SwiftVets.com

[AC]

Here is something I have posted elsewhere and sent to friends. Given the difficulty some are having locating the book, I thought it might be useful.

The following are some of the key assertions in John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi, Unfit for Command (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2004). The assertions are supported by the book's endnotes and by affidavits in the possession of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. See the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth website at http://swift1.he.net/~swiftvet/index.php and their letter to TV station managers who were threatened by Kerry and the DNC at http://www.swiftvets.com/article.php?story=20040808144320243.

JOHN KERRY IN VIETNAM

1. Kerry had antiwar political views as an undergraduate at Yale. (p. 23)

2. Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy Reserves after his petition for a deferment to study for one year in Paris was denied by the draft board. (p. 23)

3. What Kerry calls his "first tour of Vietnam" was five weeks involving no combat that he spent far off the coast of Vietnam on the USS Gridley. (p. 23-24)

4. Kerry volunteered for service on Swift Boats because, at the time, they had little to do with the war and he thought it would keep him out of combat. (p. 25-26)

5. Contrary to Kerry's claims in Tour of Duty, officers at Cam Ranh did not after patrols in rough water "come back pissing red" and "have broken bones." (p. 27)

6. Kerry lost no duty time as a result of any injury for which he received a Purple Heart. (p. 30)

7. Kerry's first Purple Heart

a. On December 2, 1968, Kerry was on a skimmer (a.k.a. a "Boston Whaler") as an officer in command under training. The overseeing officer on board was Lieutenant (now Rear Admiral) William Schachte. The two other crewmen were William Zaldonis and Patrick Runyon. (p. 35-36)

b. Kerry ordered Zaldonis to fire on some people running from one or more sampans that were on or near a beach. After Kerry's M-16 jammed, he picked up an M-79 grenade launcher and fired a grenade too close to his vessel, causing a tiny piece of shrapnel (one to two centimeters) to barely stick in his arm. Dr. Louis Letson removed the fragment with tweezers and put a small bandage on Kerry's arm. (p. 35-40)

c. There was no hostile fire of any kind. (p. 35-38)

d. The division commander, Grant Hibbard, refused Kerry's request to recommend him for a Purple Heart. The documents produced by Kerry do not indicate how, nearly three months later, he obtained the Purple Heart that Hibbard denied. (p. 38)

8. In December 1968, Kerry was transferred over his objections to An Thoi, which involved hazardous duty of missions within the inland waterways. He complained so much that his superiors at An Thoi transferred him out within a week. (p. 44-45)

9. Contrary to what he's claimed repeatedly for decades, Kerry did not spend Christmas 1968 in Cambodia. (p. 45-48)

10. On January 20, 1969, Kerry was the skipper of Swift Boat PCF 44. His crew fired on a family of five in a sampan, killing the father and an infant. Kerry has refused to produce the after-action report for this incident, but the report of the incident in the Commander Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam Quarterly Evaluation Report of March 29, 1969 states that five Viet Cong were killed and two Viet Cong were captured. Since this report is based on Kerry's after-action report, it shows that Kerry falsified the report, by turning the dead father into five Viet Cong, turning the mother and child into captured Viet Cong, and ignoring the dead infant. (p. 53-62)

11. In January 1969, Kerry ordered his crewmen to slaughter by machine-gun fire numerous small animals milling around a hamlet on the Song Bo De River. He then personally burned the entire hamlet with a Zippo lighter. (p. 62)

12. Contrary to Kerry's journal entry, he did not confront Admiral Elmo Zumwalt on January 22, 1969 when Admiral Zumwalt addressed the Swift Boat commanders of Coastal Divisions 11 and 13. (p. 63-64)

13. Contrary to what Kerry claimed in the debate with John O'Neill on the Dick Cavett Show, none of the Swift Boat sailors and officers were refusing to carry out orders or starting to mutiny. (p. 64-65)

14. In his biography Tour of Duty, Kerry falsely charges Captain (now Admiral) Roy Hoffman with praising and wanting to give a Silver Star to an officer in the Da Nang Swift division who allegedly slaughtered thirty innocent fisherman. (p. 66-68)

15. In a telephone conversation on March 15, 2004, Kerry told Admiral Hoffman that if he would drop his efforts to organize the Swift Boat veterans against Kerry's candidacy, Kerry would ensure that the revised edition of his biography would be fair and more accurate regarding Hoffman. (p. 68-69)

