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Deja vu all over again


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Bruce Kesler

Special to The Augusta Free Press

John Kerry's Silver Star citation refers to his brave action against a "superior force." However, Kerry is quoted by friendly biographer Douglas Brinkley as saying he chased and killed one lone Viet Cong.

John O'Neill's Unfit For Command, based on Brinkley's Tour of Duty, questions the Silver Star. On a recent broadcast of ABC's "Nightline," a VC member from the war said there were 20 VC who ran, leaving the one VC with the B-40 rocket launcher.

There were three Swift Boats, with a combined 50 or so Americans and South Vietnamese Popular Forces troops. Either way, 50 vs 20 or vs one, O'Neill is correct to question the Silver Star.

"Nightline" should have had Kerry or Brinkley on show to answer for the Silver Star discrepancy, not O'Neill.

In 1996, during Sen. Kerry's senatorial campaign, Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, along with Capt. Adrian Lonsdale and Capt. George Elliott, who are now active members of the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, defended Kerry. A newsman had attacked Kerry for a war crime in shooting a Viet Cong in the back in the incident involved in Kerry's Silver Star.

Zumwalt, Lonsdale and Elliott did not support Kerry's politics, but were outraged at the Navy and America being smeared. As Elliott made clear in his remarks at the Boston Navy Yard, "I am not here to support Sen. Kerry; I am here to support Lt. Kerry." They said it was not a war crime, but a defensible act in war. Today, in the anti-Kerry Swiftees' Unfit For Command, Kerry's dispatching of that VC is not treated as outside of the rules of war.

Immediately after the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth ran their first TV ad, which included George Elliott, the Swiftees' charges were reported by those supporting Kerry for president as undercut by Elliott having defended Kerry in 1996. Elliott was actually defending the U.S. Navy and America against war crimes charges rather than supporting Kerry's politics.

On Oct. 14, "Nightline" featured interviews with Vietnamese who say they witnessed the incident on Feb. 28, 1969, for which Kerry was awarded the Silver Star. These Vietnamese say that a group of about 20 Viet Cong shot at Kerry's and other's boats in the two phases of the incident that day. Fire was returned. The VC ran. The Vietnamese on "Nightline" say they did not see how their compatriot, with the B-40 rocket launcher, was killed in the second phase of the encounter. This is the VC whom according to all American accounts Kerry killed.

"Nightline's" Ted Koppel then argued with John O'Neill regarding the "Nightline" report. O'Neill is the leading spokesman for Swift Boat Veterans For Truth and co-author of Unfit For Command.

Koppel focused on why O'Neill's description of the Silver Star event differed from that of "Nightline's" Vietnamese. In effect, O'Neill was being held accountable for John Kerry's and his friendly biographers' account of the incident.

One of "Nightline's" Vietnamese said of the B-40 bearer, "he wore a black pajama. He was strong. He was big and strong. He was about 26 or 27." In Unfit For Command, O'Neill describes him as "a young Viet Cong in a loincloth" and in the next paragraph as a "teen-age enemy."

O'Neill's section of Unfit For Command about the Silver Star incident comes from an article by Michael Kranish in The Boston Globe (June 16, 2003) based on Kranish's interviews with Kerry and others at the scene, the Silver Star citation quoted in Douglas Brinkley's Tour of Duty written in cooperation with John Kerry, and from statements made by Kerry crewmembers on an earlier ABC "Nightline" program (June 24, 2004).

Kranish wrote about the incident, "Out of the bush appeared a teen-ager in a loin cloth, clutching a grenade launcher," the description that O'Neill repeated in Unfit For Command.

This incident was the second part of an encounter that began shortly before. The three Swift Boats were carrying several U.S. Army advisors and about 30 Popular Forces troops. When fired upon from the shore, the boats charged the shore, firing. Another Swift Boat beached first, and its advisor and PFs chased the VC. According to Kerry crewmate Michael Madeiros' diary, upon which much of the Brinkley Tour of Duty on this episode is based, one VC was killed by fire from another Swift Boat. The PFs and Army advisors fanned out, and as the advisors' later Army award certificates state, killed about six to 10 or more VC.

Meanwhile, Kerry's boat proceeded upriver about 200 yards, according to Madeiros-Brinkley, or 800 yards according to Kerry's Silver Star citation. According to Madeiros-Brinkley, a rocket was fired near the boat from the shore. Kerry's boat again beached. According to Brinkley's account, and Kranish's, only the one VC described above was sighted and dispatched. According to both friendly Kerry biographers, Brinkley and Kranish, the VC was wounded before Kerry's boat hit the shore, and he was fleeing when killed by Kerry. None of the Vietnamese in the "Nightline" report say they witnessed the killing of their comrade.

