SwiftVets.com

[BL]

Source: http://www.thehistorynet.com/ah/blkerryinvietnam/index2.html

Background of Story: Adapted from Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War by Douglas Brinkley, published by William Morrow, and originally appeared in the April 2004 issue of American History.

Title: John Kerry's Final Mission in Vietnam

Quote From Article: "Almost casually, the Swifts formed up and headed out from the village. The five boats had gone about half a mile when the blast came. Right where they had been hit on an earlier mission, a mine exploded directly beneath Lieutenant James Rassman's PCF-3 near Kerry's port side. Rassman's Swift lifted about two feet up out of the water, engulfed in mud and spray, then settled, rocking so hard from side to side that the boat started zigzagging from the banks to the middle of the river. Everybody on board PCF-3 was wounded. "At the same moment, we came under a hail of small-arms fire from both banks," Kerry recorded in his journal. "I turned the boat into the fire on the left with the intention of trying to get the troops ashore on the outskirts of the ambush, but Sandusky, who was driving the boat and who had his eyes glued on the crippled 3 boat, pointed out to me how badly hit they had been. We veered back toward her then and tried to provide cover from the engaged side. Suddenly another explosion went off right beside us, and the concussion threw me violently against the bulkhead on the door, and I smashed my arm. At the same instant, Jim Rassman was blown overboard, although nobody knew it. But we continued sidling up to the 3, and as we came closer I could see that her twin-.50 mount over the pilothouse had been completely blown out of its stand and had landed on the gunner. No one was moving on the stern. [PCF-3 crewman] Ken Tryner, on his first real river expedition, was kneeling dazed in the doorway with a small trickle of blood down his face, aimlessly firing his M-79."


Breaking it down to simpler terms:
- Mine exploded directly beneath LT Rassmans PCF-3.
- Kerry came under "hail" of small arms fire from both banks.
- Turned the boat into the fire on the left, Sandusky staring at crippled PCF-3.
- Veered back toward her (PCF-3) and tried to provide cover from engaged side. Suddenly another explosion beside them (PCF-94?), concussion threw him (Kerry) into bulkhead on the door, smashed arm.
- At same instant, Jim Rassman was blown overboard although nobody knew it.

Does not make sense, PCF-3 mine exploded (1st Mine), and Rassman was on PCF-3. According to Kerry, it wasn't until the second explosion beside Kerry's boat that Rassman was blown overboard. Also, as stated above, if nobody knew it happened, how does he know when it happened?

Kerry was probably referring to the first explosion, but for some reason, managed to say that Rassman was blown overboard when Kerry's boat was hit. So an explosion happens beside PCF-94 and for some reason PCF-3 is affected from a distance and Rassman is tossed overboard without nobody knowing about it.

Sounds like he cannot even get his own journal correct. Another question is why whould he be referring to PCF-3 as Lieutenant James Rassman's boat?

He was not the OIC of the boat, he was SF, wouldn't it have been someone else's boat?

Another Supporting Quote From Article that helps Kerry Defy Physics:
"We turned around with the engines screaming against each other -- one full astern, the other full forward -- and then charged the several hundred yards back into the ambush where Jim was trying to find some cover. Everyone on board must have been firing without pause to keep the sniper heads down."

So to recap, PCF-94 has a sudden explosion beside them (mine #2 ?), and several hundred yards away, Rassman was blown overboard on PCF-3 by the blast. Hmmmm. Weird how that could have happened, isn't it folks?

If something was powerful enough to knock someone off of a boat several hundred yards away, it must have been a huge object, so huge in fact, I don't see how PCF-94 didn't see it and I don't understand how they could have survived the explosion.

[jalexson]

Very good

Kerry's explanation makes no sense. The only way Kerry could have been a significant distance away would be if he ran.
_________________
"That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoe making and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poor house."
-- Mark Twain

[BL]

Kerry's bronze star citation:

[The bandit]

Here is the offical account from the Div. 11 history highlights given to me as part of a FOIA by the Navy (I know Kerry may have it posted, but I'll type it out from the report in case his people did any editing):

PCF's 3, 51, 43, 93 and 94 with MSF RF/PF troops conducted SEA LORDS operation in the Bay Hap River and Dong Cung Canal. A mine detonated under PCF 3 and units were taken under small arms fire several times during the operation. Friendly casualties were 8 USN WIA, 1 MSF KIA. Units destroyed 30 sampans and 5 structures, and captured 16 booby traped grenades. Later intelligence reports 1 (??unreadable) 7? (looks like 70) (KIA) and 5 VC KIA.

