SwiftVets.com

[CandiM]

Check this out

http://www.vote-smart.org/speech_detail.php?speech_id=4724&keyword=seared&phrase=&contain=

Most notably this

[AF366TFW]

Lest I be called a Kerry supporter (GASP!). He was on the Gridley in the Gulf of Tonkin at that time. They will no doubt spin it that way.
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Aim High! The wife hates cleaning the floor!

[Chuck54]

All time, all history, is squashed into those four months Kerry was in Vietnam.

I am a waiting to hear about his reaction while he was in Vietnam to the tragic news that the Japanese just bombed Pearl Harbor!!
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"And no pair has been more wrong, more loudly, more often, than the two Senators from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry"

Zell Miller

[kate]

Brit Hume just reported on it too
Kerry can run but he cant hide, anymore
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one of..... We The People

[George Danenhauer]

I'm looking at Kerry's Request for Swiftboat transfer, dated Feb. 10 1968, indicating he was currently on the U.S.S. Gridley which was scheduled for return from WESTPAC deployment in June 1968. Two questions:

1. Could Kerry argue that the Gridley was somehow in "Vietnam" because it was serving in waters nearby in April 1968? (I note that Item 4 of the Request for transfer talks about his desire to serve in Vietnam Item 1 says "I request duty in Vietnam" - implying he did not consider service on the Gridley as serving in Vietnam). "A Place of Violence" also seems possibly inappropriate if he was on the Gridley.

2. Question for Navy vets - Kerry says "crewmates" in the April 2004 quote - Would fellow sailors on the Gridley have been referred to as "crewmates" or might this phrase be more commonly used to refer to Swift Boat fellow sailors? If crewmates implies Swift Boat sailors, it seems even more of an indictment - not just a mistatement as to where he was at ... but a mistatement as to who he was with.

[Theresa Alwood]

Actually Kerry uses his first term on the USS Gridley as his first term. He considers himself as a two tour Vietnam vet!
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Born to raise a little hell!

[Dragoro]

All this on top of the fact that Kerry says he requested to go to Viet Nam, which isnt true. He only enlisted after his request for another deferment was turned down.
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Dragoro's Realm

Dragoro's Realm Forums

[zinfella]

2. Question for Navy vets - Kerry says "crewmates" in the April 2004 quote - Would fellow sailors on the Gridley have been referred to as "crewmates" or might this phrase be more commonly used to refer to Swift Boat fellow sailors? If crewmates implies Swift Boat sailors, it seems even more of an indictment - not just a mistatement as to where he was at ... but a mistatement as to who he was with.[/quote]

Personnel onboard a vessel are broken down as captain and crew, unless there are passengers aboard, when it would be captain, crew, and passengers. However, aboard the Gridley, his fellow crew members would be known as shipmates.
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No whiners!

[Billman]

The location of the Gridley in April 1968 seems uncertain. Per "Unfit for Command", the guided-missile frigate:

"...in December 1967 did guard duty for planes operating in the China Sea and Gulf of Tonkin. To say that Kerry was sent to Vietnam in 1967 exaggerates what was actually service on a deep ocean vessel, involving no combat. Indeed, from June 1967 to November 1967, the Gridley operated along the California coast, and on January 2, 1968, the Gridley sailed for Australia and then returned to Long Beach, California on June 8. In other words, the Gridley was in what could be considered a "fighting zone" (still far off the coast of Vietnam) for probably fewer than 5 weeks while Kerry was aboard"

But a Gridley alum page at http://home.nycap.rr.com/pwcarter/the%20kerry%20page.html says it was a 4-month deployment in the Gulf of Tonkin beginning "early 1968". Some interesting opinions re Kerry on this page.

The Kerry website says:
February 9, 1968
USS Gridley departs for a Western Pacific (WESTPAC) deployment, to engage in operations in support of the Vietnam War. Ship spends time in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam, at Subic Bay in the Philippines and in Wellington, New Zealand
May 27, 1968USS Gridley sets sail for the US

A WESTPAC tour was no picnic, but none of the accounts above would generally be considered a "tour in Vietnam", let alone a "combat tour".
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-- Bill in Seattle

[Mark]

Here we go again in yet another thread....Navy doesn't count unless it's Swifts.
If Gridley was in the Tonkin Gulf (rather than just on Yankee Sation, 16N 110E, where the carriers operated) she was either on North or South SAR operating Jolly Green Giant helos, ready for pilot extractions 24/7. The ships were very exposed up there and had zilch reaction time for any DRV aircraft attacks. USS Higbee was bombed by a MIG while operating with a missile cruiser like Gridley (Sterret) there.
I too was up there, almost all the way to Haiphong, on Maddox 8/64, spent six months in '65 doing on-call NGFS close to shore in I Corps, 9 months on Market Time in 67-68 operating with Swift guys like Bob Shirley
and capped it with the Saigon evacuation (on Gridley) The comments in these threads suggest I should return my VSM and have no business attending the Vietnam Vet rally 9/12.
I suggest we let Kerry have his first tour (on Gridley) and say he was "in Vietnam". Or, some of you can persist and risk turning off thousands of sailors who did night flight ops and night unreps and generally worked their tails off for 8-11 months multiple times and now find out they weren't even there .
By the way, I don't suggest hot meals and your own bunk compare with slogging through the jungle. But that was not a fleet of Queen Marys out there either.
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Retired USN Capt.; Market Time vicinity ChuLai 6/67-2/68; Maddox 8/64 Tonkin Gulf; NGFS I Corps 6-12/65; Saigon evac. 4/75.

[cipher]

[NavyChief]

[NavyChief]

[cipher]

Wow. The MADDOX? You guys were the ones that mixed it up with those torpedo boats in August of '64? Now THAT would be one heck of a war story I'd like to hear.

Thanks for your service, Captain. I'm not at all trying to denegrate the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club or the very real danger faced by the sailors in the combat zone. However, Mr. Kerry seems to always want to spin his service into something much grander than history seems to record.

There is NO comparison between the service of the Gridley and the Maddox, other than they were in the same water, that I can see by reading the wartime service history of the Gridley.
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USMC 69-72, 7th Comm, 3rd MarDiv, FMFPAC
US Army 75-79, 97th Sig, SHAPE, NATO
Arkansas National Guard 79
Defense contractor for US Navy, SSPO, SP-20, SP-24, OP-12 84-92

[cipher]

I should note that the history of the Gridley I am referring to is the the DANFS and the history stops at 1968 (when it was published). So no slight was intended regarding the evacuation of Saigon, which I can only imagine wasn't a picnic.
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USMC 69-72, 7th Comm, 3rd MarDiv, FMFPAC
US Army 75-79, 97th Sig, SHAPE, NATO
Arkansas National Guard 79
Defense contractor for US Navy, SSPO, SP-20, SP-24, OP-12 84-92