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integritycounts
Rear Admiral
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 667
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 Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 4:18 am Post subject: |
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bothering to quibble on two tours is not worthwhile....as the Media will just claim this as an example to be discredited....stick with the Meat, and don't bother with the scraps.
FWIW...technically I believe he can claim 2 tours so IMHO it a waste of effort and dilutes the Key Points. |
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air_vet
PO2
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 374
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 4:23 am Post subject: |
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| producehawk wrote: | | It was 5 weeks |
Yeh, because candidate Kerry's own bio on his website says " 9 Feb 68 USS Gridley departs for a WESTPAC deployment. 27 May 68 USS Gridley sets sail for the US."
The Gridley spent time off North VietNam (Gulf of Tonkin), Subic Bay in the Philippines and in Wellington, New Zealand - all that in about 3 months.
Yeh, he REALLY pulled two tours... I'm ROTFL
If time flys when you are having fun, with two tours in about 5 months total time Candidate Kerry must have REALLY been having fun!
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Beldar
Seaman Apprentice
Joined: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 77
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 6:04 am Post subject: |
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I'm disinclined to attack the "two tours" assertion.
The year that Kerry put in on the Gridley was honorable service. That's true even if Kerry was at minimal risk from enemy action; serving aboard the Gridley involved not inconsequential noncombat risks. And it's not Kerry's fault, or anyone's, if large chunks of that time were nowhere near Vietnam.
One can make just as strong an argument by pointing out -- as O'Neill always does -- that Kerry only served four months on the Swift Boats and that part of one of those months was in training before he had his own command.
Also fair game -- if treated carefully, so as not to insult the Gridley -- are Kerry's exaggerations about his Gridley service, about which I've written at my usual tedious length on my blog < http://www.beldar.org/beldarblog/2004/08/the_wartorn_sou.html >.
Kerry himself has dishonored his fellows from the Gridley by almost completely ignoring his service there in all of his campaign rhetoric. I wouldn't want to add on to that in any way by denigrating Kerry's time on the Gridley, or quibbling about it. |
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ASPB
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 01 Jun 2004
Posts: 1680
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 6:08 am Post subject: |
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| Beldar wrote: | I'm disinclined to attack the "two tours" assertion.
The year that Kerry put in on the Gridley was honorable service. That's true even if Kerry was at minimal risk from enemy action; serving aboard the Gridley involved not inconsequential noncombat risks. And it's not Kerry's fault, or anyone's, if large chunks of that time were nowhere near Vietnam.
One can make just as strong an argument by pointing out -- as O'Neill always does -- that Kerry only served four months on the Swift Boats and that part of one of those months was in training before he had his own command.
Kerry himself has dishonored his fellows from the Gridley by completely ignoring his service there. I wouldn't want to add on to that in any way by denigrating Kerry's time on the Gridley, or quibbling about it. |
Beldar,
You won't find a guy on the Gridley who would call their Westpac deployment "a tour of duty in Vietnam". The only thing that qualifies is 12 or 13 months boots with on the ground or on the boats "in country". Yankee Station never counted as a "tour" to us squids.
_________________
 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 |
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Hammer2
PO2
Joined: 30 Aug 2004
Posts: 387
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 6:30 am Post subject: |
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| lrb111 wrote: | His two tours are factual, after a fashion. His tour on the USS Gridley counted as the first.
Here's the Gridley page.
http://home.nycap.rr.com/pwcarter/the%20kerry%20page.html
welcome, btw, you certainly aren't the first to wake up to the fact that the senator was THAT guy..  |
It's interesting to note Kerry's exaggerations about his service on the Gridley, as related by a fellow crewman. A crewman who seems to have had a lot of respect for Kerry at the time.
This reminds me of Admiral Hoffman's and others surprise at Kerry's description of them in "Tour of Duty"
It would be nice if some of the Gridley vets who knew Kerry would come forth and publicly challenge Kerry's accounts. It would help to establish his pattern of embellishing the truth.
