SwiftVets.com

[drjohn]

This is a sentence from a piece of crap review of "Unfit"


"The Ca Mau peninsula, for example, is the correct name of that Viet Cong stronghold in southern Vietnam that the U.S. Navy never fully penetrated."

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-bk-parks31oct31,0,4059841.story?coll=la-home-politics

I am writing a response. It is clear that Parks did not read the book and does a pathetic job of supporting his contentions. But I cannot speak to the above.

Help me blast this guy.

Thanks

[drjohn]

This is the letter I sent

In his review of Unfit for Command, Parks not only betrays his overt bias, he shows a breathtaking ignorance of the facts. He falls into the same trap that has captured so many Kerryites. Parks claims that Unfit is not factual, claiming the Swift Vets make the assertion “Kerry shot a fleeing, though possibly armed, Vietnamese youth in the back and then was awarded the Silver Star for bravery under fire when there was no hostile fire.” Then he goes on to say that ABC News found villagers in Vietnam who were eyewitnesses to that day, and that they contradict the Swift Vet claims.
But here’s the funny thing. The assertion that there was one lone fleeing wounded teenager who was shot by Kerry is Kerry’s own assertion. It is found in the biography of John Kerry by Michael Kranish and it is also found in Tour of Duty, by Douglas Brinkley. It is not the assertion of the Swift Vets. The Swift Vets do not dispute Kerry’s account. The phrase “teenager in a loincloth” was first written in the Kranish book – it does NOT come from the Swift Vets. Information from both the Kranish book and the Brinkley book is taken form Kerry himself and from Kerry’s journals. It was Kerry HIMSELF who said that he was glad that there was only one VC present at that time. A US Special Forces Military Advisor who was also there that day also corroborates this. Thus what ABC News has done to in essence is to attempt to make a liar out of Kerry. They tried mightily to make their report fit the wording of Kerry’s citation- the third version, I might add. Kerry has three versions of his Silver Star citation, and they are all different. The original citation does state that there was but one VC. How subsequent versions of the citations got additional embellishment is one incredibly under-reported story.
There is no claim in Unfit that there was no hostile action on that day. It is Parks who has reported this falsely. I find it difficult to believe that Parks read any of these books. He has done the readers of the LA Times a grave disservice.

Sincerely,

[stylin19]

Michael Parks review....talking about no facts...
There is no objectivity in his review.
He refutes facts of which he has no knowledge.
He questions O'Neill's 35 year old memory, but accepts Kerry's 35 year old memory.


Kerry's assignment to the Navy's riverine force was requested — duty that some young officers sought in order to see combat — and it was far from safe. His meetings in Paris with representatives of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong were no different from those that scores of other political and civic leaders had as Americans sought a way out of the quagmire. They were hardly treasonous.


By Kerry's own admission, he sought Swift duty because at the time, it was ferry duty and relatively safe.

Also, he makes Kerry's 1970 Paris meetings with the enemy as no big deal...as he fails to mention that Kerry was still a Naval Officer at the time.

The sad thing is, Mr. Parks is teaching journalism at USC.
_________________
U.S.M.C. - 1969-1971
RVN- 1970-1971

[drjohn]

You could write a short novel answering the garbage that Parks had in that article. I had to keep it short enough that it might possibly see publication but I doubt it.

I don't think Parks read the Unfit at all. It is studiously referenced. Had an alleged "journalism" prof actually read it, he sure would have to have seen those references.

[William]

Tell him directly...

Name: Parks, Michael
Title: Director, School of Journalism Annenberg School for
Communication
Building: ASC 325
Mail Code: 0281
Department: Journalism
Division: Annenberg School for Communication

Rest of contact info (email, FAX, phone) is available to the public here:

http://www.usc.edu/cgi-bin/ipc/uscweb/directory-2.pl?STAF+3797

[cipher]

The author states:

"In the end, the great flaw in the O'Neill-Corsi argument is that it is not factual in important respects. Take its charge that Kerry shot a fleeing, though possibly armed, Vietnamese youth in the back and then was awarded the Silver Star for bravery under fire when there was no hostile fire. Doing what the authors failed to do, ABC News used military records to locate the village and sent a reporter to interview men and women there about their memories of that day."

Yet:

"Their case rests chiefly on the recollections of U.S. Navy veterans who served on the river patrols with and after Kerry. These 35-year-old memories are largely untested and often unattributed. O'Neill and Corsi do not use contemporaneous records, such as after-action reports or official histories, to support their case. And they did not go to Vietnam for any reporting."

The whole article is just plain bogus.
_________________
USMC 69-72, 7th Comm, 3rd MarDiv, FMFPAC
US Army 75-79, 97th Sig, SHAPE, NATO
Arkansas National Guard 79
Defense contractor for US Navy, SSPO, SP-20, SP-24, OP-12 84-92

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Cipher, it's like the "official Navy documents" thing - as long as "official Navy documents" seem to support Kerry, the media will cite them.

As soon as the official Navy documents were proven to have been written by Kerry, himself, the media complete lost interest in them.

The only official military documents still valuable are those of the TANG, as far as I can tell - to the point that they're digging through massive dust and rat turds to try to find any SCRAP of info that would discredit GWB.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[drjohn]

[Algesan]

drjohn, can we get a copy here?