McCain condemns ad, Kerry's commander backs off

Soldier with Kerry in '68 says he earned first medal
Soldier with Kerry in '68 says he earned first medal
Monday, August 16, 2004
Bill Sloat
Cleveland Plain Dealer Reporter

Trotwood, Ohio - An Ohio factory worker who was with John Kerry on a dangerous night mission 36 years ago in Vietnam said he has no doubt Kerry was grazed in a firefight and deserves his first Purple Heart for a combat injury.

"We were on about a 14-foot boat with an outboard motor. We started out, taking a guess, around 10 p.m. We were sup posed to sneak up and check sampans," said Pat Runyon, a 58-year-old grandfather from Eaton, a small southwestern Ohio town near the Indiana border.

Runyon, an enlisted man who served on Swift boats in Vietnam, was not a regular member of Kerry's crew.

He said in an interview Sunday he somehow was chosen - "Let me tell you, I didn't volunteer" - to go out on the Dec. 2, 1968, mission, called a "skim op" in Navy slang.

The small, flat-bottomed boat - Runyon called it a "skimmer" - carried three men - Kerry in command, Bill Zaledonis on a machine gun and Runyon operating the outboard motor.

Once in place on the river, the three U.S. sailors paddled and drifted. Covered by the darkness, they hid to stop sampans, small vessels common in Southeast Asia. Guerillas used the sampans to smuggle weapons in the Mekong River Delta.

Runyon said Kerry was wounded after one vessel tried to avoid an inspection.

"Lt. Kerry said, 'I'm going to pop a flare, and when I do, I want that engine started,' " Runyon said. But the outboard would not crank. Meanwhile, the sampan's crew steered it to the riverbank, and people started running on the shore. Runyon said shooting broke out.

Somehow, Kerry's weapon stopped firing. Runyon thinks he ran out of ammunition. He said Kerry bent down to pick up another gun and got hit in the arm.

"It wasn't a serious wound," Runyon said, and Kerry was able to start shooting again. When the firefight was over, Runyon said Kerry told him all he felt was a "burning sensation."

Runyon said he remembers the incident clearly because it was the first time he had been in combat. "I hadn't seen any kind of action or anything," he said.

He said Kerry, Zaledonis and himself were the only men aboard. When he got the motor started, they took off. He said the outboard was in bad condition and did not have a handle to steer with. "I had to wrap my arms around it, like hugging it, to turn it," he recalled.

Runyon now works the second shift at a plant that makes auto parts in Eaton. He works in the shipping department.

He is supporting Democratic nominee Kerry for president, but said he is not a Democrat and has never been active in politics. He said he and Kerry met for the first time since that night in 1968 at a rally in Dayton this year.

Runyon said he introduced himself to the Massachusetts senator and Kerry did not remember him. "When I talked to him about that night, he remembered the incident but not my name. He just eased up once he knew I was who I said I was."

Runyon was at a Democratic picnic Sunday in Trotwood, a Dayton suburb, where he told the small gathering of party activists that an anti-Kerry veterans group was smearing the senator with false charges. "It's very poor to try and discredit him after [36] years," Runyon said. "That's very poor."

Runyon said that firefight with Kerry is his brush with fame.

"I saw a nice, quiet guy who knew he was in command and didn't flaunt it. He could make a decision, and he made the right one because we got out of there alive. That's all I can tell you."

Source

Actually he was just mistaken about the date when he wrote that. The diary entry may have been after he received his purple heart, but it was meant to relate to a mission a few weeks earlier before he had first come under fire, so technically it was correct but he was just mixing up his dates as he was several weeks behind in his diary writing because of all the time he was spending on invading Cambodia.

Tough for him to keep up with the lies...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&u=/ap/20040819/ap_on_el_pr/kerry_war_critic&printer=1


Military Documents Contradict Kerry Critic

Thu Aug 19, 4:27 AM ET


WASHINGTON - A Vietnam veteran who claims Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) lied about being under fire during a Mekong Delta engagement that won Kerry a Bronze Star was under constant fire himself during the same skirmish, according to the man's own medal citation, a newspaper reported.

The newly obtained records of Larry Thurlow show that he, like Kerry, won a Bronze Star in the engagement and that Thurlow's citation said he also was under attack, The Washington Post reported Thursday.


Thurlow, also like Kerry, commanded a Navy Swift boat during the Vietnam War. Thurlow swore in an affidavit last month that Kerry was "not under fire" when he rescued Lt. James Rassmann from the Bay Hap River.


Thurlow's records, obtained by the Post under the Freedom of Information Act, include references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at all five boats in the flotilla that day. In his Bronze Star citation, Thurlow is praised for helping a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."


The records said Thurlow's actions "took place under constant enemy small arms fire," which Thurlow ignored in providing immediate assistance to the disabled boat and its crew.


Thurlow is a leading member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a public advocacy group of Vietnam veterans who have aired a television advertisement attacking Kerry's war record.


Kerry has described how his boat came under fire from the river banks after a mine explosion disabled another U.S. Swift boat. Kerry and members of his crew say the firing continued as Kerry leaned over to fish out Rassmann, who was blown overboard in another explosion.


Thurlow described Kerry's Bronze Star citation as "totally fabricated," saying "I never heard a shot."


Thurlow, a registered Republican, said he was angry with Kerry for his anti-war activities after his return to the United States, especially his claim that U.S. troops committed war crimes with the knowledge of their officers up the chain of command.


