SwiftVets.com

[gia_lin_fo]

http://webpages.charter.net/gipg/genevaconventions/intro.html

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Kerry himself, described "free fire zones" as "kill everything that moves."

Pretty clear misinterpretation of the Geneva Conventions, by any account, much less by the ROE under which the Swifts operated at the time.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[drjohn]

"Kill everything that moves."

Nothing about identification. Nothing about ROE.

Never mind that it's wrong.


That in itself ought to tell you something about Kerry.

[HardCorps]

When Kerry read his definition of a "Free Fire Zone" on Dick Cavatt, he gave the impression that he was in fact quoting the specific military policy and convention- He was not. If you understand the Geneva Conventions, Laws of Land Warfare, and every thing else the military pounds into our heads- watch the tape and listen to his technique, it is obvious that what he read is not from the conventions or any military directive. When John O'neill asked him where that was from, Kerry LIED- he said from the Geneva Conventions....
It was a clever set up and typical theater from Kerry. He consistently mentions he only knew about the Geneva Conventions after he got off active duty. WHAT? That is completely impossible.
He never mentions that he had to deliberately violate the Standing Rules of Engagement without solid justification in order to commit his crimes.
The audience just like his supporters, are befixxed and fooled.
_________________
__________________________
-USMC - Always Faithful
-Platoon Cmdr - Somalia
-ANGLICO FAC - Iraqi Freedom

[Tacan70UDN]

In the Air Force, before going out to fly, you had to read and initial off on the so-called crew information file (CIF). It was mandatory. The CIF kept aircrew up-to-date on new rules, regulations, etc. Also, I recall a mandatory sign-off on the rules of engagement (ROE). The ROE, as I recall, was two large three-ring binders, and we were required to obey the rules. Any infraction was reason for serious punishment. I would assume the Navy riverine forces had similar documentation they had to maintain current. Any Swiftees out there recall? I find it very difficult to believe Mr. Kerry didn't know the rules, such as "free fire zones". How could he not know? Comments?

[Stevie]

[Stevie]

something else I've been wondering.... he started out as a LT JG ? and ended as a LT JG? No promotion anywhere with all his heroic activity?
_________________
Stevie
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage
morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should
be arrested, exiled or hanged.

[Tacan70UDN]

In those days, officer promotions seemed to be as follows:
18 months as a 2nd Lt (Ensign), then promoted to 1st Lt (Ltjg);
18 months as 1st Lt (Ltjg), then promoted to Captain (Lt).
Both promotions, at least in the Air Force, seemed to be pretty automatic, unless you screwed up badly. I think Kerry was promoted to Ltjg while on the USS Gridley. Since he only spent 4 months, 12 days in-country, he wasn't there long enough for promotion to Lt.

[HardCorps]

Kerry was promoted to full Lieutenant days before he left Active Duty.
He was later promoted to Vice Admiral in the VietCong Navy.
_________________
__________________________
-USMC - Always Faithful
-Platoon Cmdr - Somalia
-ANGLICO FAC - Iraqi Freedom

[Stevie]

[Beatrice1000]

EXTRACTED QUOTES FOR REFERENCE:

4/22/71 Kerry Senate testimony:

“We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, .....”
.....
“My feeling, Senator, on Lieutenant Calley is what he did quite obviously was a horrible, horrible, horrible thing and I have no bone to pick with the fact that he was prosecuted. But I think that in this question you have to separate guilt from responsibility, and I think clearly the responsibility for what has happened there lies elsewhere. I think it lies with the men who designed free fire zones.......”
.....
“We are here in Washington also to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country, the question of racism, which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions also, the use of weapons, the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions, in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, the killing of prisoners, accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is party and parcel of everything.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6/30/71 - Dick Cavett Show - Kerry/O’Neill debate

MR. CAVETT: Well, let's talk about that. Did you see war crimes committed and –

MR. KERRY: Well, I ...personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense that I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free fire zones and I did take part in harassment interdiction fire. I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these, I find out later on, these acts are contrary to the Hague and Geneva Conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the applications of the Nuremberg principles, is in fact guilty.
......
MR. KERRY: Did you serve in a free fire zone?
MR. O'NEILL: I certainly did serve in a free fire zone.