_________________
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilence" - Thomas Jefferson
"An armed society is a polite society" - Thomas Jefferson
"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it won't be needed until someone tries to take it away." -- Thomas Jefferson
Last edited by Hammer2 on Sat Sep 04, 2004 8:06 am; edited 1 time in total |
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integritycounts
Rear Admiral
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 667
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 7:50 am Post subject: |
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| Beldar wrote: | | I'm disinclined to attack the "two tours" assertion. |
agree...is a meaningless quibble that make the rest of the substantial questions look less important....I hope we can avoid trying to raise up every single fluff criticism and focus on the true lies.
Kerry has made some very radical claims and lies....his 2 tours is not one of them |
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Beldar
Seaman Apprentice
Joined: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 77
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 8:08 am Post subject: |
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| ASPB wrote: | Beldar,
You won't find a guy on the Gridley who would call their Westpac deployment "a tour of duty in Vietnam". The only thing that qualifies is 12 or 13 months boots with on the ground or on the boats "in country". Yankee Station never counted as a "tour" to us squids. |
I don't doubt you! I'm just pointing out that Average Joe Citizen doesn't know that, and anyone who points it out to him is going to have to overcome furious spin and quibbling from the Kerry camp. I trust you, but Average Joe Citizen doesn't know who to trust, and when he's faced with competing opinions on things that seem to be fuzzy, he's likely to throw up his hands and tune out.
Saying "Kerry only was in the Swifts for four months," though, can't be argued. And it makes almost the same point, in my humble opinion, as saying "Kerry didn't really serve 'two tours.'" |
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jrsdad
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 20 Aug 2004
Posts: 118
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 9:54 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | We deployed from San Diego to the Vietnam theatre in early 1968 after only a six-month turnaround and spent most of a four month deployment on rescue station in the Gulf of Tonkin, standing by to pick up downed aviators. http://home.nycap.rr.com/pwcarter/the%20kerry%20page.html |
| Quote: | | Edgy from his dispiriting shore duty, and plagued by insomnia, Kerry was actually eager to get to Vietnam. After a month in the Gulf of Tonkin he got his wish. The U.S.S. Gridley was ordered to Danang for briefings, and at last he would see the country that had so preoccupied him... Kerry explained in a letter to his parents. "As the land grew larger in front of us I could sense the tension... One can talk and talk about the meaning of war and the dangers and the horrors and all the sensations that a man has when he gets near the possibility of dying. But until you actually sense them somewhat, you do not really know what you are talking about. And once you have sensed them, you tend not to want to talk about them at all. That is the way I feel now." (ToD, p. 89-90) |
| Quote: | | ...Ensign John Kerry was more than ready to go when the U.S.S. Gridley was at last deployed on a Pacific tour in February, 1968... The Gridley's first stop... was at hawaii's Pearl harbor... Kerry wrote in a long typed letter to his parents on February 18." (ToD, p. 77.) |
No specific location, but it looks like he had not cruised to the Gulf of Tonkin by Feb. 26 when he learned that a friend had been killed in Vietnam. Then they returned stateside beginning 4 May 1968.
| Quote: | | On May 1 Kerry wrote his parents...And so, in three days, we head for Subic for two days...This will also mean we will probably be home early. (ToD, p. 94-95.) |
During the two months in and out of the Gulf, Gridley spent a couple of weeks tending the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk, then returned to Subic where Kerry claims he pulled SP duty. They then returned to the Gulf for a period. The Gridley History section of their web site is not very specific, so I am limited to Kerry's recollections from ToD.
It looks like he spent maybe 5 weeks max in the Gulf of Tonkin. During this time, one of the rescue helos from the Gridley got shot up and a gunner killed. His crewmates do not recall him on the shore parties, and his immediate superiors do not remember authorizing him ashore.
Is 4 months legally a "tour of Vietnam" when you spend maybe 5 weeks on a combat station? Is it, as Beldar indicates, a semantics argument that allows others to impeach ("Those lying Swift vets are attacking his patriotism again. Now they say he didn't serve in Vietnam on the Gridley when he plainly did.")?
Someone (Tom? Wing Wiper?) has indicated that he possibly earned two campaign stars on Gridley. Would he have earned these in March and April 1968? I cannot search on this right now...
The irony of titling the book "Tour of Duty"... |
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