16. Officers in charge of boats that ran seriously aground were required to report the situation to Coastal Division headquarters immediately because being grounded left them totally vulnerable and left unguarded the area they were to be patrolling. Kerry's boat was once grounded on a sandbar, and rather than risk getting Kerry in trouble, they waited hours for the tide to lift them. (p. 73-74)

17. Kerry would revisit ambush locations and reenact his exploits for his home movie camera. (p. 76)

18. Kerry's second Purple Heart

a. Kerry claims that on February 20, 1969, in the midst of intense rocket and rifle fire, he was hit in the left leg by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade. (p. 77)

b. Rocky Hildreth, the officer of the accompanying boat, denies there was any intense rocket and rifle fire, and there was no damage done to any boat. (p. 78)

c. Van Odell, a sailor on PCF 93, heard Kerry's crew say that Kerry had faked a Purple Heart from his own M-79 grenade wound. In a 2002 email that he disowned after meeting with Kerry, one of Kerry's crewmen questioned this Purple Heart and indicated that it was for a negligently self-inflicted wound. (p. 78)

d. The wound was minor, and Kerry returned to duty only hours later. (p. 78)

19. In February 1969, Kerry's boat was operating with a boat commanded by Bob Hildreth. A mine went off near Hildreth's boat, and then at least five rockets were fired at Hildreth's boat. Rather than stand and fight or return and provide support, as was standard procedure, Kerry fled. Kerry then filed an operating report indicating that his boat rather than Hildreth's encountered the mine and the rocket attack. (p. 79-80)

20. Kerry's Silver Star

a. On February 28, 1969, Kerry was the Officer in Charge of PCF 94 and Officer in Tactical Command of a three-boat mission. He had prearranged with his crew and the other boats that they would turn their boats into and onto the beach if fired upon. (p. 82)

b. The boats were loaded with many South Vietnamese soldiers commanded by Doug Reese and two other advisors. When fired upon, Reese's boat was the first to beach in the ambush zone, and Reese and other troops and advisors (not Kerry) disembarked, killing a number of Viet Cong and capturing weapons. (p. 82-83)

c. After Reese's boat beached, Kerry's boat moved slightly downstream and was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in its aft cabin. A young Viet Cong popped out of a hole holding a grenade launcher, which may or may not have been loaded, and was shot in the leg with an M-60 machine gun by Tom Belodeau, Kerry's forward gunner. (p. 83)

d. Kerry's boat was beached, and the wounded Viet Cong fled. Kerry, Michael Medeiros, and possibly others pursued the Viet Cong and shot him in the back. (p. 83)

e. None of the participants on Reese's boat received a Silver Star. Most, if not all, of the non-PCF troops received no medals for this action. (p. 82)

21. Kerry's third Purple Heart and Bronze Star

a. On the morning of March 13, 1969, Kerry sustained a minor shrapnel wound in his buttocks when being too close to a grenade that he set off in a rice cache that was slated for destruction. (p. 87-89)

b. Later that day, Kerry's boat (PCF 94) was among several Swift Boats operating jointly on a river. A mine exploded under PCF 3, a boat commanded by Dick Pease. The crewmen of PCF 3 were thrown into the water and its officers were injured and suffered concussions. (p. 89-90)

c. The only mine to explode was the one that exploded under PCF 3, and there was no other hostile fire. The boats began firing after the mine exploded but ceased after a short time because of the lack of hostile fire. Contrary to standard doctrine, Kerry's boat fled, disappearing several hundred yards away. The remaining boats stayed to defend the disabled PCF 3 and its crewmen in the water. (p. 90)

d. Jack Chenoweth's boat picked up the PCF 3 crewmen thrown into the water, an action for which Chenoweth received no medals. After falling in the water on his first attempt, Larry Thurlow was able to board and bring the badly damaged PCF 3 to a stop. (p. 90)

e. During the incident, Jim Rassmann had fallen or been knocked out of either Kerry's boat or PCF 35. When he was spotted in the water, Chenoweth's boat, with the PCF 3 crew aboard, went to pick him up. Kerry's boat, returning to the scene, reached Rassmann about twenty yards before Chenoweth. Kerry picked up Rassmann. (p. 90-91)

f. When Chenoweth's boat left a second time to deliver the wounded PCF 3 crewmen to a Coast Guard cutter offshore, Kerry hopped in the boat, leaving to others the saving of the PCF 3. (p. 91)

g. The only injury Kerry possibly suffered in the event was a minor contusion of his arm. He was never bleeding from his arm. The minor shrapnel wound (tweezer-and-Band-Aid variety) Kerry attributed to the mine explosion was from earlier in the day when he set off the grenade in the rice cache. (p. 87-92)

