I've moved this to its own page because of download time.
Return to the respect (issues/debunker) page
Who are the Swiftboat fellows?
Who is actually pulling the strings and financing them?
Who actually served under John Kerry?
What do his evaluations say?
What's this about Cambodia?
Kranish
First, there is a thorough debunker here: http://www.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/080504_truth.html
Also, since the swiftboat vets "for truth" ads began airing, and Unfit for Command was published, several eyewitnesses have come forward, including William Rood of the Chicago Tribune, Robert Lambert, Pat Runyon, Jim Russell, Wayne D. Langhofer.
Who are these people? Although the they are often identified as "John Kerry's shipmates," only one of them, Steven Gardner, actually served under Lt. Kerry's command on a Swift boat.
John O'Neill, the leader of the swiftboat veterans "for truth" is on record as having lied about the role of the swift boat operators in Cambodia. In 1971, this was his videotaped conversation with Nixon:
O'NEILL: I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border
on the water.
NIXON: In a swift boat?
O'NEILL: Yes, sir.
However, he later claimed that no one could cross the border by river and he claimed in an audio tape that his publicist played to CNN that he, himself, had never been to Cambodia either.
O'Neill was originally hand picked by Nixon to destroy Kerry's career, back in the 70's. They had a fairly famous debate on the Dick Cavett show, in which O'Neill didn't fare very well. O'Neill doesn't like to talk about that. One would think that O'Neill, as the leader of this group, would actually have known something about Kerry's service - especially after reading an OP-Ed he wroted, entitled: "I was on Mr. Kerry's boat in Vietnam. He doesn't deserve to be commander in chief." However, he did not serve with Kerry. He arrived in Vietnam after Kerry had already left. O'Neill provided $25,000 of the group's funding.
Jerome Corsi, co-author of Swift Boat Vets attack book. Here are some quotes by him, so you can judge his character for yourself:
• Corsi on Islam: "a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion"
• Corsi on Catholicism: "Boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press"
• Corsi on Muslims: "RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together"
• Corsi on "John F*ing Commie Kerry": "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"
Retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann,
chairman and co-founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, can’t
figure out if he knew Kerry or not. May
6: "Hoffman acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to discredit
Kerry's claims to valor and said that although Kerry was under his command,
he really didn't know Kerry much personally." Hoffman and Kerry had
few direct dealings in Vietnam. A Los Angeles Times examination of Navy
archives found that Hoffman praised Kerry's performance in cabled messages
after several river skirmishes. Los Angeles Times. 5 July 2004 (p. A1).
Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann was the commander of Task Force 115. The March 18, 1969, weekly report from Task Force 115 describes the incident that resulted in one of Kerry's purple hearts as "an enemy initiated firefight" that included automatic weapons fire and underwater mines used against a group of five boats that included Kerry's. The Task Force's report supports Kerry's description of the event for which he won a Bronze Star and a third Purple Heart - although Hoffman - the commander of that task force - claims now that this isn't what happened.
Captain George Elliot, who served in Vietnam at the same time Kerry did, condemns Kerry now for touting his service in a war that Kerry later protested. ... But Elliot and other critics of today, praised him for going after the enemy. Here's what he said. " In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive action LTJG Kerry was unsurpassed. He constantly reviewed tactics and lessons learned in river operations and applied his experience at every opportunity. On one occasion while in tactical command of a three boat operation his units were taken under fire from ambush. LTJG Kerry rapidly assessed the situation and ordered his units to turn directly into the ambush. This decision resulted in routing the attackers with several enemy KIA. LTJG Kerry emerges as the acknowledged leader in his peer group. His bearing and appearance are above reproach. He has of his own volition learned the Vietnamese language and is instrumental in the successful Vietnamese training program." That's a report of officer fitness from 1969 by George Elliott.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200405050004
In 1996 he praised Kerry’s service in Vietnam during his Senate race. In the book, he alleges that Kerry did not deserve the Silver Star. Then he said he made a ''terrible mistake" in signing an affidavit to this affect. He said he still thinks Kerry deserved the Silver Star. ''I still don't think he shot the guy in the back," Elliott said. ''It was a terrible mistake probably for me to sign the affidavit with those words. I'm the one in trouble here."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/06/veteran_retracts_criticism_of_kerry/
He has apparently retracted that version now. He admits he was not a witness to the events he has so vehemently criticized.
