SwiftVets.com

[stealthy]

Battalion still 'sullied'
by Kerry aide's claim
Vet says 'atrocity' charge against comrades remains publicly uncorrected despite promise

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: August 25, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Art Moore
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

A spokesman for John Kerry who was cited in the senator's Vietnam biography as a witness to "atrocities" in his battalion, privately revised his remarks when confronted by a colleague but has not corrected the public record.

John Hurley, national coordinator of Veterans for John Kerry and a member of the 69th Engineer Battalion in Vietnam, is cited in Douglas Brinkley's "Tour of Duty," which was published earlier this year.


" ... John Hurley had befriended Kerry in early 1970. A veteran of the 69th Engineers operating in the Mekong Delta, Hurley had put in his yearlong tour of duty in 1967-8 and come home distraught and disaffected. What he had seen in Vietnam, including atrocities, had convinced him that U.S. Forces had to get out of Southeast Asia, and fast."
Deeply offended by the allegation, another member of the 69th, Thomas Pardue, conducted an extensive investigation, poring over every available daily report from 1967 to 1971 and interviewing 48 fellow battalion members by e-mail.

"I did not hear a single allegation of an atrocity," he told WorldNetDaily. "It would be impossible for anyone to say there was an atrocity."

Pardue and Hurley both held the rank of 1st lieutenant in the 69th's Company B.

Pardue said he tried to solve the problem directly with Hurley, leaving phone messages, e-mails and two certified letters, but never got a response, despite signed receipts showing the letters were received.

Finally, Pardue, who lives in Houston, sent a certified letter to Brinkley and got an immediate response, a phone message May 5 indicating the author had received a fax from Hurley instructing him to correct the matter.

Brinkley said it was his "blunder" and explained that Hurley intended or should have intended to use the word "horrors" instead of "atrocities."

The author also reiterated that Hurley had not seen atrocities in Vietnam.

Brinkley told Pardue a new version of the Harper Collins book would be issued in two weeks, but three months later, the public record stands, besmirching the men who fought in the 69th.

"My sole goal was to get it corrected," Pardue said. "I didn't want it hanging on the reputations of men who died."

Five of his men were killed in action, he said.

"One has a 14-year-old granddaughter," he noted. "If she gets on the Internet -- like most young people do -- to learn about her grandfather, the next thing that comes up will be the entry from 'Tour of Duty.'

"I feel honor-bound to get it corrected."

Pardue said he received a phone call from Hurley a few days after Brinkley's message. Hurley reiterated his contention that it was a mistake on Brinkley's part. But Pardue wants to know why the public record still has not been set straight.

"The longer they linger, having already admitted that it's wrong, the more malicious it looks on their part," he said. "It looks like there is some other agenda driving whether they are willing to tell the truth about what happened in Vietnam."

rest
_________________
American Conservative