SwiftVets.com

[manofaiki]

I can think of a big reason why Steve Gardner has never given into the Kerry charm and bribes like the other guys in Kerry's Band of Brothers.

After pissing off all the SwiftVets with is anti-war treason once he came home, Kerry spent years pursuing and wooing all the members of his boat. He has been able to win/bribe all of them except for Gardner.

And I think the Sampan incident has the most to do with that.

Imagine you are steve gardner. You are manning the m60 machine gun as your craft is sitting dead in the water with lights and motor off in ambush mode on the river. You CO is supposedly in the pilot house scanning the radar for contacts.

Like a cat crouched to leap on a mouse, supposedly this swift boat is tensed and ready for action in a half second's notice.

And all of a sudden, out of the blue, Gardner hears a boat coming. He can see the dim outline in the darkness.

WTF???!!!!

With the CO watching the radar, this SHOULD NOT HAPPEN. No craft should get within at least 150 yards of this swift boat without Kerry knowing about it and warning the crew.

Now the boat is right on top of them. Where's Kerry? Now the boat is too close - if it turns out to be a hostile they are close enough to toss grenades or other explosives onto the swift boat. The crew takes action and switches on the lights.

Gardner sees a man crouching in the boat and a warning is yelled. He is to this day convinced he saw the man reaching for an AK-47.

Gardner fires. He takes the man down. He does not find out until a few moments later that his burst of fire also kills a little boy.

Now Kerry finally appears, roaring for a cease fire. The crew looks over the boat next to them. It's a fishing boat. They see a child lying dead and a woman holding an infant.

At this point, Kerry threatens to court-martial Gardner. They take the mother and infant on board and head back to base.

Imagine how Gardner feels. Tonight he killed two innocent people. If John Kerry had been doing his job and watching the radar like he was supposed to be, they would have known the boat was coming well in advance. Swiftboats stopped and search thousands of boats on that river without incident. This one turned into a total clusterf**k because whatever kerry was doing in that pilothouse, he wasn't watching the radar. It would take as much as 10 minutes for a boat to show up on the radar and then reach the swiftboat; that was 10 minutes Kerry had to raise a warning that never came.

And now to top it off, after Gardner is placed in a position he never should have been in where he has to make a split-second fire/no fire decision, Kerry tries to say it's all his fault and threatens to courtmartial him.

I'm sure Gardner is still haunted by that little boy's unneccessary death. And once he found out years later just how Kerry wrote up the afteraction report to make it look like they did a 'good job' that night and took out some VC, Gardner's fury was complete.

I don't think Steve Gardner will rest until all of America has had a chance to see who the real John Kerry is.

[Moderator note, please try to keep profanities to a minimum. Thank you]
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"If any man has not the stomach for this fight, let him depart from us.! We would not die in that man's company!"

You bugged out in Vietnam - so we don't need you commanding us in the War on Terror!

So get lost, John Kerry!!!!!

[integritycounts]

[ASPB]

How about the fact that Steve has honor and can't be bought?
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On Sale! Order in lots of 100 now at velero@rcn.com Free for the cost of shipping All profits (if any, especially now) go to Swiftvets. The author of "Sink Kerry Swiftly" ---ASPB

[producehawk]

Makes you wonder about ssome of the others. Why won't Kerry let them talk, Probably afraid they would break and tell the truth