicted wound. This was in direct contradiction of the story Kerry has always told:

“My M-16 jammed, and as I bent down in the boat to grab another gun, a stinging piece of heat socked into my arm and just seemed to burn like hell.” (Brinkley “Tour of Duty”, p. 147.)

If Kerry had been firing an M-16 and was injured as he bent to retrieve another weapon, he could not have sustained “an unintentional, self-inflicted wound” of shrapnel. The SBVFT (in the persons of then-LTJG William Schachte and LTCMDR Grant Hibbard) have consistently maintained that when his M-16 jammed, Kerry grabbed an M-79 grenade launcher and fired at some rock close to the boat, whereupon shrapnel from that round injured Kerry. Absent enemy fire, which only Kerry states occurred, this would not qualify as a Purple Heart wound.


Q: Who is this Lieutenant Schachte, and why does he have any credibility?

A: William Schachte has recently come forward to state that he was with John Kerry on 2 December 1968 when Kerry received the wound that he would later submit for a Purple Heart. Then a lieutenant (junior grade), Schachte had developed the tactic used that night for interdicting Viet Cong smugglers using a Boston Whaler backed up by a Swift boat. He reports that on the night in question, there was no enemy fire and Kerry was wounded when he fired an M-79 grenade too close to the boat.

LTJG Schachte remained in the Navy following his year-long tour of duty in Vietnam. He rose to the rank of Rear Admiral before retiring in 1993. Career highlights include:

Head of the Law of the Sea Branch, International Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General

U.S. Delegation to the UN Conference on Law of the Sea

Deputy Assistant Judge Advocate General (Military Personnel)

Deputy Assistant Judge Advocate General (International Law)

Deputy DOD Representative for Ocean Policy Affairs

Acting Judge Advocate General of the Navy

Mr. Schachte has a long and distinguished career in positions where his integrity and honesty were of paramount importance. Ha also has much to lose as a successful lawyer in a large firm if he were to lie in this matter today. In coming forward after witnessing the attacks made upon other Swift boat veterans (he is not a member of SBVFT) he has demonstrated once again his courage and integrity.


Q: Why do the SBVFT claim that Kerry intentionally wounded himself to get Purple Hearts?

A: The SBVFT make no such claim. The claim is that two of his wounds were “self-inflicted” in the absence of enemy fire. Kerry’s first Purple Heart was for a wound which witnesses claim was caused when Kerry fired a M-60 grenade at rocks near the boat he was in (a Boston whaler on a special interdiction mission). The doctor who treated Kerry removed a small piece of shrapnel from his arm (about a half inch long and an eighth of an inch in diameter), and was told by Kerry’s crewmates who accompanied him to the infirmary that it had been caused by the round Kerry fired, and that they had not been shot at. The senior lieutenant in charge of the mission had berated Kerry for firing so close to the boat, and told his commander that they had received no enemy fire that night. Lieutenant Commander Grant Hibbard, Kerry’s operational commander, denied Kerry’s request for a Purple Heart for the wound, which was covered by a Band-Aid. Kerry received a Purple Heart for this wound three months later, after Commander Hibbard and all involved in the action that day had rotated from the base. The Kerry campaign has refused to release the application for this Purple Heart. A Purple Heart may be awarded for a non-negligent self-inflicted or friendly fire wound if it occurs during enemy action. The events as detailed by the officer in charge of the mission and sailors who were there did not qualify it as a Purple Heart wound. All of the evidence, and all of the sworn statements aside from Kerry’s, fit this version of the facts over Kerry’s.

The third Purple Heart Kerry received is also questioned, either as a self-inflicted wound or one not received during an enemy action. Kerry’s diary, for the day he pulled Rassmann from the water, notes that earlier he had been on shore and a Chinese Nung mercenary had thrown a grenade into a rice bin, causing Kerry to receive a shrapnel wound in his buttocks. Kerry reported this wound, along with a minor arm bruise, as happening in the mine explosion that damaged PCF-3 (Kerry was on PCF-94), thus making it eligible for a Purple Heart (the accident with the rice bin would not have qualified). One version of the story by Rassmann has Kerry himself throwing the grenade into the rice bin to destroy it, hence the “self-inflicted” label again.