Grant Hibbard, a lieutenant commander in Vietnam during Kerry's tour, described Kerry in various favorable ways, including, "One of the top few in his willingness to seek and accept responsibility." In his evaluaton on Kerry, he marked a few performance categories, noting that Kerry's initiative, cooperation, and bearing ranked among the top few. But unlike other evaluators who wrote about specific actions by Kerry, Hibbard did not do so, providing this explanation: "The short period LTJG Kerry was attached to Coast Division 14 prevents further evaluation."
Captain Adrian Lonsdale, USCG (retired), said "I don't like what he said after the war. "But he was a good naval officer,”Los Angeles Times. 29 July 2004 (p. A13). From the November 4, 1996, issue of South Coast Today: "Adrian Lonsdale remembers a young John F. Kerry as a naval officer who was a good debater, even back in his days in Vietnam. "'He and I and others used to have long discussions at the officers club,' said Mr. Lonsdale of Mattapoisett, a former Coast Guard officer who commanded a division in which the Massachusetts senator was attached back in 1969. 'They were very spirited discussions about the war and the politics back home.' "'He was opposed to the war but it didn't make any difference in his performance,' said the former owner and still instructor at Northeast Maritime Institute in New Bedford. 'He was a very good officer.' "Capt. Lonsdale was among a group of former Vietnam veterans the Massachusetts Democrat brought to the Charlestown navy yard recently to rebut a Boston Globe column that raised questions about Sen. Kerry's Vietnam service, particularly the Silver Star he won. "Mr. Lonsdale was in charge of a two-division flotilla opereating [sic] out of Phu Quoc, a big island near the Cambodian border. One division was made up of Swift boats, fast 50-foot offshore boats, while the other was composed of 82-foot Coast Guard patrol boats." Note this is not a fitness report
Steven Gardner, who said "I don't know what conclusions you can draw about someone's ability to lead from their combat experience, but John's service was commendable," said James J. Galvin, a former Swift boat officer . . . "He played by the same rules we all did. Los Angeles Times. 5 July 2004 (p. A1).
"Gardner admitted that "he was not on the boat with Kerry during the incidents for which Kerry got his medals," reported The Columbus Dispatch on August 6. And as a guest on Michael Savage's radio show, Savage Nation, on August 2, Gardner said that of Kerry's three Purple Hearts, he could only attest to the first; Gardner later admitted to Savage that he was "not on the boat with him " when that injury occurred."
Captain Charles Plumly, USN (retired) Kerry was under his command for too short a time to be rated by Plumly.
Lt. Col. James Zumwalt is the son of Admiral Zumwalt, who signed Kerry's silver star recommendation. In 1996, Admiral Zumwalt defended John Kerry in the midst of a close political campaign. His son has decided to speak on his behalf on the website.
Louis Letson implies in the ad that he is the doctor who treated Kerry's wound. First, he is not a doctor. Second, Navy records show he is not the person who treated Kerry.
