SwiftVets.com

[Me#1You#10]

VIEWPOINT: Swift boat vets' stories hold up under fire
Grand Forks Herald
Fri, Oct. 01, 2004

By Roy Hoffmann

WASHINGTON - Almost overnight, it has become an article of faith among members of the mainstream media that the charges leveled against Sen. John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have been proven to be untrue. David Broder, the dean of Washington columnists, got into the act this week with a column that appeared in the Herald in which he dismissed the Swift Vets as a group peddling a scurrilous and largely inaccurate attack on the Vietnam service of John Kerry.

How can the media discount Kerry's betrayal of all U.S. forces fighting in Vietnam, when he testified before the U.S. Congress in 1971, that all U.S. armed forces including his own shipmates committed unspeakable atrocities on a "day to day basis with the participation of all levels of command?" That is simply a lie. Not one alleged atrocity or even a specific accusation has been documented by John Kerry or anyone else to our knowledge.

Now that the memos that called into question President Bush's fulfillment of his National Guard obligations have been discredited, reporters and columnists have seemingly made a tacit bargain to treat the stories as two sides of a single coin. Its a tidy story, one summed up by Kerry's official biographer, Douglas Brinkley, "Every American now knows that there's something really screwy about George Bush and the National Guard, and they know that John Kerry was not the war hero we thought he was."

The only problem is that it's not that simple. Consider the facts.

John Kerry claimed on numerous occasions, including during a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate, to have spent Christmas Eve of 1968 in Cambodia: "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared - seared - in me." When the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth challenged Kerry on this story, he was forced to backpedal. His spokespersons now claim, without proof, that Kerry crossed the border on one occasion, but they have conceded that he was not there on Christmas as he claimed.

And yet, in the looking glass world of today's media, Kerry, who lied, is being unfairly attacked, while the Swift Boat Vets, who told the truth, are dishonest.

The Swift Boat Vets have also called attention to the first of Kerry's three Purple Hearts. As an officer-in-training, Kerry took part in a patrol mission that resulted in a brief firefight between Kerry's boat and suspected Viet Cong forces on shore. The problems for Kerry's account of that mission, of course, are that there was no report of any hostile fire that day (as would be required), nor do the records at Cam Ranh Bay reveal any such hostile fire. There is also no casualty report, as would have been required had there actually been a casualty. In addition, no one else on the mission, including Kerry, claim the presence of enemy fire.

This is why Kerry initially was refused the Purple Heart by his commanding officer. It was only after he re-filed three months later, after the individuals involved had all moved on to other duty stations, that his request for a Purple Heart was granted.

In fact, Kerry's injury that day was consistent with shrapnel from an M-79 grenade launcher that he fired at the shoreline too close to his own boat not enemy fire. Kerry's campaign now has even admitted that it is possible this first Purple Heart was awarded for a self-inflicted wound.

So once again, Kerry was forced to change his story in response to questions raised by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But Kerrys self-aggrandizing, medal-hunting behavior is somehow beyond reproach while the Swift Vets are blasted by media critics.

Whats most striking is that these are not isolated incidents. As stories like whether or not Kerry actually threw his (or someone elses) medals (or ribbons) over the White House fence make clear, this is a man not, strictly speaking, wedded to a single truth.

Hoffmann is a retired Navy rear admiral and the founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. As the commander of the Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam in 1968-1969, Hoffman was the overall commander of U.S. Swift Boats during the period of Kerry's Vietnam coastal service.

Grand Forks Herald

[RMalloy]

Well written, well said, glad to see it in the paper. A survey of the elite
media, the ones who have made it to the upper echleon, concluded that 80% of those polled were for Kerry. That figure is not surprising to me. Those who are in the lower ranks of the media have goals to someday reach elite status. Like any other profession, in order to rise you have to either parrot the upper management or kiss up.

The standards set by the media in judging whether Kerry is fit to be our next CIC are so low that Kerry would have to do something, now, in the present, either so vulgar or so insane that no one would be able to dismiss it or spin it away. The chances of that happening are slim so the
only recourse is to forget the media and continue the actions which the Swiftvets For Truth have done since Kerry accepted the nomination. The merging of the Swiftvets and POW's is a powerful mesh against Kerry.

