SwiftVets.com

[Bob Chamberlain]

Previously I have posted the following quote:

Quote from The Boston Globe, “John F. Kerry – Candidate In The Making, Part 2”
By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff, 6/16/2003
“I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing.”

I finally found that "little noticed contribution". The actual title of the book is a bit unclear. This book is one of at least six books in a series called "The Vietnam Experience". This particular book is titled "A War Remembered". I have seen the title written "A War Remembered: The Vietnam Experience" and as "A War Remembered (The Vietnam Experience)" I think the second form is probably more accurate, but if you are looking for the book, you may find either form. The principle authors are: Stephen Weiss, Clark Dougam, David Fulghum and Denis Kennedy. The publisher is Boston Publshing Comapny, Boston MA. The publication date is 1986. The ISBN is 0-939526-20-4. The book is an oversized (11.5" x 9.5") "coffee table" book of 192 pages and is about 50% photos. The book is out of print, but several copies are available, most specifically through the used book market run by Amazon.com. Since I am boycotting Amazon, I used Amazon to locate the sellers and then ordered directly. I paid $10 for my copy (very good shape) plus $5 shipping.

Kerry's contribution is on pages 112 through 117. The full text of the specific quotation is on page 113 and reads as follows:

"The first trip to Vietnam [BC - Westpac deployment on the USS Gridley] did give me a heightened curiosity by virtue of having been so near and having been part of the support operation. But volunteering for the Swift boats had nothing to do with my curiosity about the war. They attracted me because it was the one thing you could do as a junior officer and have your own command. In fact, when I signed up for the Swift boats they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing. Although I wanted to go back and see for myself what was going on, I didn't really want to get involved in the war."

There is a lot of typical Kerry blather, including another claim to have made missions up the Mekong River into Cambodia. He refers to his Westpac deployment on the Gridley as his "first tour". He mentions going into Da Nang for 8 hours one day "to see the accouterments of war". He mentions the big meeting of all Swift Boat commanders with Zumwalt and Abrams in Saigon: "...they gave us this big spiel about what we were doing was so valuable, blah, blah, blah." He doesn't make the claim that this meeting was held to stave off a mutiny - something I have read somewhere on this forum. He does make several comments claiming that the VC provided a better government for for the South Vietnamese people that the Saigon government did. In discussing this point, he writes:

"It seemed to me that you had a classic insurgency in Vietnam in which the Communists were exercising governmental functions within the villages like taxation and so forth, a situation where the chief's head would appear on a stake and then a couple of days later if other people hadn't come on board they would start disappearing."

Sounds to me like a true example of Democracy in action. I wonder why Kerry did not consider such acts to be atrocities? I wonder how he "forgot" about all of this when he was testifying before Congress? Sorry bastard.

It also seems that Kerry must have failed English 101. His sentence structure and punctuation are atrocious, as shown in the above quote. Do you suppose we could get him convicted for assaulting the English language??
_________________
Bob

Useful anti-Kerry campaign material at:
http://www.betrayed-vietnam-vet.info

[Geano]

Assaulting our intelligence at the very least...from what I'm absorbing on some of the boards, the trip to Archives and work on the docs there promises some major revelations...

[Msgt_Ret]

http://home.nycap.rr.com/pwcarter/the%20kerry%20page.html has some information about Kerry when he was on the U.S.S. Gridley.

[LewWaters]