Larry Thurlow was never a crewmate of John Kerry, but he, and his boat were also entrapped in the same ambush as Kerry in March of 1969. He claims now that one of the Swift Boats did hit a mine on the day Kerry earned a Bronze Star for his bravery, but that there was no enemy fire. His account does not match the memory of Jim Rassmann, who was being shot at by the enemy during the incident, not the official after action report, which he never contested at the time, when he - coincidentally - also received a bronze medal for the events described in it. The Official After-Action Report states: “Larry Thurlow had maneuvered his PCF-51 over (to the disabled) PCF-3, and by and hopped aboard to offer assistance. The boat was in shambles but they were still returning fire and could not therefore assess any damage” The Report continues….“all boats received heavy A/W [automatic weapons] & S/A [small arms] from both banks…all boats returned fire …PCF-94 [Kerry’s boat] picked up special forces advisor who went overboard. PCF-94 towed PCF-3.” [U.S. Navy After Action Report:). Other official navy documents show that there were bullet holes in Thurlow's boat, although he claims there was no enemy fire. There are no reports of Thurlow returning his bronze star to the army. He claims he "didn't know" why he got it. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KERRY_WAR_CRITIC?SITE=CATOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Retired Air Force Col. Ken Cordier appeared in a swift boat ad at the same time that he was working as a campaign advisor to Bush - although coordination of any sort between the two organizations is illegal. Once the Kerry campaign announced they were filing a lawsuit over connections between the organizations, he quit his position as an advisor. (CNN.com; 8/22/04)
Andrew Horne, Jeffrey Wainscott, Robert Elder, Joseph Ponder, Barnard Wolff, David Wallace, William Shumadine, Richard O'Meara, Robert Brant, and James Steffes, do not appear to have first hand knowledge of Kerry’s actions in combat but rather are opposed to the stance he took after the war, upon returning to the United States.
Who is behind the Swiftboat felllows?
Benjamin Ginsberg was advising the veterans group at the same time that he was giving counsel to the Bush campaign. He announced his resignation from Bush's campaign because of the conflict of interest on August 25, 2004.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were promoted by a Bush-Cheney Campaign Office in Gainesville, Fla, which was distributing fliers illegally on their behalf, promoting an event for them with republican candidates speaking at it also. A number of speakers pulled out after complaints of illegality. (AP, 8/20/04)
The Republican Party of Minnesota paid
for a website which, in addition to promoting their normal causes, repeated
the charges of the SBVT, linked the their ads, and promoted their book
directly, providing a link to it.
http://www.usnewswire.com/
Spaeth Communications. The group is receiving public relations help from Spaeth Communications, a Dallas-based firm owned by Spaeth, a former Reagan administration media official. Her late husband, H.J. "Tex" Lezar, was the Republican nominee for Texas lieutenant governor in 1994. Spaeth is among the most experienced and best connected Republican communications executives. During the Reagan administration she served as director of the White House Office of Media Liaison, where she specialized in promoting "news" items that boosted President Reagan to TV stations around the country. While living in Washington she met and married Lezar, a Reagan Justice Department lawyer who ran for lieutenant governor of Texas in 1994 with George W. Bush, then the party's candidate for governor. (Lezarlost; Bush won.)
Through Lezar, who died of a heart attack last January, she met O'Neill, his law partner in Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson, a Dallas firm. (It also includes Margaret Wilson, the former counsel to Gov. Bush who followed him to Washington, where she served for a time as a deputy counsel in the Department of Commerce.)
Spaeth's partisanship runs still deeper, as does her history of handling difficult P.R. cases for Republicans. In 1998, for example, she coached Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel, to prepare him for his testimony urging the impeachment of President Clinton before the House Judiciary Committee. She even reviewed videotapes of his previous television appearances to give him pointers about his delivery and demeanor. The man responsible for arranging her advice to Starr was Theodore Olson, her daughter's godfather, who was counsel to the right-wing American Spectator when it acted as a front for the dirty-tricks campaign against Clinton known as the Arkansas Project; he is now the solicitor general in the Bush Justice Department.
In 2000, Spaeth participated in the most subterranean episode of the Republican primary contest when a shadowy group billed as "Republicans for Clean Air" produced television ads falsely attacking the environmental record of Sen. John McCain in California, New York and Ohio. While the identity of those funding the supposedly "independent" ads was carefully hidden, reporters soon learned that Republicans for Clean Air was simply Sam Wyly -- a big Bush contributor and beneficiary of Bush administration decisions in Texas -- and his brother, Charles, another Bush "Pioneer" contributor. (One of the Wyly family's private capital funds, Maverick Capital of Dallas, had been awarded a state contract to invest $90 million for the University of Texas endowment.)
