# Johm Kerry: Evil sez Drudge **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 4, 2004, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249 "2004-08-04T04:55:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/181 "2004-08-08T00:32:29Z")
Even if we were to accept Lt. Cmdr. Elliott’s statements as gospel, and the hearsay transmitted to _him_ as gospel, what this boils down to is a procedural issue. Did John Kerry rush to Adm. Hoffmans office, begin banging his fist on the table and demanding his decoration? Did same Admiral cringingly profer it, for fear of his rear-echelon ass? As the esteemed representative of That Flat Place has pointed out, there is a procedure. The procedure was primed, the gears cranked round and round, and Lt. Kerry was a nice thing to hang on his chest. Now we have some dispute as to whether or not Lt. Kerry’s actions merited such recognition. Not that Lt. Kerry demanded such recognition. Not that Lt. Kerry falsified anything in order to get his hands on it. Boil it down, it comes to whether or not the Navy bureaucracy functioned to perfection. Did Lt. Kerry have his eye on a future political career? I’d bet on it. Did that knowledge augment his craving for shiny ribbons? Very likely. Would accepting such a medal constitute some grave moral failing, earning him the contempt and shunning of all just men, everywhere? I hardly think so. What else you got? [Blog gossip hijack: Your correspondent from the conservative wing of the extreme left makes no, repeat, _no_ guarantees of the accuracy or validity of same. It is, however, a statement from a man who _claims_ to be the very same Doug Reese claimed as Elliott’s informant…] [http://www.madkane.com/wwwboard/messages/1752.html](http://www.madkane.com/wwwboard/messages/1752.html) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/182 "2004-08-08T00:44:07Z")
> [@El Cid Viscoso](#): > > …In fact, in 1996, Commander Elliott was instrumental in Senator Kerry’s reelection. …What you appear to be saying is that in 1996, Senator Kerry knowingly used a lie in order to secure his reelection. Mr Kerry fraudulently used his former CO to bolster his military record and charge up the crowd over his heroism in winning the Silver Star… John Kerry is a _politician_!? Ohmigod! You mean, like, running for office, and stuff! No! Gosh, thanks for opening my eyes on that, **Sid** Wow, that’s a real bombshell! And to think that, at one time, I considered him a viable candidate in comparison to that paragon of virtue and palladin of truth, GeeDubya. ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/183 "2004-08-08T00:51:35Z")
It appears that most conservatives are treating this with the disgust and disdain it deserves. A few, of course, are not – which speaks volumes about their character and willingness to do anything to keep Bush in the WH. Unfortunately for them, this pathetic attempt at mud-slinging (in the guise of “finding the truth”) is already backfiring. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/184 "2004-08-08T01:06:15Z")
> [@El Cid Viscoso](#): > > Commander Elliott knows nothing reliable. Agreed. > [@](#): > > Meanwhile, with no proof in hand, you blindly submit _casha casha_ as his motivation. I have been able to discover nothing unseemly in Commander Elliott’s history, and there’s no evidence he’s on payola. To me, he appears to be a formerly staunch supporter who has had a dramatic change of heart. I submit it merely as a plausible motive. You asked what could possibly cause the dude to change his story other than “new evidence,” (the nature of which you have failed to even hypothesize about or explain how it would be physically possible). I submit the ever possible motive of an influx of fresh chinga chinga. My hypothesis is infinitely more plausible than yours given that your hypothesis (the presentation of “new evidence” 35 years after the fact by non-eyewitnesses) is fucking nigh impossible. Even if it IS possible, we have not been told what that evidence consists of. And no offense, but your evaluation of Mr. Elliot’s character, as informed as it may be from reading a couple of quotations on the internet, is really of no value to me and adds nothing probative to the debate. I don’t blame you for avoiding my actual qustion, btw (what new evidence could have possibly surfaced?). There isn’t an answer. > [@](#): > > In fact, in 1996, Commander Elliott was instrumental in Senator Kerry’s reelection. As detractors sought _then_, as now, to tarnish Mr Kerry’s record, the campaign somehow managed to arrange for Kerry’s old Commanding Officer to join him, to fight side by side, just like that day in 'nam. Which makes the following all that much more awkward:So which is it? If he truly knew nothing, as you’ve said, Commander Elliott must have been lying in 1996, when he piled on in support of Candidate Kerry’s side of the story. But the CO really knew nothing reliable, right? He knew the testimony of every eyewitness. Testimony which has not been challenged or contradicted by any _other_ eyewitness. He had no reason to doubt it. Then something happened in 2004. Something which motivated him to change his story, then retract it, then change it again. Hmmm…I wonder what it could be.