Thurlow told the Post that he got the award for helping to rescue the boat that was mined.


"This casts doubt on anybody's awards," he said. "It is sickening and disgusting."


He said he believed his own award would be "fraudulent" if it was based on coming under enemy fire.


"We weren't under fire," he insisted, speculating that Kerry could have been the source of at least some of the language used in the citation.


Thurlow said he lost his Bronze Star citation more than 20 years ago. He said he would not authorize release of his military records because he feared the Kerry campaign would discredit him.


Members of Kerry's crew have said Kerry is telling the truth. Rassmann said he has vivid memories of enemies firing at him from both banks.

I just saw that myself, panzade. I wonder what the other side is going to make of it.

Did anyone actually read the whole article?

Thurlow said he had lost the citation 20 years ago. When confronted by the citation he was still 100% behind his contention that there was no enemy fire, therefore BOTH Awards were BOGUS!



And Thurlow correctly says the award was bogus if "SMALL ARMS FIRE WAS NECESSARY FOR THE PRESENTATION BECAUSE THERE WAS NO SMALL ARMS FIRE!!!!!!

At least Thurlow admits the Bronze Stars were bad awards. This possibly undermines the Kerry award even more than before because they all say "There was no small arms fire at all."

Let's get something straight here. When you say "Thurlow lost his Bronze Star citation", that means that Thurlow physically misplaced the document, right?

It does not mean that the Bronze Star was withdrawn! It only means Thurlow put it some place and now he can't find it. Or he hocked it, or lost it in a poker game, or something. The Bronze Star is still valid.

How come Thurlow didn't speak up when the award was presented? Gee, I wonder how many jobs Thurlow got using a resumé that mentioned his Bronze Star?

All this amounts to is that we have a guy crisscrossing the country who has decided he hates Kerry so much that he is willing to disavow his own medal in an effort to bring Kerry down.

Kerry has FIVE medals. Do these people really think they are going to get the public to believe that they were all or mostly phony? So that Bush's National Guard service looks better by comparison?

Are you people crazy?

yes

No, they are desperate, and grasping at straws.

I mean, their boy is behind in, yeah, almost every poll. I saw a Fox News poll the other day that showed Kerry in a significant lead, and on the issue of national defense, he had a slight lead. The announcer was pissed.

People are waking up!

Cycloptichorn

The Thurlow development is fascinating. That he apparently didn't realize why he got the Bronze Star is on the far side of bizarre.

As stated here: http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=31655&highlight=

If small arms fire was required, why did any of them accept their medals in the first place? They would have known at the time that no small arms fire was present, and therefore that it wasn't deserved.

Maybe, they remember the day better now than they did then?

I nearly spit out some tea when I first read about Thurlow this morning.

Not that it matters much, but I have no idea where my own citations are ... haven't seen 'em for years. Prolly got lost in a move or somethin', or mebbe they're in some long-forgotten, unopened box down in the basement. No big deal to me Thurlow can't find his ... or that he doesn't remember the wording of 'em. I do remember the relevant circumstances pretty well. Too damned well sometimes.

Not realizing that he was cited for being under fire does seem a bit, well, is there a way to be polite about this ...

Timber - I do not want to downplay anyones awards during a war. I also do not expect everyone to remember 30 years later what the citation says.

However, at the time it was awarded, you and everyone else that gets a military award, should know what the citation reads. The question is, why wasn't mentioned at the time it was awarded to these guys that the accounting of the event was incorrect?

You claim to remember the circumstances of your citation "pretty well." Why didn'tthe swift boaters on the river with Kerry that day remember the circumstances shortly after they occurred as well as they do today?

(I assume, although the records are not yet made public, that Kerry and Thurlow were not the only ones from the events of that day that received Bronz Stars)

Squinney
Squinney, you have to remember the important time frame. The other GIs didn't get mad at John Kerry until he was discharged and then testified before congress. They are mad at Kerry for what he told the congress, not for any actions or behavior while he was on active duty in the Navy.

That explains everything, including why they made up lies to smear Kerry, as pay back time. When pinned down, the smearers all admit that their anger is based on Kerry's testimony before congress when Kerry was a civilian---and then President Nixon was scared of Kerry's believability and integritity by the public. Nixon recruited these guys to smear Kerry and they are still doing it.

BBB

Bush's campaign secretary spoke on NPR and said the Bush campaign would like to join with the Kerry campaign to stop the negative ads. Maybe the Swift Boat ads have backfired on the GOP.

maybe?

It's fine to say that but in reality these 527's are loose cannons that can be covertly used then denied or praised depending on political winds.

The McCain-Feingold plan is a miserable failure.

The Associated Press
Wednesday, March 27, 2002; 10:15 AM
Statement by President Bush Wednesday after signing campaign finance legislation, as provided by the White House:

Today I have signed into law H.R. 2356, the "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002." I believe that this legislation, although far from perfect, will improve the current financing system for federal campaigns.

Yeah, right, it is far from perfect.

Come on, guys. It's a bluff. Bush camp can say that and sound like they are taking the high road, but it doesn't make a bit of difference 'cause supposedly neither candidate has any control over these 527's.

Has the Bush campaign actively condemned the swift boat ads yet? Last I knew they'd just emphasized it wasn't them, without condemning it. (While Kerry condemned MoveOn's ad about Bush's service or lack thereof.)