Robert J. Perry, paid $100,000 to the group this year, or about two-thirds of the money in its accounts as of June 30, according to financial documents. Perry has donated more than $5 million to political candidates over the years. He worked with White House political director Karl Rove during Rove's Texas years, and gave $20,000 to Bush's two campaigns for governor in the 1990s. He has given nearly $1 million to the Texas Republican Party. He donated about $700,000 to the GOP efforts in Texas for the 2002 election cycle. His company, Perry Homes, has been sued dozens of times. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-perry8aug08,1,6263123.story
"Mr. Perry has given $200,000 to Swift Boat Veterans. He is listed as co-host on an invitation to a fund-raiser next week at the Tavern on the Green in Manhattan. The invitation list includes President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, The Dallas Morning News reported on Tuesday. Mr. Rove has acknowledged through a spokesman to being friends with Mr. Perry," according to the New York Times.
Harlan Crow gave $25,000 to fund this group. "Harlan Crow is a managing partner of Crow Family Holdings of Dallas and helped run his family's international commercial real estate firm Trammell Crow Company. He has conservative friends in high places and serves on numerous conservative political boards. He was a contributor to the political campaigns of both Bush presidents.
Crow is a member of the founders committee of the Club For Growth, a conservative political group that raises money uses it to influence public policy and elect political candidates who advocate the "Reagan vision of limited government and lower taxes."
Texans for Public Justice and Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings, public watchdog groups in Texas, have criticized the wealthy businessman for making contributions to Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a conservative political lobbying group which protects the interest of big business. They claim he runs a business which leads the state in workplace deaths and injuries." http://www.savannahnow.com/stories/101401/LOClibrary.shtml
In 1988, he and Vice President Dick Cheney served on the board of trustees of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank that funds research promoting conservative business and political interests. AEI promotes neo-conservative ideals and has close ties to the current Bush Administration. On February 26, 2003 President Bush was the key-note speaker at the American Enterprise Institute. He enthused that, at AEI, "Some of the finest minds of our nation are at work on some of the greatest challenges to our nation. You do such good work that my administration has borrowed twenty such minds. I want to thank them for their service" (Quoted by J. Pilger (2004) the Case for Civil Disobedience in Tell Me Lies Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq, ed. D. Miller, Pluto Press, p25) AEI has been an avid opponent of the Kyoto protocol, as well as most other environmental regulations. AEI climate science skeptics include James K. Glassman, also of ExxonMobil-funded Tech Central Station. ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond is on the AEI board of trustees. ExxonMobil gave AEI approximately $925,000 between 1998 and 2003. http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=9
Crow is a trustee of the George
Bush Presidential Library Foundation.
Stevens, Reed, Curcio and Potham, produced
the ad, scheduled to air in a few markets in Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
They are the same team that produced McCain's ads in 2000. "I wish
they hadn't done it," McCain said of his former advisers. "I
don't know if they knew all the facts." [AP, 8/5/04]
Gannon International. "On closer inspection, the ostensibly nonpartisan "Swift Boat Vets" seem to have another pair of significant sponsors with deep and long-standing Republican connections in Missouri. Both are officers of Gannon International, a St. Louis conglomerate that does lots of overseas business in, of all places, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Ties to Gannon can be traced via the Swift Boat Vets web site. On April 14, the site was registered under the name of Lewis Waterman, Gannon's information technology manager, at 11301 Olive Boulevard in St. Louis, the firm's headquarters address. Although Waterman wouldn't discuss why he had set up the Web site, he didn't deny that his boss, Gannon president and CEO William Franke, had asked him to do so. "The information about my client is confidential," said Waterman. He acknowledged knowing, however, that his boss Franke is a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam on swift boats. Gannon vice president Stephen Hayes, who oversees the company's office in Alexandria, Va., is likewise a swift boat veteran who first met Franke when they served together in the Mekong Delta.