[sup]1[/sup] > [@](#): > > What you appear to be saying is that in 1996, Senator Kerry knowingly used a lie in order to secure his reelection. Mr Kerry fraudulently used his former CO to bolster his military record and charge up the crowd over his heroism in winning the Silver Star. Oddly, I haven’t been able to find any evidence that Commander Elliott was compensated for his appearances in Campaign '96. Using your logic, though, he did it just for the $$$$ then, too. That’s pretty interesting. Is this supposed to confuse me and put me off guard? Elliot recommended Kerry for his Silver Star based on the testimony of his shipmates. For 35 years he had no reason to doubt Kerry’s shipmates. Then something caused him to sign an “affadavit” in 2004. Since it is not possible that any new evidence could have been presented to him, I wonder what his motivation could have been.[sup]2[/sup] > [@](#): > > Fine, but I really can’t get too interested in scuttlebutt, especially 30 years after the incident. Chits and reports are my red meat here. But since you’ve been so pleasant about asking, at least one of his crewmates is lying. It has to be more than one. They all tell the same story. It has to be all of them or none of them. Which is it? > [@](#): > > quid pro quo: how many of his 23 peers are lying? Well, they’re not really his “peers” in the sense that his crewmates were but that’s a nitpick. More significantly, I’m aware of only one of them who is actually representing himself as an eyewitness to any of Kerry’s medal winning exploits. He was on a different boat some distance away from Kerry. He does not dispute the fact that Kerry saved another man’s life but he claims that Kerry was not under fire when it hapened. This guy’s story is, of course, contradicted by the men on Kerry’s boat as well as by the testimony of the man whose life was saved. The guy’s testimony is clearly and demonstrably wrong on the facts but I’m willing to give him the benefit of possibly misremembering something 35 years after the fact which he had only a distant look at under the fog of war and while under fire. I find that the most likely reason that his testimony would be so dramatically at odds with every other witness. There is one other possibility as well.[sup]3[/sup] So the answer to your question depends on which of the “peers’” statements I am being asked to evaluate for truth. Most of their statements are simply personal opinions, not claims to first hand knowledge of Kerry’s exploits. Some of the statements are suspect (A doctor who claims to have examined one of Kerry’s wounds is not the doctor of record and there is no documentation that he ever saw Kerry. I also wonder why he would remember one mildly wounded Naval officer out of the hundreds or thousands of people he would have examined during the war. What stuck in his mind about John Kerry? And why isn’t there any documentation of this alleged examination. I’m not saying he’s lying, I’m just saying…) but very few of them make any falsifiable claims. 1. chinga chinga 2. chinga chinga 3. chinga chinga ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/185 "2004-08-08T01:16:27Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Did you even bother to READ it??? Allow me to quote: > > PCF 94 was Kerry’s boat. PCF 23 was ANOTHER BOAT. They BOTH went to the location where Kerry went ashore. It’s still not clear how close the other boat was to Kerry’s boat at the time. I would also like to see exactly what is being disputed and who is disputing it. As **'lucy** has so astutely pointed out this doesn’t even seem to be a dispute about the _facts_ as much as it is a dispute about whether the Navy was right to give him a Star. Sounds like sour grapes to me. > [@](#): > > Well, you know what would really clear this up? If we could read the after-action report, which Kerry wrote, and see if it conflicts with testimony from the people on his boat that there was only one VC, that he had been wounded