No one is claiming Kerry deliberately wounded himself to get the medals, but that he altered the reports to make the minor wounds eligible for the Purple Hearts.


Q: Aren’t the SBVFT really a Republican attack group hiding behind the 527 classification?

A: Many members of the SBVFT are Republicans. Many are Democrats, and some are Independents. They are united by the two driving issues regarding Kerry – his service in Vietnam and his VVAW activism when he returned to the U.S.

Two major financial donors to the group are active Republican businessmen, but the group has received over 30,000 small donations with no way to trace the political affiliation. It is not surprising to find that Republicans are willing to put money up for a group that, while not supporting President Bush, is acting in a way that may well cost Kerry the election. The media and the Democrats are playing an openly hypocritical game here, for there has been no outrage at the major Democratic contributors who fund the Kerry-supporting 527s like MoveOn.Org, Media Fund and Americans Coming Together.

The connections are made between SBVFT book "Unfit for Command" author John O'Neill and Merrie Spaeth and various Reps including Carl Rove. True enough. No direct connection between Bush and O'Neill, but they have some shared friends, associates and donors. One SBVFT was a volunteer for a state Bush veterans committee - when it was noted by the Bush campaign that he had appeared in the second SBVFT ad, he was asked to resign and the story was given to the press by the Bush campaign. When it was revealed that attorney Benjamin L. Ginsberg who worked for the Bush campaign was also advising the SBVFT on legal issues regarding 527s, the attorney withdrew from representing Bush. There is no evidence that the attorney facilitated between the groups or passed along any confidential information between the groups (which could cost him his license), but the hint of impropriety (which the FEC stated was not a problem) was enough for him to sever his ties with the Bush campaign.

Thus, whenever a direct connection is discovered, it is severed. There is no evidence of wrongdoing, but the avoidance of the appearance of impropriety. The honest, transparent thing to do.

OK. Now let's look at Democratic ties to 527s.

Central to the critique of Bush campaign ties to the Swift vets is their use of Spaeth Communications, founded by Merrie Spaeth, who has worked public relations for a number of Republican causes and married a Republican with ties to Bush, Rove and O'Neill. Her group was accused (well, convicted is a better term) by the Left of creating negative ads in the Republican South Carolina 2000 primary, which she denies to this day.

Yet no one criticizes MoveOn.Org for using the PR services of @dvocacy, Inc., whose client list reads like a Who's Who of Democratic campaigns (they list over 20 Democrats - and no Republicans - on their web site as clients and former clients, including the Dick Gephardt and Bob Graham presidential bids and the Georgia State Democratic Party. Spaeth Communications is indicted by the main stream media because of past ties, while the current ties of @dvocacy, Inc. are ignored. (<http://www.advocacyinc.com/clients.html>.)

Zack Exley - The Kerry campaign's Director of Online Communications and Organization, formerly the Organizing Director of MoveOn.org.

Harold Ickes (Media Fund co-founder) - Deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House.

Jim Jordan (Media Fund spokesman) - Kerry's former campaign manager.

Cecile Richards (President, America Votes which is funded by the Media Fund and Joint Victory Campaign 2004)- Was an aide to Nancy Pelosi and is the daughter of Ann Richards. (<http://www.americavotes.org/>; <(http://www.victorycampaign2004.org/about.php>.)

Steve Rosenthal (Chief Executive Officer of America Coming Together) - Clinton's Associate Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor where he acted as former-Secretary Robert Reich's chief advisor on union matters. Prior to that he was Deputy Political Director for the Democratic National Committee under Chairman Ron Brown and Political Director Paul Tully.

Simon Rosenberg (President and founder, New Democrat Network 527) - Former Clinton campaign aide.

Joe Carmichael (Co-chairman Grassroots Democrats 527) - Former vice-chair, Democratic National Committee.

