Unsubtantiated fodder from an unconfirmed source...FWIW:
_______________________
"I was in the Delta shortly after he [Kerry] 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 he lost no time 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 retrieves 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 Frisbee 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 daring 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
couldn'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 Jap destroyer)
who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get a 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 heroes
don't sell well in Massachusetts in 1970 so 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, but 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 wildly inflated. And fishy."