by the M-60 gunner, and that he was running away when Kerry shot him. But we can’t, because from what I understand that report is one of the documents the Kerry campaign has refused to release. How come? You guys made all sorts of hay over Bush being unwilling to release his documents. Why are you not demanding that Kerry release his? He’s refused release of the after-action report, and the medical reports surrounding his Purple Hearts. Can you think of a reason why he’d do that? Why doesn’t he exercise his standard Form 180, authorizing the release of all documents? Bush has done this. Kerry hasn’t. He could blow these Swiftvets out of the water by releasing these documents if they corroborate what he says. For fuck’s sake. All this fucking bullshit has already been debunked by [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/service.asp). > [@](#): > > Kerry earned his Silver Star on 28 February 1969, when he beached his craft and jumped off it with an M-16 rifle in hand to chase and shoot a guerrilla who was running into position to launch a B-40 rocket at Kerry’s boat. **Contrary to the account quoted above, Kerry did not shoot a “Charlie” who had “fired at the boat and missed,” whose “rocket launcher was empty,” and who was “already dead or dying” after being “knocked down with a .50 caliber round.” Kerry’s boat had been hit by a rocket fired by someone else — the guerrilla in question was still armed with a live B-40 and had only been clipped in the leg; when the guerrilla got up to run, Kerry assumed he was getting into position to launch a rocket and shot him:** > > On Feb. 28, 1969, Kerry’s boat received word that a swift boat was being ambushed. As Kerry raced to the scene, his boat became another target, as a Viet Cong B-40 rocket blast shattered a window. Kerry could have ordered his crew to hit the enemy and run. But the skipper had a more aggressive reaction in mind. Beach the boat, Kerry ordered, and the craft’s bow was quickly rammed upon the shoreline. Out of the bush appeared a teenager in a loin cloth, clutching a grenade launcher. > > An enemy was just feet away, holding a weapon with enough firepower to blow up the boat. Kerry’s forward gunner, [Tommy] Belodeau, shot and clipped the Viet Cong in the leg. Then Belodeau’s gun jammed, according to other crewmates (Belodeau died in 1997). [Michael] Medeiros tried to fire at the Viet Cong, but he couldn’t get a shot off. > > In an interview, Kerry added a chilling detail. > > “This guy could have dispatched us in a second, but for . . . I’ll never be able to explain, we were literally face to face, he with his B-40 rocket and us in our boat, and he didn’t pull the trigger. I would not be here today talking to you if he had,” Kerry recalled. “And Tommy clipped him, and he started going [down.] I thought it was over.” > > Instead, the guerrilla got up and started running. “We’ve got to get him, make sure he doesn’t get behind the hut, and then we’re in trouble,” Kerry recalled. > > So Kerry shot and killed the guerrilla. “I don’t have a second’s question about that, nor does anybody who was with me,” he said. “He was running away with a live B-40, and, I thought, poised to turn around and fire it.” Asked whether that meant Kerry shot the guerrilla in the back, Kerry said, “No, absolutely not. He was hurt, other guys were shooting from back, side, back. There is no, there is not a scintilla of question in any person’s mind who was there [that] this guy was dangerous, he was a combatant, he had an armed weapon.” > Another member of the crew confirmed Kerry’s account for the Boston Globe and expressed no doubt that Kerry’s action had saved both the boat and its crew: > > \*\*The crewman with the best view of the action was Frederic Short, the man in the tub operating the twin guns. Short had not talked to Kerry for 34 years, until after he was recently contacted by a Globe reporter. Kerry said he had “totally forgotten” Short was on board that day. > > Short had joined Kerry’s crew just two weeks earlier, as a last-minute replacement, and he was as green as the Arkansas grass of his home. He said he didn’t realize that he should have carried an M-16 rifle, figuring the tub’s machine guns would be enough. But as Kerry stood face to face with the guerrilla carrying the rocket, Short realized his predicament. With the boat beached and the bow tilted up, a guard rail prevented him from taking aim at the enemy. For a terrifying moment, the guerrilla looked straight at Short with the rocket. > > Short believes the guerrilla didn’t fire because he was too close and needed to be a suitable