Dole asking Kerry about Nam.

revel wrote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26519-2004Aug23.html

More about the swift boat vet for truth liars.

And just when you think you get this issue nailed down...Kerry recieved a purple heart for wounds suffered on December 2, 1968. But in Kerry's own journal, written 9 days later, he writes he and his crew, "hadn't been shot at yet." Kerry's campaign has said it is possible his first Purple Heart was awarded for unintentionally self-inflicted wounds.

Brand X wrote:

revel wrote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26519-2004Aug23.html

More about the swift boat vet for truth liars.

And just when you think you get this issue nailed down...Kerry recieved a purple heart for wounds suffered on December 2, 1968. But in Kerry's own journal, written 9 days later, he writes he and his crew, "hadn't been shot at yet." Kerry's campaign has said it is possible his first Purple Heart was awarded for unintentionally self-inflicted wounds.

Where does kerry say that?

If true, then at least he admits it. Still he does not stretch his vietnam experience, he just gets some of the facts wrong like any human. He served honorably and bravely. You all keep talking about supporting the troops, but I have never seen anything so disgraceful as this smear against Kerry except for the McCain deal. I guess they figured it worked once, they would do it again. (I Know, I know, they are not behind it. Yea, right.) Like that guy on the Chicago tribune said, this is not only hurting Kerry but everyone that served there at the swift boat that day and whoever got a medal and who ever said that they suffered enemy fire. And there have been those that said those things. This puts a stain on their bravery and brings up bad memories that they have been trying to forget. Like all the controversary of veitnam is starting all over again and it is ugly. Like another guy said, if all this was so suspect, why didn't anyone say anything then? Why even award him the medals? Is the army so eager to give out medals to anyone that claims to have a scratch? I don't believe so. I believe in Kerry when he says that suffered under enemy fire and I believe that he deserved his medals and awards. I don't think he would lie about something like that. He just don't strike me as that kind of a person. He strikes me as someone who puts his foot in his mouth or in trying to fight smear tactics says the wrong thing to make it worse, but he just don't strike me as the kind of guy who take credit that was not due him and make up stuff to get medals and awards he didn't deserve. He seems honest and sincere to me. I have seen no proof but just a lot of back stabbing liars.

The second explosion "blew me right off the boat," Rassmann recalled. Frightened that he might be struck by the propellers of one of the boats, he dived to the bottom of the river, where he dumped his weapons and rucksack. When he surfaced, he said, bullets were "snapping overhead," as well as hitting the water around him. [..]

The Kerry and anti-Kerry camps differ sharply on whether the flotilla came under enemy fire after the explosion that crippled the 3 boat. Everybody aboard Kerry's boat, including Rassmann, says there was fire from both riverbanks, and the official after-action report speaks of all boats receiving "heavy a/w [automatic weapons] and s/a [small arms] from both banks." The Bronze Star citations for Kerry and Thurlow also speak of prolonged enemy fire.

A report on "battle damage" to Thurlow's boat mentions "three 30 cal bullet holes about super structure." According to Thurlow, at least one of the bullet holes was the result of action the previous day, when he ran into another Vietcong ambush.

Thurlow, Chenoweth, Pees and several of their crew members who belong to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say neither they nor Kerry came under fire. "If there was fire, I would have made some notation in my journal," Chenoweth said. "But it didn't happen that way. There wasn't any fire." Although he read his diary entry to a reporter over the phone, he declined to supply a copy.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Rassmann said, "are not just questioning Kerry's account, they are questioning my account. I take that very personally. No one can tell me that we were not under fire. I saw it, I heard the splashes, and I was scared to death. For them to come back 35 years after the fact to tarnish not only Kerry's record, but my veracity, is unconscionable."

Up until now, eyewitness evidence supporting Kerry's version had come only from his own crewmen. But yesterday, The Post independently contacted a participant who has not spoken out so far in favor of either camp who remembers coming under enemy fire. "There was a lot of firing going on, and it came from both sides of the river," said Wayne D. Langhofer, who manned a machine gun aboard PCF-43, the boat that was directly behind Kerry's.