While neither Franke nor Hayes returned calls seeking confirmation of their roles in the Swift Boat Veterans organization, it seems obvious that Waterman wouldn't have set up the group's Web site using Gannon's corporate address without approval from his employers. Franke is well known in Missouri as a longtime Republican Party activist and financier. In 1976, he managed John Danforth's victorious Senate campaign; two years later, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress. He also failed in an attempt to resuscitate the defunct St. Louis Globe-Democrat (which was, despite its name, a staunchly Republican newspaper) in 1986. Before the Globe-Democrat finally went under in 1987, Franke had obtained a commitment from the state industrial development authority -- all of whose members were appointed by then Gov. John Ashcroft -- to raise $9 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds to keep the paper afloat.
Last June, Franke gave the maximum $2,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign, and he has since donated an additional $2,000 to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's political action committee, Americans for a republican majority, and $2,000 more to keep our majority, the PAC operated by House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Hayes left a long career in government to join Franke's company in 1993. His résumé is littered with public relations posts in Republican administrations dating back at least to 1984, when he worked as a transition spokesman for Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. Hemoved on to similar jobs at the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Agency for International Development.
Following the departure of the first Bush administration, Hayes joined Gannon. He maintains his conservative credentials as a director of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, an organization that promotes "faith-based diplomacy" to resolve global conflicts. (Among this outfit's other board members are a former Republican congressman from Ohio, an author of books and articles arguing against evolution, and former Reagan national security advisor Robert McFarlane, forced to resign for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal.)
What is most intriguing about Franke, Hayes, and Gannon -- especially in light of their apparent role in the campaign against John Kerry -- are their strong commercial interests in Southeast Asia. While Gannon is a highly diversified holding company whose divisions range from real estate in Florida and Missouri to Internet technology and software, it maintains an unusual presence in Vietnam, with offices in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Indeed, Gannon has operated in that country's tourism, real estate and import-export sectors for a decade. (The target market for its tours was fellow Vietnam veterans.)
None of Gannon's profitable activities in the communist republic would be possible, of course, without the approval of the Hanoi government, which Franke has described as "strong" and "stable." Nor would Gannon be conducting business in Vietnam without the Clinton administration diplomacy, assisted by Sen. Kerry, that established diplomatic and trade ties with the United States in 1994. Franke first began traveling to Vietnam on behalf of Operation Smile, an American charity that provides plastic surgery to children abroad. The relationships he established during those humanitarian missions provided a considerable advantage in doing business under government auspices.
It was also during those early visits to Vietnam, as he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, that Franke reached a clearer understanding of the war he had once fought as a young Navy lieutenant.
"As I looked back 20 years, I saw that it was a very imperial relationship we had with these people," said Franke in 1989. "We were young. We were there because we were told to be there and that they were the enemy. This time I saw them as human beings who had fears and hopes the same as we."
Yet he evidently cannot forgive John Kerry for reaching the same conclusion about that war and its victims, so many years before he finally did.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/05/14/gannon/index_np.html
Here are the crewmates who served with Kerry in Vietnam. All but Steve Gardner support John Kerry and stood with him as he made his speech to the DNC. (except Tom Belodeau who is deceased).
David Alston
Rev. Alston is from Columbia, SC and served in Vietnam in the Navy as
a Gunners Mate on PCF-94 with Senator Kerry.