distance to hit the boat squarely and avoid ricochet debris. Short tried to protect his skipper. > > “I laid in fire with the twin .50s, and he got behind a hootch,” recalled Short. “I laid 50 rounds in there, and Mr. Kerry went in. Rounds were coming everywhere. We were getting fire from both sides of the river. It was a canal. We were receiving fire from the opposite bank, also, and there was no way I could bring my guns to bear on that.” > > Short said there is “no doubt” that Kerry saved the boat and crew. “That was a him-or-us thing, that was a loaded weapon with a shape charge on it . . . It could pierce a tank. I wouldn’t have been here talking to you. I probably prayed more up that creek than a Southern Baptist church does in a month.” > > Charles Gibson, who served on Kerry’s boat that day because he was on a one-week indoctrination course, said Kerry’s action was dangerous but necessary. “Every day you wake up and say, ‘How the hell did we get out of that alive?’” Gibson said. “Kerry was a good leader. He knew what he was doing.”\*\* As you can see, I bolded the portions which debunk the bullshit in your post. Particularly your assertion that Krerry’s crewmates ever said there was only one VC. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/186 "2004-08-08T01:21:32Z")
Holy Cow, Jack Kerry is tough enough to wear Tussy. According to the _New Yorker_ he’s a regular [Do The Dew](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?040126fr_archive02) kind of risk-taker: > [@](#): > > He was, apparently, something of a cowboy in Vietnam as well. His old crewmates remember that he played rock music over the boat’s loudspeaker system—the Doors, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix—before they went on patrol. “He starred in that Marlon Brando movie, ‘Apocalypse Now,’ long before they ever made it,” Gene Thorson, a former crewmate, says. > > To release the tension after a trip up the river, Kerry would often instigate chicken races between the swift boats, cutting over each other’s wakes. He also organized water-balloon battles. Once, his three-boat squadron attacked an American supply ship at night with flares. “The brass was not too happy about that,” Kerry recalled. “But what were they going to do to us, send us to Vietnam?” Just one of the guys. A real “that’s quite a shrine you got there, Rodriguez”, man’s man. > [@](#): > > Admiral Elmo Zumwalt later joked that he wasn’t sure if he should give Kerry the Silver Star or court-martial him for his actions on February 28, 1969. Kerry had ignored standard operating procedure as his squadron ferried troops up the river that day. “He had talked to me about trying something different,” Mike Medeiros, a crew member from San Leandro, California, said. “He said he was tired of just going up the river and getting shot at. He asked me what I thought about turning to attack the enemy positions if we took fire and no one was hurt. I said it might not be a bad idea.” Keep readin’, it gets better. Now how is this fellow any less reckless than President Bush? Seems to me Mr Kerry’s got a battle-proven record of being too _gung ho_ to do right. Pray tell, is this man a step up? On preview: good heavens, Diogenes, that post’s got more branches than the B of A. ---
**Author:** ![ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZombiesAteMyBrain)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/187 "2004-08-08T01:29:22Z")
> [@El Cid Viscoso](#): > > What I am surprised about is that, unlike the fictional Gump, the real-life Mr Kerry elected to leave Vietnam after a measly four months. I know tooling around on a cigarette boat can take its toll on a man, but Help Me Rhonda, FOUR MONTHS in-country?! I remembered this figure about Vietnam from a movie and thought I’d look for a cite > [@](#): > > the cold statistics that measured a second lieutenant’s combat life expectancy in minutes and seconds, not hours. [http://www.lzxray.com/prolog.htm](http://www.lzxray.com/prolog.htm) So I don’t think it’s fair to sneer at those ‘four months’ - given that Kerry was wounded 3 times in that short space of time. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/188 "2004-08-08T01:30:42Z")
Well if the “cowardly, weasely liar” shit doesn’t stick, start throwing the “too gung ho, too cavalier shit.” Maybe that will stick. God damn. Perhaps slinging all this ridiculous shit that only the “pre-fooled” want to believe (or solemnly proclaim that these men deserve to be heard) is having its share of success. I notice that we aren’t talking very much about the largest deficit in history, the weakening of the jobs numbers, the loss of 300 points on the stock market, the loss of wages… It’s the Economy, Stupid. These defenders of the last bastion of the neo-right would prefer it to be “The Meconium, Stupid.” Fuck 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/189 "2004-08-08T01:34:10Z")