Sam Kaplan (fundraiser for America Coming Together) - honorary co-chairman of the Minnesota branch of the Kerry-Edwards campaign

Outrage over Benjamin L. Ginsberg working as counsel for both the Bush campaign and the Swift Vets? Not from Joe Sandler, DNC counsel:

Joe Sandler, a lawyer for the DNC and a group running anti-Bush ads, MoveOn.org, said there is nothing wrong with serving in both roles at once. (<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5818431/.)

Robert Bauer is a lawyer who represents America Coming Together *and* is the chief counsel for the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

The case for the Bush-SBVFT connection is based upon sourced money, two individuals (one a volunteer in no position to affact policy, the other a lawyer bound by rules of professional conduct) who worked with both groups, and friendship and affiliation between various involved parties. This is the Michael Moore conviction - you know people who know other people, so you are in cahoots with those other people. If it weren't being pushed by the mainstream media it would be laughable.

The Kerry campaign has presented no evidence of coordination or control between the Bush campaign and the SBVFT. None. Ties, yes. Coordination, no.

Outrage over Democratic donors? Peter Lewis has donated $14 million to pro-Kerry 527 groups. George Soros has donated $12.6 million to pro-Kerry groups. Producer Steven Bing has donated over $8 million to pro-Kerry 527s. (<http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527indivs.asp?cycle=2004>.)

Compare this to Bob Perry’s $200,000 to SBVFT.

Q: Isn’t John O’Neill, co-author of the SBVFT book “Unfit for Command”, a long-ago tool of the Nixon administration against John Kerry? Isn’t he just repeating the role he has played for 30 years?

A: John O’Neill is an Annapolis graduate who took over command of PCF-94 after John Kerry left Vietnam. He had never met Kerry until after both returned to the States, but he heard stories going around their unit about the guy known as “Quick John” (as in here and gone quickly). When he returned to the U.S. after his year-long tour on Swift boats in Vietnam, O’Neill heard some of Kerry’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (where he claimed war crimes were daily occurrences known to all levels of command). He wrote a letter to the Committee asking for a few minutes to rebut Kerry, but was refused. Hearing a news conference for a group called Vietnam veterans for a Just Peace, O’Neill contacted their spokesman and began giving his own press conferences. He caught the attention of Charles Colson in the Nixon White House, and had a 40-minute meeting with Nixon in which he introduced himself as a Democrat who had voted for Humphrey. Nixon gave him encouragement but nothing more. O’Neill also met with prominent Democrats, like Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Congressman Olin Earl “Tiger” Teague, who gave him the same encouragement.

Before the Nixon meeting, O’Neill had been challenging Kerry to a televised debate. Kerry finally agreed, choosing the friendly venue of the Dick Cavett show where he had appeared previously and struck up a friendship with the anti-war Cavett. While SBVFT critics today charge without foundation that the Cavett debate was set up by the Nixon White House, Cavett credits his “alert staff” with arranging it. (ToD, p. 403.)

After the debate, O’Neill made a speech at the 1972 Republican Convention and dropped out of politics. He refused the offers from Kerry’s political opponents over the years to become involved. It wasn’t until February 2004, while recovering from donating a kidney to his wife, that O’Neill saw Kerry after a primary win with several PCF vets. The thought of him being President and Commander in Chief “summoned many of us from long political slumber” and started various Swift vets organizing what became SBVFT. (O’Neill and Corsi, Unfit for Command, p. 19.)

Q: Weren’t these medals and awards approved and investigated by the Navy before Kerry got them? This proves that they were legitimate, and it is a better criterion than people 35 years later questioning them.

Award citations are generated from several pieces of paperwork. In a normal routine, these are reviewed at levels above the immediate commanders. The review looks at the recommendation and any attached affidavits of witnesses, after action reports, medical reports, battle damage assessments, etc.

In the case of Kerry’s Silver Star, this process was not followed. His medal was awarded just two days after the incident without full review, in part because the Swift command was looking to make “impact awards” which boosted morale. Commander Elliott, who made the recommendation, did so based upon Kerry’s after action report. Reading Kerry’s report, the efforts of the other two boats in the patrol (commanded by William Rood and Don Droz) are minimized as are the actions of the infantry troops on board the ships. Kerry’s actions as reported in the citation and after action report does not match the recollections of those aboard Kerry’s boat, William Rood’s recent statement, and the narrative given in Tour of Duty. Elliott is on record stating that had he known the true events of the day he would never have recommended Kerry for the Silver Star.