“David Alston was the gunner atop Kerry's pilot house. Kerry, he told an audience here, was a compassionate commander. ‘We were in a lot of firefights,’ Alston said. ‘You learn a lot about people. After a firefight, John would come up to me and he would put his hand on me and he'd say, 'David, are you all right?’ ‘I didn't know then that I had a man of God on my boat,’ Kerry said. ‘That's probably why I'm here today’.” [Orlando Sentinel, 1/31/04]
‘Down in the Mekong Delta, we lived together, we fought together, we bled together and we survived together,’ said Alston. ‘Whether we were Democratic or Republican was not the issue,’ he said. ‘The issues at that time were trust, courage, judgment and character.’ Alston attached those attributes to Kerry and introduced his friend with no further ceremony.” [Providence Journal-Bulletin, 3/23/03]
Alston is the crewmate who
gave a speech at the DNC. The text is here:
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/
Del Sandusky
Mr. Sandusky is from Dunedin, FL and served in Vietnam in the Navy as
the senior enlisted man on PCF-94 with Senator Kerry.
“Kerry commanded a Navy
‘Swift Boat’ that patrolled the Mekong delta. His crew recalls
Kerry as brainy and extremely aggressive, ‘a good leader and a bit
of a hard-charger,’ says Del Sandusky from Elgin, Ill.” [Washington
Post, 6/2/02]
“Del Sandusky, 58, of Elgin, Ill., and Clearwater, Fla., served
under Kerry on a patrol boat in 1969. When another boat hit a mine, Kerry
ordered the dead and injured brought on board and the sinking boat towed,
six or seven miles, to the Gulf of Tonkin. Because Americans had died
on the boat, Kerry, out of loyalty, wouldn't leave it behind for the enemy.
‘All the boat crew men volunteered to help in anyway we can,’
with Kerry's political campaigns, Sandusky said. ‘Whatever he wants,
we'll help him with. Because we believe in him.’ ” [AP, 12/6/02]
Fred Short
Mr. Short is from North Little Rock, AR and served in Vietnam in the Navy
as a Gunners Mate on PCF-94 with Senator Kerry.
"In 1969, I was Sen. Kerry's gun mate atop of the Swift boat in Vietnam. And I just wanted to let everyone know that, contrary to all the rumors that you might hear from the other side, Sen. Kerry's blood is red, not blue. I know, I've seen it.
"If it weren't for Sen.
John Kerry, on the 28th of February 1969, the day he won the Silver Star
. . . you and I would not be having this conversation. My name would be
on a long, black wall in Washington, D.C. I saw this man save my life."3
3La Ganga, Maria L. "Crewmates Attest to Kerry's Mettle as Wartime
Commander." Los Angeles Times. 29 July 2004 (p. A13). Zoroya, Greg.
"Vietnam Crewmates Steady at Kerry's Side." USA Today. 29 July
2004 (p. A4).
Gene Thorson
Mr. Thorson is from Ames, Iowa and served in Vietnam in the Navy as a
Engineman on PCF-94 with Senator Kerry.
In support of this grassroots deployment, 73,000 Iowa veteran households received a mailing in December from Kerry's Vietnam swift boat crewmate Gene Thorsen, of Ames, IA, rallying them to "stand up for John Kerry the same way he stands up for veterans."
He said he knew back then that the skipper of his boat, John Kerry, was bound for high places. Almost 30 years later, Thorson got a call from Kerry asking for political help. Now, he often gives up his weekends to travel with other veterans and campaign with Kerry on his run for president.
By: Matt Neznanski, Staff
Writer July 19, 2004
Ames Tribune
"He took care of all of
us. He really did," Thorson said.
Des Moines Register
Tom Belodeau is deceased, he served on PCF-94 with Kerry
Kerry was helped by the fact
that Belodeau stood beside him and said he had been misquoted."This
man was not lying on the ground. This man was more than capable of destroying
that boat and everybody on it. Senator Kerry did not give him that opportunity,"
Belodeau said. He also said that he was not sure whether or not he had
hit the attacker.
May 06, 2004 National Review Online
Mike Medeiros
Mr. Medeiros is from San Leandros, California and served in Vietnam in
the Navy on PCF-94 with Senator Kerry.