----end---------

So here only mention of one mine. From Bob Chamberlain's excellent analysis in this topic suggests kerry was stung in the ass by a friendly grenade while destroying rice.

[ASPB]

Historian Burkett: Kerry Must Disclose Full Record
Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Monday, April 26, 2004

A leading historian of the Vietnam War doubts the Kerry campaign's denials that it is withholding parts of the senator's military records.

Since Kerry's presidential campaign made the belated decision to go public with the former Navy lieutenant's records on its Web site, questions about his file – and what he is actually releasing – have deepened.

As the Boston Globe reported last week, one former military commander said Kerry had posted his, not Kerry's, after-action report.

"All of Sen. Kerry’s U.S. Navy military records will be posted on his Web site," spokesman Michael Meehan has promised.

More than 120 pages from Kerry’s naval service records were posted on the candidate’s official Web site by Wednesday. Shortly afterward, the number of pages shot past 200 as the campaign added after-action combat reports (“spot” reports), the command history of Coastal Division 11 – 1969, and the Presidential Unit Citation for Task Force 115.

Though the release of such records might appear like full disclosure, the release has been clouded by claims that some of those newly released after-action combat reports might not be germane to Kerry’s own combat history.


On the campaign's site, Kerry was described as the skipper of Navy boat No. 94 during actions in late January 1969.

But Edward Peck, who was the skipper of the 94 before Kerry took over, told the Globe that after-action combat reports posted by the campaign for January 1969 involve combat when he, not Kerry, was the skipper. “Those are definitely mine,” Peck said. “There is no doubt about it.”

The reports at issue include references to an ambush of Patrol Craft Fast 94, or PCF 94.

In a posted summary of what happened on Jan. 26, 1969, the campaign said:


Kerry served on boat No. 94 alongside another boat, No. 66. “PCFs 94 and 66 escorted troops up the Ong Doc River early in the morning when they were ambushed by gun and rocket fire from approximately 40 men on both sides of the river. Two B-40 rounds hit close to Kerry’s boat, while PCF 66 received 2 B-40 rocket hits. Three men on PCF66 were wounded. A junk containing South Vietnamese troops was also sunk, killing 11 South Vietnamese troops. Intelligence reports after the mission indicated that the Viet Cong troops may have planned the ambush in advance.”

However, Peck said that he was the skipper of the 94 boat then, and that Kerry was definitely not even on board.


In another summary of combat action, the campaign summarizes action that took place on Jan. 29, 1969:

“While Kerry’s boat and another [PCF 72] were probing a canal along the river, Kerry’s boat came under heavy fire and was hit by a B-40 rocket in the cabin area. One member of Kerry’s crew – Forward Gunner David Alston – suffered shrapnel wounds in his head. His injuries were not considered serious and he was sent to the 29th Evac Hospital at Binh Thuy.”

But Peck said he was the skipper on this day too, recalling it well since he was severely wounded in the action.

Furthermore, the Navy combat report posted by Kerry's campaign states that Peck and Alston were injured in the same event. But there is no mention of Kerry in that report.

Burkett: How Kerry Can Give Full Disclosure


Closely following all these developments is B.G. Burkett, the co-author of “Stolen Valor,” a highly acclaimed book on the Vietnam War.

Burkett, who has advised the FBI and sometimes the media on cases involving fraudulent military records, said that what inflamed him about the Kerry case was that the American public was being spoon-fed the record.


“Kerry is not being forthright,” complained Burkett, who wants to see the unabridged, uncensored version of the record.

He is demanding that the candidate bite the bullet and sign off on a Standard Form (SF) 180, giving the media the power to examine and cull the full record, not just bits and pieces selected by the Kerry camp.

This is the only way the public and press can be assured they have and may review Kerry’s full military record, Burkett says.


Meanwhile, Burkett is digging below the surface of the official paperwork – revealed and yet unrevealed – hoping that the relatively small Vietnam Swift Boat community will come forth and reveal a more realistic picture of Kerry’s truncated tour in Vietnam.