In the case of Kerry’s first Purple Heart, it was turned down by his commander after the incident when an “investigation” (i.e., discussion with the officer in charge of the mission, enlisted men, and the treating doctor) was conducted by Grant Hibbard. Only after Hibbard and the others who had first-hand knowledge of the incident had left Vietnam was the wound re-submitted and approved two months later. The Kerry campaign refuses to release the application for the award, which should have been accompanied by an after action report showing enemy contact. Since no after action report was filed for the incident, the big question remains of who submitted the request for the Purple Heart, what it said, and how the need for a spot report was handled. The officer who signed the Purple Heart is dead, and the Kerry campaign simply responds to requests for the documentation with “the award speaks for itself.”

Should there be questions of decisions made by the military? Do the Kerry campaign and the media feel that President Bush’s honorable discharge speaks for itself and should not be questioned?

Q: Why do the SBVFT criticize Kerry’s 1971 Senate testimony about atrocities and war crimes in Vietnam? Everyone knows about the My Lai massacre, and other barbarities.

A: The SBVFT do not deny that there were atrocities in Vietnam, but they do deny Kerry’s characterization of these isolated acts as being day-to-day experiences with full awareness and support of all levels of command. Kerry stated that the U.S. was, “more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions.” He said crimes such as rape, murder, dismemberment, arson and torture were “not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.” (http://www.c-span.org/2004vote/jkerrytestimony.asp, bold italics added.)

Here is the infamous listing of these crimes which Kerry claimed occurred routinely:

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

Kerry derided Vice President Spiro Agnew’s description of the American soldiers in Vietnam as our “best men.” Kerry said that characterization filled him with “a very deep sense of revulsion.” He elaborated:

It is a distortion because we in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country… And we can not consider ourselves America's best men when we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia.

When pointedly asked by John O’Neill in the Cavett debate whether he had witnessed any atrocities in Vietnam, Kerry replied:

I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense that I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free-fire zones; I did take part in harassment interdiction fire. I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground.

Indeed, John Kerry had committed some of the very crimes he was reporting to the Senate committee. George Bates, a fellow PCF skipper in Coastal Division 11, reports that on a routine patrol on the Song Bo De River in January Kerry beached his boat in a deserted hamlet (the villagers had fled) where he directed fire from his boat to kill all the farm animals milling about and personally set fire to the three or four grass huts. There were no flags, weapons or political symbols, no enemies (or even civilians) about, and no reason to suspect this was an enemy encampment. Kerry simply razed the community “in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.”

Far from these war crimes being a day-to-day occurrence with full awareness of all levels of command, the only war crimes Kerry witnessed were those he perpetrated.

Q: Kerry has been criticized for leaving his tour of duty in Vietnam after only four ½ months. Didn’t he agonize over this and worry that he was leaving his men behind, but that he had a greater duty to stop the war?

A: Kerry stated during the Dick Cavett debate with John O’Neill in 1971:
The fact of the matter remains that after I received my third wound and was told that I could return to the United States, I deliberated for about two weeks because there was a very difficult decision in whether or not you leave your friends because you have an opportunity to go.
But I finally made the decision to go back and did leave of my own volition because I felt that I could do more against the war back here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/weekinreview/29cavett.html, bold italics added.)

Kerry chose to take advantage of a regulation that allows military with three Purple Hearts to leave the combat theater. He states that this was not an easy decision that he made.

Yet facts are a stubborn thing. Kerry received his wound for which he was awarded (improperly) his third Purple Heart on 13 March 1969. From documents available on his web site, his request for reassignment was in Washington, D.C. four days later, after having been typed up in An Thoi and signed by the commander there on 17 March, 1969. (http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Thrice_Wounded_Reassignment.pdf.)

There were no two weeks of deliberation. Kerry had to have made the request (which is not on Kerry’s web site, and is one of the many missing pieces of documentation contradicting the Kerry claim of releasing all records) within a day or two of his last injury. He intentionally abandoned his crew as soon as he could.