The ads, books, and video keep bringing up subjects Kerry does not want
discussed or highlighted. The ads have been particularly effective and
need to reach more and more audiences until the election. The ads bypass the media and go straight to the viewers. Many of whom do not
read the papers, or watch the MSM, or the debates.

So forget about getting much help from the media, they are an incestous
bunch, most more worried about pleasing their fellow members and not
with bringing out anything that would undermine thier candidate, Kerry.

[keefer fm MD]

Ditto RMalloy's comments; if it weren't for talk radio--kudos to Hannity, Savage, and Limbaugh, especially--and the blogosphere, your message would not have gotten out there. I'm still reading Unfit for Command, an excellent book.

It is simply outrageous what this traitor Kerry is trying to pull off. He is not deserving of the office of CinC. If he is elected, I lose my faith in the American people who elected him, and will never again speak to anyone I know who voted for him. Any doctor who votes for Kerry/Edwards is a traitor to their contemporaries; any Marine who votes for Kerry/Edwards has obviously not seen the cover of The New Soldier; any Vietnam vet who votes for Kerry/Edwards is not, in my opinion, a member of the band of brothers.

Full disclosure: I barely missed the Vietnam War, as I turned 18 in 1974. My comments above are my opinion, and in no way are meant to offend any true patriot, of which John Fraud Kerry is not.

Swiftvets/POWs for Truth rock! God Bless you all...
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Any day above ground is a good day...

[fb274]

Another article-------Go Swift Vets!

Did Kerry write own report of disputed clash?

October 1, 2004

BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB

A faded 35-year-old operations order recovered from the Naval Historical Center in Washington bears directly on the ongoing dispute between Sen. John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth about who wrote the key after-action report that ended Kerry's service in Vietnam. The report appears in the official Navy records and is posted on Kerry's presidential campaign Web site.

The report details Kerry's participation in a naval operation on the Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969, in such glowing terms that he was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for pulling Special Forces officer James Rassmann out of the water while under heavy enemy fire. This third Purple Heart allowed Kerry to cut short his Vietnam tour after only four months.

The report in question described a mission of five swift boats ambushed by a mine explosion that seriously damaged one boat while the swift boats received heavy fire from both banks. The fire continued for three miles, the report said. Roy Hoffman, the admiral who commanded the swift boats in Vietnam, finds that detail alone absurd. Hoffman, a member of the anti-Kerry swift boat veterans group, says: "There was never an incident under my command in all of Vietnam where my boats were engaged by continuous fire from both banks of a half mile in length, much less three."

'It never happened'

The report mentions two other mines detonating as well. So according to this report, which now stands as the official Navy record, this swift boat mission concluded by running a three-mile gantlet of enemy fire from both banks, the detonation of three mines, and yet the only casualties occurred on the boat that hit the first mine. The boats managed to escape and, even more miraculously, retrieve the sinking boat, PCF-3, without getting a single bullet hole in any vessel or crew member.

"It is miraculous all right because it never happened," recalls Larry Thurlow, a Kerry critic who commanded the mission. "PCF-3 hit a mine; all of my boats directed suppressing fire on both banks, expecting the mine to be followed up by gunfire. But after a couple of minutes, we ceased firing and took steps to aid the sinking PCF-3 and its injured crew members. There was never a shot fired at us, and no additional mines went off, either. And if we had been facing gunfire from both sides of three miles of riverbank, I would have called in the standby air support. I didn't."

After he returned to the United States the following month, Thurlow was surprised to find that he had received a Bronze Star himself because of his activities described in the after-action report. When Thurlow first saw the report last July, he didn't recognize the mission it described. The Kerry campaign pointed to Thurlow's own citation, referring to his being "under constant enemy small arms fire," when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth first contested Kerry's account in August.

As the commander of the mission, normally Thurlow would have filed the disputed after-action report. But he denies writing it. And the after-action report supports his denial. It was written by someone designated "TE 194.5.4.4/1."