MR. KERRY: [Reading] "Free fire zone, in which we kill anything that moves – man, woman or child. This practice suspends the distinction between combatant and non-combatant and contravenes Geneva Convention Article 3.1."
MR. O'NEILL: Where is that from, John?

MR. KERRY: Geneva Conventions. You've heard about the Geneva Conventions.
MR. O'NEILL: I suggest – I suggest –

MR. KERRY: May I complete my statement?
MR. O'NEILL: Sure, go ahead.

MR. KERRY: Thank you. Yes, we did participate in war crimes in Coastal Division 11 because as I said earlier, we took part in free fire zones, harassment, interdiction fire, and search-and-destroy missions. The concept of operations, I gather, changed somewhat from the time when I was there and the time when you were there later on.........and see huts along the sides of the rivers that were totally destroyed. Did you see them destroyed?
MR. O'NEILL: I think –

MR. KERRY: Were they destroyed?
MR. O'NEILL: May I answer the question?

MR. KERRY: Were they destroyed?
MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to answer that question very fully. On those particular raids, as you and I both know, John –

MR. KERRY: How do you know? Were you on them? Were you on them?
MR. O'NEILL: Yes, I was on the –

MR. KERRY: Sealords?
MR. O'NEILL: Absolutely correct.

MR. KERRY: Sealords raids.
MR. O'NEILL: That's absolutely correct.

MR. KERRY: And you never burned a village?
MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to continue with my statement, if I may. No, we never – I never – I never burned a village, that's absolutely correct. On those particular raids, as you know, from the time you came into the Ku Alon River to the time you left the Bodie [phonetic], you're receiving almost continuous fire the entire time. If you went on a little further – and I had the experience of being there after you, which is fortunate – you would have seen that right there on the Ku Alon River at the present time there's a village of 10,000 people that came out from that entire area, refugees – refugees not from us, but refugees from the Viet Cong. People who came there just to have their own type of government and just to be free, and I think we all realize that, as honorable men, we'd never – I don't know the semantics, perhaps, as well as you, but we all realize that we'd never do anything dishonorable. And I think that you must realize that, that you would have done something about it then. I think it was only the fact that a fellow changes when he runs for congressman from Massachusetts. That's what – accounts for [unintelligible].

MR. KERRY: If I could – First of all, first of all, we did –
....
MR. CAVETT: We're back, and two of the charges against John Kerry at the moment, that I remember, are why didn't he leave when war crimes were being committed in front of him –
...
MR. KERRY: ... The fact of the matter is that the members of Coastal Division 11 and Coastal Division 13 when I was in Vietnam were fighting the policy very, very hard, to the point that many of the members were refusing to carry out orders on some of their missions; to the point where the crews started to in fact mutiny, say, "I would not go back on the rivers again;" the point where my commanding officer was relieved of duty because he pressed our objections to what we were doing with the captain in command of the entire operation.
MR. CAVETT: The man above you was relieved of duty?

MR. KERRY: That is correct. The man above me was finally relieved of duty. To the point that we had a continual rotation going on of new officers coming from the divisions that were not in this to try and replenish our spirit. To the point that the commanding admiral of all forces in Vietnam and General Abrams himself flew us to Saigon – completely stopped the war, put us in an airplane, we put on our khakis and went up there and were briefed for an entire day and told how what we were doing was writing Navy legends and how we were writing a new kind of history in the war, and so on and so on. And then we returned to go back into the rivers to do the same thing.
...
MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to respond to both of those points. The first point is I served in Coastal Division 11 for 12 months, not four. I never saw any moral protest there. I think that the story Mr. Kerry has told, if you take a look at it and talk to the people involved, including that admiral who is now the chief of naval operations, is in large measure prevarication. The reason they were brought to Saigon wasn't – and here I'm not speaking from first person knowledge, but there are a number of people I know that could. The reason they were brought there was that they had taken such severe casualties, and the great majority of people in that coastal division weren't opposed to the war.