Quote:Love to know where you heard these 'claims' of Kerry's as I have never heard them before.
PDF after action reports.
On the last page of the after action reports the damage to PCF 94, which includes; cabin windows blown out, but no indication of when or how that happened: steerage control aft helm inop, screws curled and chipped, main engines experienced RPM drop, which are all completely consistent with having run aground under hard acceleration: Onan generator inop, AC wiring shorted out, radio and remote units inop, radar gear box frozen, stbd bilge pump broken, which are all standard maintenance items. There is NO mention of repair needed or an inspection for bullet damage which would have been standard for an enemy fire incident. There is NO request of a below water line inspection which would be standard for being in proximity to an exploding mine or enemy fire.
As for Kerry's medical condition after the incident, there are more suspicious entries on page 8 of the after action report. Kerry's medical report lists "Kerry suffered shrapnel wounds in his left buttocks and contusions on his right forearm when a mine detonated close aboard PCF-94." We now know that the butt wounds were received earlier in the day when he was playing GI Joe with a hand grenade and there is no reference to any bleeding injury to his arms. He was treated by the Coast Guard medical officer and returned to duty. All of the other medical injury reports included in this document pertain to the crewmembers of PCF-3, which suffered the mine hit.
With the severity of the injuries of the PCF-3 crew and the minor nature of Kerry's injuries, why would a skipper leave his boat to have another officer use it to tow a damaged boat back to base? Why would Kerry take advantage of a medevac flight out for medical care for an injury that had been received several hours earlier but he made no request for medical attention until there was a possibility he was under enemy fire?
The report also states that PCF-94 "attempted to assist PCF-3 and picked up MSF advisor who went overboard." Since Rassmann went overboard on the North side of the river 75 yards across from where PCF-3 was mined, how could Kerry have both picked up Rassmann and attempted to assist PCF-3 on the other side of the river with 2 other boats right near it?
The after action report claims there were 2 other mine explosions, but no one on any of the other boats recalled more than the one mine. The report claims 5,000 meters of fire along the river which would have required hundreds of VC troops to have occupied over 6 miles of waterfront yet there was NO reported small arms damage to any of the 5 boats.
As a boat Captain, if nothing else I would be ashamed to have abandoned my boat and crew for such a minor injury under the circumstances.