What sets this in such stark contrast was his indictment of U.S. military commanders in his testimony before the Senate:

These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded.

The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputation bleaching behind them in the sun in this country. (Bold italics added.)

It appears that, in addition to his other self-confessed war crimes, he committed what he states is the most “serious crime in the law of war” – he abandoned his me

[kate]

Why do the guys on Kerry's boat support him? (see him as a hero, etc etc, variations of that theme.)

ADRIAN LONSDALE has one possibility: A boat crewman doesn’t have the overall picture. He knows what his commander orders him to do and so on, but he doesn’t know what the orders were and whether the commander was doing what he was supposed to do and so on.
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one of..... We The People

[PhuCat to Phu Quoc]

Why are Swift Boat sailors frequently called soldiers?

Ans. Because the people that call them soldiers are either stupid or journalists (I know, redundant).

Laugh if you want, but it always pisses me off to hear USN sailors referred to as soldiers, anytime, any war. It even pisses me off to hear John F'in Kerry referred to as a soldier, he's ours and we'll give him the blanket party. Sailors, especially Swiftys, are in charge of wedging Kerry's war record as so frequently mentioned by Kerry where his sun don't shine. Jim Rassman wasn't a sailor. We don't hear "Sailors of the 9th Infantry Division."

By the way, why is there so much reference to DoD Form 180? Isn't it a Standard Form 180 (SF180)?

Why did John F. Kerry pick the lame historian Douglas Brinkley to write his biography?

Ans. Well, Dorothy, a few people in Kansas and a lot of people down at Pier 9 are asking that question a lot. Admiral Hoffman has said Brinkley's book is filled with distortions and innacuracies. Brinkley was so careless in his book he labeled a photograph of a column of PBRs headed upstream as Swift Boats in a canal. Maybe the answer lies in the fact that Douglas Brinkley is equal parts shameless Democratic Party partisan and historian. Douglas Brinkley was one of the 400 or so alleged "Historians In Defense Of The Constitution" signing a petition trying to persuade Americans that Bill Clinton shouldn't be impeached.

Of course I'm just having fun here, and my "partisan" question about Brinkley could be cleaned up to accomodate FAQ type questions addressing the reliability of various accounts of Kerry's career.

Yes, there is fertile ground for a good FAQ.
_________________
I'm a U.S. Navy Vietnam War vet against John Kerry
Phu Cat to Phu Quoc 1969-1970

Did Jane Fonda help the North Vietnamese communists?
http://vikingphoenix.com/politics/polls/jfondapoll-1.htm

[hanna]

Q. Who is Jim Hurley

A. Jim Hurley is Senator Kerry's Veteran Representative.
He also marched with John Kerry in the 1971 anti-war movement.


(Thanks hanna - He also "never served" with Kerry in anything but the marches under the North Vietnamese flag. EJ)

[LewWaters]

Q. Kerry claims that he volunteered to serve in Vietnam, saying words to the effect that when his country was looking for warrirors, he said, Send Me. Did he volunteer to fight in Vietnam?

A. "I didn't have any real feel for what the heck was going on [in the war]," Kerry has recalled. His ship returned to its Long Beach, Calif., port on June 6, 1968, the day that Robert F. Kennedy died from a gunshot wound he received on the previous night at a Los Angeles hotel.

Kerry initially hoped to continue his service at a relatively safe distance from most fighting, securing an assignment as "swift boat" skipper. While the 50-foot swift boats cruised the Vietnamese coast a little closer to the action than the Gridley had come, they were still considered relatively safe.

"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book* of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."

http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061603.shtml

*The Vietnam Experience-A War Remembered, 1986, Boston Publishing



Q: Did he try to get a draft deferment?

He wrote to his local recruitment board seeking permission to spend a further 12 months studying in Paris, after completing his degree course at Yale University in the mid-1960s.

The Harvard Crimson newspaper followed a youthful Mr Kerry in Boston as he campaigned for Congress for the first time in 1970. In the course of a lengthy article, "John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress", published on February 18, the paper reported: "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."

