Kerry, did he inflate his wartime record?Follow

This is a reprint of something going around the internet, so take it with a grain of salt, but if there is any veracity in it you have to question his integrity.

Without further ado,

"I was in the Delta shortly after he left. I know that area well. I
know the operations he was involved in well. I know the tactics and
the doctrine used. I know the equipment. Although I was attached to
CTF-116 (PBRs) I spent a fair amount of time with CTF-115 (swift
boats), Kerry's command.

Here are my problems and suspicions:

(1) Kerry was in-country less than four months and collected, a
Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three purple hearts. I never heard of
anybody with any outfit I worked with (including SEAL One, the Sea Wolves, Riverines and the River Patrol Force) collecting that much hardware so fast, and for such pedestrian actions. The Swifts did a commendable job.

But that duty wasn't the worst you could draw. They operated only
along the coast and in the major rivers (Bassac and Mekong). The
rough stuff in the hot areas was mainly handled by the smaller, faster
PBRs.

(2) Three Purple Hearts but no limp. All injuries so minor that no
time lost from duty. Amazing luck. Or he was putting himself in
for medals every time he bumped his head on the wheel house hatch?
Combat on the boats was almost always at close range. You didn't have
minor wounds. At least not often. Not three times in a row. Then he
used the three purple hearts to request a trip home eight months before
the end of his tour. Fishy.

(3) The details of the event for which he was given the Silver Star
make no sense at all. Supposedly, a B-40 was fired at the boat and
missed. Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand, the bow
gunner knocks him down with the twin .50, Kerry beaches the boat, jumps
off, shoots Charlie, and retreives the launcher. If true, he did
everything wrong.

(a) Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put
your stern to the action and go balls to the wall. A B-40 has the
ballistic integrity of a frisbie after about 25 yards, so you put 50 yards or
so between you and the beach and begin raking it with your .50's.

(b) Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a .50 caliber
round and get up? The guy was dead or dying. The rocket launcher
was empty. There was no reason to go after him (except if you knew he
was no danger to you just flopping around in the dust during his last
few seconds on earth, and you wanted some derring do in your
after-action report). And we didn't shoot wounded people. We had rules against that, too.

(c) Kerry got off the boat. This was a major breach of standing
procedures. Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat in a hot
area EVER! The reason was simple. If you had somebody on the beach your boat was defenseless. It coudn't run and it couldn' t return fire.
It was stupid and it put his crew in danger. He should have been
relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any boat crewman ever leaving a boat during or after a firefight.

Something is fishy.

Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial
for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by
running across the bow of a *** destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long
enough to get good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job
where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early,
requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he
can run for Congress, finds out war heros don't sell well in Massachsetts
in 1970.

So he reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the
dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets
Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and Bobby Kennedy's
speechwriter to do the heavy lifting, winds up in the Senate himself
a few years later, votes against every major defense bill, says the
CIA is irrelevant after the Wall came down, votes against the Gulf War, a
big mistake since that turned out well, decides not to make the same
mistake twice so votes for invading Iraq.

Oops, that didn't turn out so well so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war.

I'm real glad you or I never had this guy covering out flanks in
Vietnam. I sure don't want him as Commander in Chief. I hope that
somebody from CTF-115 shows up with some facts challenging Kerry's
Vietnam record. I know in my gut it's wildy inflated. And fishy.

Make of that what you want. What the heck, throw in Bush's war record if you are so disposed, but it makes for interesting reading nonetheless.

Totem

Coo.

Thanks for clearing that up, Jophiel.

Totem

Heheh! Caught me in the midst of my diabolical plan!

:D

Totem

...not like the military of today where an officer can receive a purple heart for getting scratched trying to push their way to the front of a crowd of people for a chance at a photo shot in wide spread media article..thats the one I served in.

As far as I know, one cannot recommend one's self for any decoration. But then again, I never tried it either.





I seem to recall officer's having only six month tours. A policy roundly criticized by enlisted pukes because their's was a year, but the Pentagon felt it necessary to cycle junior officers through more quickly in order to spread the combat experience around.




Heroic actions rarely do. That's part of what makes them heroic.



Wihout any bonafides from the writer, I really can't give it much credence. The whole thing strikes me as a bit fishy.

I've no idea if the email is "authentic" or not, in that I don't really know if some crotchety old man sat down and penned it sincerely or not. I do know that Snopes has actual quotes from people involved in Kerry's medals backing up their opinion and the email has the ramblings of the author to back it up. It's not as if writing a half-cocked letter lacking the facts and making jumps of logic to reach an opinioned conclusion you already hold takes any special skill.

the burden is on the email's author to prove something is "fishy" and, so far, he completely failed.

Edited, Tue Mar 2 20:46:57 2004 by Jophiel

I can speak directly to this since I just spoke to my father, a retired Army officer, about this twenty minutes ago. He served a thirteen month hardship tour with a two week furlough six months into it. Smaller three day passes were given out on a basis of merit and longevity. He says this was the norm during the time he spent there ('69-'70).

Totem

He died, like so many young men of his generation, he died before his time. In your wisdom, Lord, you took him, as you took so many bright flowering young men at Khe Sanh, at Langdok, at Hill 364. These young men gave their lives. And so would -

Oh, whoops. Hehe!

Meh, be well, Grady. Don't post until after your first cup of coffee. It will improve your sense of humor. He was, after all, just making a half assed attempt at being ironical. :)

Well. There's your problem, G. There's a guy I want you to meet.

Stok? I got some business for ya!

Totem

fish, it mentions several times in this thread that three purple hearts is enough to get you out of combat duty. you are a moron.

that is all.

/sigh

If only we all had such stringent criteria.... the world would be a better place.