SwiftVets.com

[ROWELG]

I'm a Korean Destroyer vet who patrolled the coasts. Also a Police Action, our risks were much less than the Vietnam navy. Kerry was on PCF Swift Boats 66 (late 1968) and 94 (early 1969). I understand that Kerry got his three purple hearts over a 6 week period. From www.swiftboats.org boat records I see no WIA or KIA records for either boats 66 or 94. Neither really had much for footnotes. In looking over ALL the swiftboats footnotes, I see little activity in this March and April 1969 interval, other than boats 21, 24, and 43. I see no footnotes of significance on Swiftboats 66 and 94 relating to anything during the Kerry interval. Kerry is not even listed on the crew list who served on PCF94. Did swift boats require the keeping of logs?

I guess my bottom question has to do with why the only real detail accounts come from Kerry. To say "I was there and saw it!" is no detail account As swift boats usually travelled with one or more others, I presume there must be at least 12 to 20 witnesses to these great events who could provide enough details of a six week period, to make a good convincing historical movie, like PT109.

In CDR Schreadley's "From the Rivers to the Sea, the US Navy in Vietnam" there is no mention of Kerry. Schreadlley was bought to Vietnam a couple months after Kerry in 1969,specifically to record the Navy history, by Admiral Zumwalt. He had complete freedom to go anywhere, to talk with anyone, at any time. It was finally published in 1992 as he pissed off Zumwalt, at the time, he believed politics was losing the war (police action).

From books and web pages I understand about 3,000 Navy were killed in Vietnam during this 1965-70 interval. I understand the greatest were those in those smaller Game Warden PBR boats who patrolled the rivers with Seals and minesweepers. From swiftboats, I see about 50 were killed over the 5 years, with half being from accidents. I see that the WIA and KIA came in peaks and valleys, and that Kerry was iin there for a couple months in a valley period of activity.

The one good thing is that the whole subject has raised my interest in the role of the Navy in Vietnam, which was much greater than I had presumed or expected.

[JN173]

Although I'm an Army grunt knowing how we felt about our medics, I'm suprised you haven't received some feed back from the jarheads on this.

Of course I have always assumed that the Corpsmen assigned to the Marines where counted under the Navy casulties and not with the Marines. Am I wrong on that?
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A Grunt
2/503 173rd Airborne Brigade
RVN '65-'66

[carpro]

I was just sitting here wondering where the category for Corpsmen was when I read your post, JN.
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"If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service."

[ASPB]

TF 116 definitely more than Swifties. Also TF 117, The MRF
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On Sale! Order in lots of 100 now at velero@rcn.com Free for the cost of shipping All profits (if any, especially now) go to Swiftvets. The author of "Sink Kerry Swiftly" ---ASPB