Kerry’s Silver Star citation says "the PCF (Swift Boat) gunners captured many enemy weapons in the first part of this incident." O'Neill writes that "the citation simply ignores the presence of the soldiers and advisors who actually 'captured the many enemy weapons' and routed the Viet Cong." In the second part of the incident, following the killing of the one VC by Kerry, according to Brinkley, Kerry's crew found "everything from VC flags to American-made 20-mm shell casings (i.e., empty of explosive, but usable for booby-traps and other hostile purposes) and sewing machines of potentially nefarious intent." The larger war material capture was in the first phase of that day's incident, by the South Vietnamese PFs.

O'Neill writes: "Commander George Elliott, who wrote up the initial draft of Kerry's Silver Star citation, confirms that neither he nor anyone else in the Silver Star process that he knows realized before 1996 that Kerry was facing a single, wounded Viet Cong fleeing in a loincloth. ... Commander Elliott indicates that a Silver Star recommendation would not have been made by him had he been aware of the actual facts."

According to "Nightline's" Vietnamese, in the second phase of the incident: "She was only a couple hundred yards away when a Swift Boat turned and approached the shore, she said, adding that the boat was unleashing a barrage of gunfire as it approached." This VC continues, "we ran."

In short, "Nightline's" Vietnamese witness supports the O'Neill contention, and Kerry's, that when Kerry went ashore, Kerry was just chasing the one wounded VC, whom Kerry killed.

So what are we to conclude from this "Nightline" story, and Ted Koppel's inviting John O'Neill to answer for it, and Ted Koppel's arguing with O'Neill?

Almost every time O'Neill tried to raise the documented citations from the source material, as above, Koppel kept speaking over him to shut O'Neill down.

If Koppel wanted the source of any variance from the Vietnamese in accounts of Kerry's involvement, Koppel should have invited and grilled John Kerry, Douglas Brinkley, Michael Kranish or Mike Madeiros.

Koppel, it seems clear, wanted to embarrass John O'Neill and the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth. The ABC news article released before the "Nightline" show aired quoted O'Neill as saying in an August 2004 interview: "In the Silver Star incident, John Kerry's citation reflects that he charged into a numerically superior force, and into intense fire. But the actual facts are that there was a single kid there who had fired a rocket, who popped up, and John Kerry with his gunboat, with or without a number of troops, depending on who you talk to, plopped in front of the kid. The kid was wounded in the legs by machine gun fire, and as he ran off, John Kerry jumped off the boat and shot the kid in the back."

As O'Neill was finally able to wedge in on "Nightline," quoting Kerry in Tour of Duty: "I could not help wondering what would have happened if, instead of one Viet Cong with the B-40, what if there had been three, five or 10? He knew the answer, of course." Yet Koppel kept insisting that the "Nightline" report somehow established there was a "superior force" of VC that Kerry charged. As quoted above, that force of about 20, already decimated by at least half by the first landing force, had already run away.

O'Neill asked why Koppel took the word of some unverified Vietnamese, in one of the most closed and authoritarian communist countries, over the reports of John Kerry, his biographers and both the pro-Kerry and anti-Kerry Swift Boat veterans. Koppel did not respond.

Koppel said to O'Neill that "the citation for the Silver Star, itself, which talks precisely about a superior enemy force. You're the one who raised questions about the superior enemy force." O'Neill wasn't given the chance to respond. But as seen above, there were three Swift Boats, containing their crews, totaling about 18, plus three U.S. Army advisors and about 30 South Vietnamese PFs, against at most 20 Viet Cong at the start of the incident. That's hardly a superior force.

As seen above, it was not O'Neill who should be embarrassed or harassed by Ted Koppel. If anyone might be, and that is doubtful, it would be John Kerry and his friendly biographers. Basically, O'Neill's narrative, based as it is on Kerry's accounts, got closer to the truth than Kerry's biographers, and certainly than "Nightline" or Koppel's view that "Nightline's" report was most valid.

At most, and subject to the suspect validity of the Vietnamese witnesses Koppel relies upon, Nightline may have added some fog of war to the incident. Koppel's treatment of the "Nightline" report and of John O'Neill, actually, should most embarrass "Nightline" and Koppel. Indeed, Koppel showed no intimacy with the source material on the incident he tried to lay at O'Neill's doorstep.

Once again, one must wonder at what the mainstream media is trying to accomplish, the truth or the election. It's also ironic that the Swiftees are again called upon to defend Kerry.

Bruce Kesler resides in Encinitas, Calif.

The views expressed by op-ed writers do not necessarily reflect those of management of The Augusta Free Press.

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(Published 10-22-04/Opinion)

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