SwiftVets.com

[The bandit]

As most may already know by now, 19 of 23 officers who served with Sen. John F. Kerry in Vietnam during 1969 have signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief. I would add that we don't have to take Kerry's former commander's word for it because we have Kerry's own actions that tell us the same thing. Take for example February 28, 1969, which the events of that day lead to a Silver Star recommendation and approval faster than has ever been seen in the history of the award. Ironically, all three of Kerry's so-called Purple Heart's would take much longer for approval - some 4 months for his first Heart - yet only took days for his Silver Star to be approved and pinned on him for simply shooting a wounded teen running away from him (or so the story goes.)

The swift boats operated under clear rules that said never to beach and leave a boat under any circumstances during combat operations. To make matters even worst would be for the boats officer-in-charge to leave the boat, leaving remaining crew any any other boats under his tactical command without leadership. This is exactly what Lt.(jg) Kerry did on February 28, 1969. Worst yet, is the fact this was all pre-planned by Kerry in advance that showed a total lack of foresight and consideration for the safety of the people under his command.

One of Kerry's crewmembers, Mike Medeiros, told the New Yorker in January of '04 that Kerry "had talked to me about trying something different. He said he was tired of just going up the river and getting shot at. He asked me what I thought about turning to attack the enemy positions if we took fire and no one was hurt. I said it might not be a bad idea."

As it turns out, Kerry gave a different explanation years earlier as to why he ordered his swift boat beached when he talked to CNN's Jonathan Karl in April of 2001: "On that particular day [February 28th, 1969], I heard the ambush, I heard the firepower, and I made the judgment. Besides, we were very heavily weighted down. We had troops on board. We couldn't reach maximum speed. I knew that to whatever degree we were in the ambush, we were going to get hurt, so I turned the aspect of us toward it, minimizing our exposure, surprising them, and we did win. I mean, we ran right over the ambush, and it felt good to win." Here Kerry is simply substituting his flawed pre-planned strategy with "I had no choice" explanation for his actions.

One of the problems here is that when swifts experienced ambushes on narrow canals like the one Kerry was operating on that Feb. 28th, is that it wasn't uncommon for a swift boat to receive fire from both sides of the banks during the ambush. Kerry had to know this, or at least should had known that any ambush on narrow canals would most likely involve weapons fire from both sides. Yet he goes ahead and decides it could be okay to beach his boat during an ambush leaving the stern and anyone in back of his boat open to enemy fire from less then 200 feet away (canals width could run from anywhere 30-100 feet in width.)

Of course this is exactly what happened on Feb. 28; his boat was taking fire from across the canal immediately after he had beached along the canals shore. Assistance from PCF-43 had to be ordered to surpress the fire since his .50 gunner was unable to train his guns towards the other side of the canal and was taking cover to avoid incoming fire from the opposite bank. The PCF-23 that followed Kerry's boat was ordered beached and was just as a useless sitting duck to any seriously armed enemy VC from the other side as Kerry's PCF-94. Kerry was very lucky that day that any VC on the other side did not have any RPG's or heavy machine guns or his swift boat would have been smoldering at the same spot he beached it 24 hours later along with anyone unlucky enough to have been aboard.

For Kerry and his supporters to suggest the only way to have prevented anyone from getting hurt was to turn and beach the swifts in front of an ambush is simply fooling the public and spewing disinformation. How this particular incident should have been handled was for both swifts Kerry was leading to have continued further up the narrow canal after the initial rocket was fired and missed and then beached to allow any troops that may have been aboard to disembark and walked back to the site of the ambush to investigate and engage the enemy with the swift boats providing additional firepower if needed. If being loaded with troops and speed was a concern, why was it not a issue with Kerry to pass the ambush, turn around and head back to beach his boat? Instead, Kerry's actions took a initial ambush and turned into something much more dangerous then it needed while violating standing operation orders.

The rules for swift boat engagements that stated no one leaves the boat and no beaching of the boats during ambushes were in place for very good reasons and there wasn't any regulations that left it to Lt.(jg) Kerry's discretion to disregard such rules to put his crew at unnecessary risks. Kerry exhibited all the signs of an officer unfit to command on Feb. 28, 1969.

[nakona]

That there is my basic problem with him.


He has no problem furthering his career at the expense of others.

I want my President to make ME (and my fellow citizens). his priority, not HIM.


I don't BELIEVE that I can trust Kerry to do that.


It so happens that I agree with Bush's policies, but even if i didn't, I couldn't vote for Kerry, because he's not an honorable man.
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13F20P

[Theresa Alwood]

Nakona

I have to agree. I just wonder if we are ever going to get that point across through the liberal media. George Bush is not my favorite person to be voting for...don't get me wrong I do like Geroge Bush and would be honored to meet him, but I respect him actions and his willingness to loose this elelction by what actions he is taking and I respect that. I just do not always agree with him. BUT JOhn Kerry really, really scares me as a commander-in-chief. I just wish the rest of this country would wake up and look past the issues of which party they are from and vote for WHO the better man is and hands down it would be George Bush. Maybe between now and November we can get the word out.[/img]

[Cam Ranh '71]

Kerry was delusional then, and is delusional now. But now it's "Delusions of Grandeur"! No way, Jose!