"He made good decisions,
I believe proper decisions," said Mike Medeiros of San Leandro, Calif.,
who served for four months on Kerry's swift boat in Vietnam. "And
the fact that we all returned alive is a good indication that they were
the right decisions."Medeiros was reunited with Kerry in 1996, when
Republicans were attacking his military record in a heated Senate race.
Kerry's crew mates came to set the record straight at the Charlestown
Navy Yard, the same place they stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the eve of
his nomination acceptance.
ABCNEWS.com July 28, 2004 From AP
Jim Wasser
Mr. Wasser is from St. Anne, IL and served in Vietnam in the Navy as a
Radarman on PCF-44 with Senator Kerry.
Mr. Kerry took command of P.C.F.-44
with a veteran crew headed by Mr. Wasser, a radarman second class. "Always,
when there's a new guy on the boat, you check him out," Mr. Wasser
said. "It only took me a few days. We knew that we had somebody special
that cared for us. We bonded."
Combative and politically conservative, Mr. Wasser, from Kankakee, Ill.,
had a pair of American flags tattooed on his shoulder and still loathes
Jane Fonda.
NYTimes Febuary 24 2004
What I saw back then [in Vietnam]
was a guy with genuine caring and leadership ability who was aggressive
when he had to be. What I see now is a guy who's not afraid to tackle
tough issues. And he knows what the consequences are of putting people's
kids in harm's way."
2. Braun, Stephen. "Kerry's War Tour Serves as Theme, Target."
Los Angeles Times. 29 July 2004 (p. A13). Brinkley, Douglas. Tour of Duty:
John Kerry and the Vietnam War. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. ISBN 0-06-056523-3.
Klein, Joe. "The Long War of John Kerry." The New Yorker. 2
December 2002. Kranish, Michael. "John F. Kerry: Candidate in the
Making — Part 2: Heroism, and Growing Concern About War." The
Boston Globe. 16 June 2003.
Drew Whitlow
Mr. Whitlow is from Huntsville, AR and served in Vietnam in the Navy as
a Boatswain Mate on PCF-44 with Senator Kerry.
“I figured with the abilities
he had, he was going to go high, but I didn’t have any idea about
him running for president,” said Whitlow, 57, wearing a cap decorated
with Kerry campaign pins.
Whitlow said he recalled Kerry as a humble seaman when he joined Whitlow’s
crew as a lieutenant junior grade in 1968.
Kerry told crewmates, “I know you guys don’t need me but I
sure need you,” said Whitlow, who served as a boatswain mate.
“He accepted us for who we were,” Whitlow said. “The
decisions that he made saved our lives.
“He never shot from the hip when it came to decisions,” Whitlow
said. “He’d always confront the problems head on.”
Whitlow, a Kerry campaign coordinator for veterans in western and southern
Arkansas, began campaigning for Kerry in September 2003. In January, Whitlow
traveled with Kerry to Iowa and New Hampshire.
The Times Record Fort Smith, Arkansas Thursday, July 29, 2004
Bill Zaladonis
Mr. Zaladonis is from Sanford, FL and served in Vietnam in the Navy on
PCF-44 with Senator Kerry.
"I never saw John back
down from anything," crewmember Bill Zaladonis says
April 13, 2004 USA Today
Steve Hatch
Mr. Hatch served in Vietnam in the Navy on PCF-44 with Senator Kerry.
Stephen W. Hatch of Altoona, Pa., with four tattoos, who says he supports
Mr. Kerry though he wants no part of politics.
NYTimes Febuary 24 2004
"He wouldn't let you go
randomly down the river shooting up everything in sight," says Stephen
Hatch, who served on the first of Kerry's two boats.