Samuel Goldhaber, the article's author who is now a cardiologist attached to the Harvard School of Medicine, spent 11 hours trailing Mr Kerry and still remembers that the subject of the Paris deferment came up during long conversations about Vietnam.

"I stand by my story," he told The Telegraph. "It was a long time ago, and I was 19 at the time, so it is hard to remember every detail. But I do know this: at no point did Kerry contact either me or the Crimson to dispute anything I had written."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/07/wkerr07.xml


Q: When did Kerry turn "anti-war?"

At Yale, Kerry was chairman of the Political Union and later, as Commencement speaker, urged the United States to withdraw from Vietnam and to scale down foreign military operations. And this was way back in 1966.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=352185
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Clark County Conservative

[hanna]

In June Of 1996 Campaign, Kerry Falsely Claimed He Had Introduced Legislation On Children’s Health Coverage.

‘“I introduced yesterday in the United States Senate a bill to give 10 million kids in the United States of America health care with a voluntary subsidy program.’

It was stirring campaign rhetoric, with just one problem: It wasn’t true. Kerry had not introduced a bill …” (Michael Grunwald, “Kerry Files Health Bill After 3-Month Delay,” The Boston Globe, 10/2/96)

More Than Three Months Later, Kerry “Finally Introduced A Bill After [The Boston] Globe Inquired About It,” And After Airing TV Spots Taking Credit For Plan. “Kerry finally introduced a bill after the Globe inquired about it.

He had already aired television ads hailing his fight for a ‘new plan that provides health coverage for all of America’s children.’” (Michael Grunwald, “Kerry Files Health Bill After 3-Month Delay,” The Boston Globe, 10/2/96)

Kerry Filed Children’s Health Bill “Just A Month Before” Close Election, After Ted Kennedy “Stepped In” And “Helped Kerry” Write It.

http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?id=4153

[SwanLady]

"Why served on the same boat is a red herring."

It's a red herring because the boats were all within feet of one another.

Think about it this way:
You're in a car accident. Someone has hit your car and taken off. Several other drivers, who are feet away from you, spotted the offending car. Some got the license plate, others got make and model, others could tell the race and gender of the offending driver. Should the police discount these witnesses simply because they were not riding IN the offenders' car nor your car?

**********************************
"What is a Standard Form 180 or a DD Form 180 and why do you guys want Kerry to fill one out?"

It's a form to release ALL records, including fitness reports. Kerry claims he is "fit" to be President. Fitness comes with experience. If he wasn't "fit" back then, when he "commanded" a swift boat, can we believe he is capable of commanding a nation?

****************************************
"Who finances this group?"
Private donors, just like moveon.org. If you have a problem with people privately funding the swifties, then the same criteria should apply to moveon.org, n'est pas?

****************************************
"Who paid for the ad?"
A friend. A man who saw what these fellows were trying to do and, in his conscience, believed helping them produce the ad was a good idea.

[hanna]

In his biography, Tour of Duty, Kerry relates several tales that took place during his time on the USS Gridley. This is but one. This and others will be found on the link below.

On page 87 Kerry talks about Olongapo in the Philippines. He talks about bloated corpses floating in the river and starving women with babies dying of malnutrition.

Truth is, Kerry never even went ashore.

http://home.nycap.rr.com/pwcarter/the%20kerry%20page.html


****************************
Debunking the first purple heart

A previously unnoticed passage in John Kerry's approved war biography, citing his own journals, appears to contradict the senator's claim he won his first Purple Heart as a result of an injury sustained under enemy fire.
Kerry, who served as commander of a Navy swift boat, has insisted he was wounded by enemy fire Dec. 2, 1968, when he and two other men took a smaller vessel, a Boston Whaler, on a patrol north of his base at Cam Ranh Bay.

But Douglas Brinkley's "Tour of Duty," for which Kerry supplied his journals and letters, indicates that as Kerry set out on a subsequent mission, he had not yet been under enemy fire.