An operations order by Adm. Hoffman two months earlier set the format for the designation. The operations order procedures, originated by the operational commander of the Coastal 11 An Thoi unit Kerry served with, Cmdr. Adrian Lonsdale, was the basis for the terms of designation used in this kind of report subsequently. Upon seeing the report, Lonsdale, a Swift Boat Veterans for Truth member, recognized it and recalled the procedures it required as being followed in his command.

"TE" refers to a "task element," which is defined by the numbers to the right, which show the command structure over the task element in action. "194" is Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, commander of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam; "5" is Hoffman's swift boat command; "4" is Lonsdale's command, and the last "4" is Capt. George Elliot's swift boat base at An Thoi, where the boats on this mission were based. The last "1" indicates someone other than the commander of the mission. If the report had been submitted by the mission commander, in this case Thurlow, according to the operations order, it would have begun with a "C" for commander of the Task Element, and the sender would have been "CTE 194.5.4.4."

According to a Navy communications expert, Chief Petty Officer Troy Jenkins, who has examined the message traffic, the report in question was sent from the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spencer, Lonsdale's command ship, at 11:20 that night.

Only three of the officers on the mission that day were on the Spencer, John Kerry, Dick Pease and Donald Droz. Droz took the wounded from the mine explosion to be examined and treated at the Spencer, including the third officer, the severely wounded Dick Pease. Since the Spencer had no helipad for the evacuation of the wounded, Droz then had to return to the USS Washtenaw County, stationed about 25 nautical miles away, leaving only Kerry aboard the Spencer at the time the message was sent at 11:20 p.m.

Could Droz have somehow written the report? Lonsdale says command precedence of days in swift boat service alone rules this out. "According to the command procedure I set down, Kerry would have been the only logical candidate. Kerry had been in Vietnam since November. Droz just arrived at An Thoi in February." Thurlow adds, "I never liked the paperwork anyway. I was happy to have Kerry write them up."

Operations order verified

And there is another factor. Thurlow ordered Droz to take care of the wounded after the action on the Bay Hap. Droz had ferried them 40 miles out to the Spencer and now had to take them 25 miles back to the USS Washtenaw County. Moving wounded on and off a 327-foot cutter from a 50-foot swift boat on the open sea was not something Droz was likely to leave unsupervised long enough to dash off a report. Kerry had no duties other than reporting to the sick bay, where according to his doctor he was seen at 7 that night. And he spent the night on the Spencer.

The head of the Operational Archives Branch of the Naval Historical Center in Washington, Kathy Lloyd, has verified Hoffman's operations order. Neither Kerry's campaign nor his swift boat veteran critics contest the validity of the after-action report by "TE 194.5.4.4/1." Kerry spokesmen have repeatedly insisted that Kerry denies writing the report and that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were arguing with the official Navy record.

But if "the official Navy record" now turns out to have been written by Kerry himself, the principal beneficiary of its glowing references to his performance, the swift boat critics' charges look far more consequential.

After all, the report completely leaves out how Kerry's own boat, PCF-94, ran down river leaving James Rassmann overboard and the other three boats to deal with the ambush and the sinking PCF-3. All of the living boat commanders on that mission are in firm agreement on that action by Kerry and agree that the report is a fraudulent misrepresentation of an action they remember well.

The Kerry campaign didn't return calls for this article. But members of Kerry's crew have said Kerry is telling the truth. And Rassmann said he has vivid memories of enemies firing at him from both banks.

Thomas Lipscomb is a senior fellow at the Annenberg Center for the Digital Future in New York.
~~~
Honoring the memory of my oldest brother, USAF, POW--NAZI GERMAN CAMP WWII 1944/45, killed in crash of B-29 over northern Scotland, 01-17-49.

John F. Kerry cannot win November 2 to discredit and dishonor so many who fought for our freedoms.

[The bandit]

The good Adm. was being too polite to Kerry.
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[jalexson]

The content of the report itself indicates Kerry wrote it. Helping Rassmann get back on the boat was a very minor part of the incident, but it was what was covered instead of the protion involving assistance to the crew of the damaged boat.

Kerry would have concentrated on the Rassmann "rescue" because that's the only thing he knew anything about and because he is so stuck on himself.
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"That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoe making and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poor house."
-- Mark Twain