22. Contrary to Kerry's assertion in his 1971 appearance on the Dick Cavett Show, he very quickly, if not immediately, sought reassignment to the U.S. after his third "wound." His request for reassignment had already reached the Navy Department in Washington by March 17, 1969. (p. 94)

ANTIWAR PROTESTER

1. Ted Kennedy helped to arrange Kerry's testimony with William Fullbright, an antiwar Senator who chaired the committee before which Kerry testified. In preparing his "testimony," Kerry recruited the assistance of Adam Walinksy, a speechwriter noted for his work with Robert Kennedy. (p. 99-103)

2. In that testimony, Kerry, a leader in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, reported as credible the results of the VVAW's "Winter Soldier Investigation." The testimony taken during that "investigation" has been thoroughly debunked. For example, eleven who claimed to have been veterans had no record of having served in the U.S. military. Others who claimed to be veterans testified under false names, pretending to be people who actually had served in the military. The VVAW did not perform thorough background checks of those testifying, did not require sworn statements, and did not require independent corroboration of the testimony. Even Al Hubbard, the executive director of the VVAW, was shown to have lied about his rank, his service in Vietnam, and his alleged injury. When the Naval Criminal Investigative Service conducted a military inquiry into VVAW's allegations, the VVAW refused to cooperate. (p. 108-116, 125)

3. In 1970, while the U.S. was at war with North Vietnam, Kerry met privately in Paris with a leading representative of the Vietnamese Communists. (p. 126-129)

4. Kerry continued as a representative of the VVAW for nearly five months after he was aware that leaders of the VVAW were actively working and coordinating with the Vietnamese Communists. (p. 130-135, 158-159)

5. In a public speech on June 29, 1971, John Kerry described Ho Chi Minh, the founder of Vietnamese Communism, as "the George Washington of Vietnam." (p. 137)

6. Despite having denied it, Kerry was present at the November 1971 meeting of the VVAW in which Scott Camil proposed that the VVAW assassinate a group of U.S. senators who supported the war in Vietnam. (p. 140-143)

7. Kerry was in the Naval Reserves, and thus receiving pay from the Navy, until July 1972 when he went on Standby Naval Reserve. While a member of the Naval Reserves, Kerry met with the enemy in Paris, falsely accused the U.S. military of implementing a criminal military policy, advocated positions of the Vietnamese Communists, and gave speeches and testimony used by the enemy in their propaganda efforts. (p. 161-165)

8. Kerry is honored in Vietnam for his role in aiding the Vietnamese Communists. (p. 167-174)

[Aristotle The Hun]

Thank you so very much! I've read the book, but I always am grateful for material I can use for my email list.

Sam
_________________
Deportè Monsieur Kerrè

[Me#1You#10]

Excellent...NOW it needs to be hyperlinked to source material!

[Mary Ann Parker]

This is the kind of organization of information that helps a maximum number of people become informed of a maximum amount of KERRY'S trail of deceit!!
GREAT WORK.
Many thanks!
The "gruesome twosome" of John Kerry and Ted Kennedy have gained more attention on LESS MERIT for a longer period of time than one could even imagine.

We should be very, very afraid!
Mary Ann Parker

[baldeagl]

I will post this and then keep adding to it as I have time.

1) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1200288/posts

[greasepaint]

AC...
point 7, near the bottom.
My understanding is: after release from active duty, Kerry was put in a
'do nothing' reserve unit, even though he could have been put in a drilling unit if the Navy wanted that.
My point is, no drill, no pay.

[AC]

Greasepaint,

My copy of Unfit for Command is loaned out, but someone can check the pages I reference to see if O'Neill and Corsi assert that Kerry was being paid at the time. I think they do. If Kerry being paid is something I assumed, rather than something they asserted, I should not have included it in my list. If Kerry being paid is something O'Neill and Corsi asserted, your contention is that they were incorrect. If so, we need to know it.

[Herb]

[AC]

Herb,

Please check pages 161-165. Thanks.

[Herb]

Bottom of page 163:
"As a member of the Naval Reserves, Kerry ... would have received Navy pay." [Emphasis added]

No indication that he DID receive such pay, but the presumpation is clear.
_________________
Herb

[Tom Poole]