SwiftVets.com

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By Al Young
Aug 18, 2004

In my last op/ed (Kerry’s Viet Nam Stories) I addressed of how Kerry could have manipulated the system to submit his own recommendations for medals. Reading further Unfit for Command, maybe I am not far off the mark.

In Unfit for Command there is an account of an incident when Kerry encountered a sampan on one of his patrols. Kerry’s account (page 53) is that the sampan was violating the curfew and he ordered his gunner Steve Gardner to fire his twin .50cal machine guns upon the sampan. When the boat approached the sampan they found a woman holding a baby, a boy dead his father dead. Kerry has always contended that this vision of the dead boy has not left his memory and has haunted him all these years.

The SwiftVets obtained from the NAVY archives the After-Action Report filed by Kerry to his superior Commander Elliott. The report filed by Kerry shows a complete different story not the story that has haunted him all these years. In his report he claims a body count of 5 VC KIA and capture of 2 VC and other VC that escaped, obviously insinuating a firefight.

No mention of the dead boy and his father and no clarification that the 2 captured “VC” were a baby and his mother.

What does this report have to do with his medals recommendations? It shows that Kerry would think nothing about filing false reports in order to inflate his position with his superiors.

The Kerry campaign has not hesitated in flaunting SOME of Kerry’s Fitness Reports where his superior is highly praising of Kerry. However because the NAVY uses an HONOR and TRUST system to accept reports from the field commanders, the reports filed by Kerry were not crosschecked. Kerry manipulated and used the system to his advantage.

If one inspects these Fitness Reports more closely, one can see that most, if not all of the evaluations are checked “not observed”, the reason being is that Commander Elliott was not with Kerry on his missions, therefore Commander Elliott only based his Fitness Reports on Kerry’s After Action Reports containing fantasy stories told by Kerry, it is no wonder that Commander Elliott gave Kerry such glowing evaluations.

It is now clear that the sampan incident report was a lie. Makes one wonder what other reports filed by Kerry were lies. One comes to mind, the report of the Rassmann incident where Kerry claims that the 4 boats were under heavy enemy fire from both sides of the river and that he “saved” Rassmann under enemy fire. The commanders of the other 3 boats do not recall nor report any enemy fire at all during the incident.

This was the basis for Kerry’s Bronze Star and another Purple Heart.

If Kerry had the gumption to have the NAVY release ALL of his records, then we all could see who submitted recommendations and the basis for the recommendations for all his medals and the veracity of all of his After Action Reports which were the basis for his Fitness Reports by his superiors.

John Kerry still will not release his military records.

Kerry, let’s see the goods.

[Guest]

NICE WORK
GREAT READ