Langhofer said he distinctly remembered the "clack, clack, clack" of enemy AK-47s, as well as muzzle flashes from the riverbanks. Langhofer, who now works at a Kansas gunpowder plant , said he was approached several months ago by leaders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but declined their requests to speak out against Kerry.

Jim Russell, said that he had served on the Bay Hap River with Mr. Kerry the day he won his Bronze Star and that they had come under significant enemy fire as Mr. Kerry rescued Jim Rassmann. His account contradicted that of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who have said there was not a major firefight. "Anyone who doesn't think that we were being fired upon must have been on a different river," Mr Russell wrote.

claimed to know that Kerry fled the scene on the river that day while the other three boats stayed and that Kerry then "turned around and came all the way back to pick up Mr. Rassmann that he had thrown off his boat when he took off, when he fled down the canal." But later in the show, Gardner admitted to not being present that day. When Scarborough attempted to revisit the "March 13, 1969 incident," Gardner said, "I'm not going to deal with that. Because I wasn't there."

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. [..]

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.

Patrick Runyon, who served on a mission with Mr. Kerry, said he initially thought the caller was from a pro-Kerry group, and happily gave a statement about the night Mr. Kerry won his first Purple Heart. The investigator said he would send it to him by e-mail for his signature. Mr. Runyon said the edited version was stripped of all references to enemy combat, making it look like just another night in the Mekong Delta.

"It made it sound like I didn't believe we got any returned fire," he said. "He made it sound like it was a normal operation. It was the scariest night of my life."

William L. Schachte Jr., a retired rear admiral who says in the book that he had been on the small skimmer on which Mr. Kerry was injured that night in December 1968. He contends that Mr. Kerry wounded himself while firing a grenade.

But the two other men who acknowledged that they had been with Mr. Kerry, Bill Zaladonis and Mr. Runyon, say they cannot recall a third crew member. "Me and Bill aren't the smartest, but we can count to three," Mr. Runyon said in an interview. And even Dr. Letson said he had not recalled Mr. Schachte until he had a conversation with another veteran earlier this year and received a subsequent phone call from Mr. Schachte himself.

On the August 16 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Thurlow cited Gardner to substantiate his claim that Kerry's first Purple Heart "was fabricated and wasn't based on any factuality at all." According to Thurlow, Gardner said "that he [Kerry] received an injury due to a mistake he made when he fired an M-79 close aboard and was hit by his own shrapnel" and that "Kerry applied for a Purple Heart that he did not merit."

On the August 2 broadcast of Savage Nation, Gardner himself claimed that all of the wounds for which Kerry received Purple Hearts "were superficial wounds, and I mean very superficial, scratches. The very first one is the only one that I can actually attest to because I was there when that wound happened." But Gardner was not there when Kerry sustained that wound; as noted above, Gardner went on to admit: "I was not on the boat with him but I -- in the next three days following that, I was with him on the boat going to take our new position up down there on the seaward operations."

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

DontTreadOnMe wrote:

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Kerry must convince the electorate that he be trusted to replace Bush as Commander-in-Chief.

some people say that bush is doing a lot to convince them of that on his own...

And some people say that Kerry lied about his Vietnam experience.

And some people say George Bush Sr. shot JFK. People say a lot of things. I say who gives a ****.

Quote:

Phoenix, how can you even compare the two based on their military service?

Harper & Craven- Where did you get the idea that I was comparing military service?

My post had to do with a person describing a site as non-partisan, when it is definitely isn't. You see, I am making a frustrating attempt to separate real reportage, from spin and hype offered up by people with an agenda, from EITHER SIDE!

The graph is a nice trick, but it doesn't dispute the testemony of the overwhelming majority of people who served with Kerry who are willing to speak, and who think Kerry unfit for command.

I don't do drugs, and hopefully you don't either.

The hideous amount of money we're spending on this absurd war on drugs belongs back in the pockets of the people who earned it. It's time to put our revulsion aside and deal intelligently with the drug problem.