While the date of the four-day excursion on PCF-44 [Patrol Craft Fast] is not specified, Brinkley notes it commenced when Kerry "had just turned 25, on Dec. 11, 1968," which was nine days after the incident in which he claimed he had been wounded by enemy fire

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40006



Accused of exploiting Pow’s for political gain in 1971.

http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/graphics/KerryNewsConference1971NYTp3.jpg

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Kerry’s industry became the stuff of later campaign exaggerations: he has boasted that (as a prosecutor) he wiped out an inventory of eleven thousand cases, but the Boston Globe has reported that during his tenure the entire superior-court caseload, including backlog, never exceeded seven thousand two hundred and sixty-five cases.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact1

[Herb]

[I have posted this elsewhere so please forgive if you have seen it but I am proud of it and it is succint.]

So far, Kerry 0 == SwiftVets 3 on decided points.

Kerry's Three Admitted Lies:

1) "Christmas in Cambodia" (four changes to Kerry's story already)

2) "The other boats fled, I went back alone" (Sandusky, Kerry's
pilot, outed him on this one Thursday (8/19/04) by EXPLAINING
WHY Kerry's boat left while the others were working to save the 3-boat)

3) 08/24/2004 After checking Kerry's bio and journal
Kerry's campaign admits "...indeed possible that John
Kerry's first Purple Heart commendation was the result
of an, unintentional, self-inflicted wound."

Sandusky explained "why" Kerry's boat did something he
had long accused falsely the other boats of doing (i.e., FLEEING.)

Last week, Kerry was forced to revise his decades-long contention he
was on a secret mission in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968.

Why Kerry changed the story FOUR TIMES defies explanation.

Kerry closed the Democratic National Convention with a story in
which he claimed that five swiftboats fled on March 13,
1969, after a mine explosion and only he came back to rescue Lt.
James Rassman. His campaign now is admitting that he fled and the
rest stayed, before he later returned for Rassman.
_________________
Herb

[Dwight Callaway]

You may get some useful questions and or answers not yet covered in this list by reviewing the thread called

"Answering Democrat Attacks"

Here is the link to that thread
http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2002

Dwight
_________________
We have the Government and the Institutions that we deserve. If you want better government then YOU want to be a better citizen.

[Herb]

Let's start with this:

Naval Reserve service and National Guard service are both honorable ways to serve the country. Any implication to the contrary is an attack on a large percentage of America's citizen soldiers.

Personally, as a Regular Army (RA) soldier during the Vietnam era, I never noticed any RA soldier demean the NG and Reserve soldiers who trained with us -- or even the draftees.

We all made our own choice about how to serve, and all were honorable.

Even Muhammed Ali who went to jail for the courage of his conscience was an honorable American unlike those who fled to Canada or the UK.

All those who followed the law have their honor intact on this issue.

All those who served should be honored for their contribution.
_________________
Herb

[cedarford]

Why "served on the same boat" is a red herring.

I liked George's "various fire engines from the same firehouse" analogy.

I was going to say the swift boats were like tanks - other tank commanders knew just how well another tank was doing in the column, and so on, but for the public, they know firefighters more than tank crews.....it's something they can understand.

Yes, you don't have to be assigned to a particular fire engine to know how it's doing - not when all the fire engine crews go into danger and work together at the same fires, train together, eat together, live together , attend the same after-action meetings, and are all monitored in their performance by the Fire Chiefs. If one fireengine crew says one thing about a fire, and the other engine companies say another thing, the problem usually is in the view of the outlier. If there is a performance problem or false claims of heroics by one firetruck, it becomes apparant to other fire trucks and to the Chiefs - despite them "not riding in the same truck".

I saw Numerous Dead bodies in the Ologapo River

It sure smells bad, but no piles dead bodies in it.. It would be fun to get a scorching statement rebutting Kerry from Mayor Richard Gordon at Subic. He's still around. But Kerry never personally crossed the "Perfume" or "S**t" River, as it was commonly known in the 60's, did he?.

DD 214 vs DD180.

To the public, explain that a DD214 is like a one-page resume. The military career highlights, awards, and positions held. The DD180 is like a permission slip you sign at the request of a prospective boss at the same company considering you for a new job - to review the details of your whole employee file to see if you did what you said you did. Kerry is only releasing selected portions of his employee file.