April 13, 2004 USA Today
Stephen M. Gardner
His accounts differ sharply from the other men sho served under Kerry's
command.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0...,599034,00.html
Jim Rassmann
(not a crewmate, but has first hand knowledge of John Kerry's actions
in combat)
Mr. Rassmann is from Florence, OR and served in Vietnam as a Special Forces
Officer in the Army. He clung to the net as bullets whizzed past. ‘Next
thing I knew, John came out in the middle of all this,’ Rassmann
says. ‘I couldn't believe it. He was going to get killed. He ran
to the edge, reached over with his good arm [Kerry had been wounded in
his right arm] and pulled me over the lip.’ Rassmann later recommended
Kerry for the Silver Star, and was upset when the Army instead awarded
Kerry a lesser Bronze Star with a ‘V’ for valor.” [Los
Angeles Times, 3/13/04]
See what the people who actually worked with him say: http://www.johnkerry.com/video/console.php?video=072604_under_fire#072604_under_fire
What his commanders said about him (there aren't any negative descriptions - none.) :
http://www.johnkerry.com/about/Recommendations_For_Next.pdf
http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Fitness_Reports.pdf
As far as allegations about his medals, probably the most neutral source would be snopes.com, which specializes in verifying or disproving urban legends.
Apparently the swiftboat fellows are upset because John Kerry said on the floor of the senate in the 1980's:
'I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared--seared--in me.'
The charge: that Kerry was never in Cambodia, and in 1986, Kerry deliberately fabricated this elaborate lie to persuade people he was there, rather than in Vietnam.
Specifically, John O'Neill (who was not in Vietnam when Kerry was there) says: “Kerry was never in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War. . . . he was more than fifty miles away from Cambodia.”...Kerry was stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo. Coastal Division 13’s patrol areas..." This conflicts with another swiftboat fellow's statement, though ...
Robert Brant, PCF#36 says:..."I served in Vietnam as a boat officer from June of 1968 to July of 1969. My service was three months in Coastal Division 13 out of Cat Lo, and nine months with Coastal Division 11 based in An Thoi. John Kerry was in An Thoi the same time I was..."
Here is a map of the area:
Here's Kerry's boat, PCF #66, out of An Thoi. Search for Kerry's name on the page, and you'll see he was patrolling An Thoi in December 1968. http://swiftboats.net/#pcf66
Here are the names of the associated patrol areas:
http://swiftboats.net/extras/patrol_areas.htm
Patrol Areas 9B thru 9H1 (An Thoi) are right on the Cambodian border. Cat Lo is 5B through 5F, btw.
What do other vets say?
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who chairs Bush's campaign in Arizona, says the ad is dishonest and has called on the president's campaign to disavow it. Retired Army general Tommy Franks, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, told ABC's This Week on Sunday that Kerry is "absolutely" qualified to be commander in chief.
Other
stories confirm the allegations of the Winter Soldiers Testimony.
Elliot's retraction of his affadavit: Drudge recently erroneously reported that Kranish, the 20-year Globe veteran who reported Elliot's retraction of his initial affadavit, had written the introduction to a Kerry-authorized campaign book, "Our Plan for America: Stronger at Home, Respected in the World." In fact, Kranish had no connection to the Kerry campaign book and did not write its introduction.
Baron noted that earlier this summer Kranish worked with PublicAffairs -- the publisher of the Boston Globe biography of Kerry, "John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best" -- to write a short introduction to a second project: an independent, unauthorized review of publicly available documents dealing with the platform and policy statements of Kerry and Edwards. That project was in no way connected with the Kerry-Edwards campaign, Baron said.
"When PublicAffairs subsequently struck an agreement with the Kerry campaign to do an official campaign book, Kranish's relationship with the project immediately ended," Baron said.
Peter Osnos, publisher of PublicAffairs, said both Drudge and Amazon, the online bookseller peddling the upcoming Kerry-Edwards book, had made a mistake in suggesting Kranish had written its introduction.
"As far as I can tell, if there's any malign intent here, it was someone making Drudge think Michael was somehow doing something for [Kerry's] campaign," Osnos said.
The Globe book, "John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography," is an unauthorized biography. The work draws on extensive interviews with the candidate, all conducted before 2004. After he emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kerry declined to cooperate with further interviews. Source: Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | August 7, 2004