That tour was cut short by Kerry invoking an informal regulation that permitted thrice-wounded Navy personnel to leave the combat zone early.


Retired Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard, his commanding officer at the time, now says the wound for which Kerry was awarded his first Purple Heart "resembled a scrape from a fingernail."

Burkett, who has been receiving intelligence from the field, wonders why one particular fellow Kerry vet, who parked his boat next to Kerry’s for a good portion of the famous tour, “didn’t know that Kerry was ever wounded.”


Burkett finds that factoid amazing, citing that the sailor recounted that the first time he was ever aware of wounds suffered by Kerry was when he was told that the apparently hale and hearty young officer was departing station for being wounded three times.


Although Burkett told NewsMax that he had personally spoken to the serviceman in question, he declined to identify him because of the sailor’s request for anonymity.


“He’s not going to come forward,” Burkett explained. “He had a good relationship with Kerry in those days and wants to leave it at that.”


Burkett found it curious that the sailor could not recall a single anti-war remark by Kerry during their association in-country.

The crusading author and investigator would also like to find just one person who was a reliable on-the-scene witness to what happened when Kerry jumped ashore from his boat to confront a hostile in the jungle.

For that action Kerry was awarded the Silver Star. Included in the citation: “With utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his own boat only ten feet from the VC rocket position, and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy.”


About Those 'Atrocities'


But facts can be elusive after so many years, admitted Burkett, who realistically believes that Kerry’s Achilles' heel in all the recent brouhaha might not come from nitpicking the facts but from a hue and cry from the Swift Boat community still reeling over charges that Kerry levied on Capitol Hill in 1971 that he and the Swift-Boaters, as well as many others in-theater, were chronically guilty of “war crimes.”

Burkett pointed to a simmering rebuke to Kerry now festering in the Swift Boat clan.

According to the author, a letter is being prepared by a group of Kerry former comrades-in-arms charging the candidate with lying about the scurrilous charges of war crimes for political gain.


The movement, ironically, is being spearheaded, Burkett said, by none other than fellow vet John O’Neil, who once debated Kerry on the issue decades ago on the old Dick Cavett show.

O’Neil, an attorney in Houston, is preparing a stinging letter to Kerry signed by as many former Swift boat personnel as possible and released to the public.

Debunking Kerry is not a new chore for Burkett.

His book “Stolen Valor” challenges Kerry’s facts and figures that were touted in the old “Winter Soldiers” campaign, which featured ostensible combat vets grieving at the horrors of what the U.S. perpetrated in Vietnam.

Burkett took special notice of Kerry's claim that the core of the war protesters contained 150 honorably discharged vets of the conflict. His own painstaking research indicates that scores of the membership did not, in fact, serve. In some cases, there was no record of some individuals having ever matriculated in the U.S. armed forces.

Like so many vets, says Burkett, he is affronted by Kerry’s about-face – first being shamed of his Vietnam service, but now touting it at every opportunity.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/4/26/131905.shtml

Bandit

Can you email me the Jan Spot reports for COSDIV 11 at velero108@comcast.net I can't seem to open more than the 29th in your link.

Thanks

Tom
_________________
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

[The bandit]

[ASPB]

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Paint Shop Pro 8 can do it.

Thing is, you'll need to have a very fast machine, or have only single pages of pdfs, or they'll take forever to open in PSP8.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[Me#1You#10]

Can't you also do a "print screen" then paste it into MSPAINT and save as a .bmp?

[BL]

What are we trying to accomplish folks? I can probably get it done on my end, fast machine and access to a slew of programs, email is bill_con2004 (at) yahoo.com just let me know what is needed and I will do my best

[The bandit]

[BL]

bandit, I can do it using ImageReady and Photoshop, however, I am not posting it up on a site, so please send me a pm with your email addy so I can send them to you, thanks.

[ASPB]

[BL]

Will do, it came out to be 4.4 megs for all 20 pages. It is in a zip file, I am still uploading bandits copy, after that is done and sent, you are next, after that, I am going to bed for the evening,

UPDATE: Bandit done, you are uploading now, should send off in a few minutes, if you have anything else for me to do, just reply back to my email though I probably won't get to it until tomorrow!

UPDATE2: DONE! Please let me know how they came out!