SwiftVets.com

[kmudd]

http://www.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/082104_swift_d.html


Kerry saved the lives of his crew and earned his Silver Star

They allege that Kerry shot a fleeing kid in the back and claimed he charged a superior force and that he lied to receive his Silver Star.

The record shows:

Kerry was awarded a Silver Star for saving his boat and the lives of his crew by chasing down an armed Viet Cong carrying a loaded B-40 grenade launcher. Eyewitness accounts show that the launcher was pointed at Kerry's boat when he shot and killed the Viet Cong.

[kmudd]

Note how it says the launcher was aimed at Kerry when Kerry Killed him.

[Billman]

More importantly it says "Eyewitness accounts show that the launcher was pointed at Kerry's boat when he shot and killed the Viet Cong."

This is directly contradicted by Kerry's first silver star citation, signed by Zumwalt, see http://factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Zumwalt%20Silver%20Star%20citation.pdf. Strangely, this one's not available on the Kerry site... It's also contradicted by William Rood's eyewitness account in the Chicago Trib, touted by the Kerry camp as a refutation!!!

There are other contradictions. Moderators, I hadn't seen this event-by-event rebuttal on Kerry's site before, is it new?

They just keep digging their hole deeper.
_________________
-- Bill in Seattle

[kmudd]

[hanna]

Interviewed during Kerry's 1996 Senate re-election battle, Kerry crew member Tom Bellodeau told the Boston Globe that he - not Kerry - fired the shot that brought down the enemy fighter, who had aimed a loaded rocket launcher at their boat just after Kerry beached it on the Ca Mau peninsula.
"You know, I shot that guy," Bellodeau said, in response to an earlier Globe account that credited Kerry for his heroism.
"He jumped up, he looked right at me, I looked at him," the Kerry shipmate explained. "You could tell he was trying to decide whether to shoot or not. I expected the guy on Kerry's boat with the twin 50s to blast him, but he couldn't depress the guns far enough. We were up on the bank."
Only after the enemy soldier was wounded, said Bellodeau, did Kerry leap from the boat onto the beach and pursue him around the back of a nearby hut, where Kerry finished him off.
Bellodeau's account is particularly damaging because he was actually a member of Kerry's Swift Boat crew - the group of Vietnam veterans the Kerry campaign has repeatedly offered up to respond to criticism of his war record by other Swift Boaters who were on different boats.
Kerry's Silver Star citation credits him alone for taking down the Viet Cong soldier, making no mention whatsoever of Bellodeau.

[neverforget]

What's as disturbing, "Unfit For Command" relates that this action and possible attaining of medals was discussed the night before it occurred.