> [@El Cid Viscoso](#): > > Meanwhile, with no proof in hand, you blindly submit casha casha as his motivation. I have been able to discover nothing unseemly in Commander Elliott’s history, and there’s no evidence he’s on payola. To me, he appears to be a formerly staunch supporter who has had a dramatic change of heart. So he’s a flip-flopper, eh? Unreliable bastard. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/190 "2004-08-08T01:45:50Z")
**Sam Stone** , thank you for posting the citation. The citation is the rational place for this discussion to start. Next question is who says the recitations in the citation are false, in what respect are they claimed to be false and on what basis are they claimed to be false and what are the facts of the case as proposed by the person / persons who say the citation’s recitations are false. We can belly ache all we want about mud throwing and dishonest and dishonorable propaganda and Commander Elliot changing his story, or not changing his story, as the case might be, but until we figure out who is saying what, as opposed to who is throwing around unsubstantiated conclusions, all this is all just so much smoke and mirrors. It is just a titillating as it could be but it is not substance. We have the \*official Navy version \*, now what is the Swift Boat Guys version? Let me speculate that the impetus for the citation was after action reports by Kerry and the other boat commanders, and the next commander up the chain, which may or may not have been Commander Elliot. If it was Elliot, if he is changing his story (which by necessity is based on what he was told happened in reports and informally, not on his personal observation of the engagement) it is incumbent on him now that he has gone public to plainly and directly tell us what he now understands the facts to be. Until that happens we are just engaging in so much conjecture and speculation. As far as the “shoot ‘em in the back” theory is concerned, I’ll tell you that an armed enemy on the battlefield is a legitimate and proper target no matter what way he is facing or moving. Until the enemy is disarmed and clearly surrendered he is a target, and a dangerous one at that. Spare me the shoot in the back stuff. Firefights are not conducted by Marquis of Queensberry rules, not by people who hope to survive the fight, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/191 "2004-08-08T01:50:09Z")
> [@El Cid Viscoso](#): > > Holy Cow, Jack Kerry is tough enough to wear Tussy. According to the _New Yorker_ he’s a regular [Do The Dew](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?040126fr_archive02) kind of risk-taker: > > Just one of the guys. A real “that’s quite a shrine you got there, Rodriguez”, man’s man. So Kerry liked to rock out on his boat and have fun with his crew? Clearly he’s unfit for command. It sounds like he had great taste in music, btw. (Am I the only one who thinks that this makes Kerry sound _more_ appealling raher than less?) > [@](#): > > Keep readin’, it gets better. > > Now how is this fellow any less reckless than President Bush? Seems to me Mr Kerry’s got a battle-proven record of being too _gung ho_ to do right. Pray tell, is this man a step up? Of course, the “right thing” to do in this case would have been to allow a VC to kill him and his crew but hey, rules are rules. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/192 "2004-08-08T02:22:04Z")
> [@El Cid Viscoso](#): > > Perhaps I _am_ too inconspicuous with my honor, but I have always avoided wearing it on my sleeve. I can see why Mr Kerry resonates with you. Only you can explain why you’ve chosen to call the men who were there and have never changed their stories liars, while trying to believe those who _weren’t_ there and _have_ changed theirs. Perhaps you could help us out and enlighten us as to how your sense of honor guides you to do that? As for the Globe’s saying it stands by its story, that’s journalese boilerplate for “We have you on _tape_, fool. You really want to press this, or would you rather back down quietly?” ---
**Author:** ![GLWasteful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f05b48/32.png) [@GLWasteful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GLWasteful)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/193 "2004-08-08T03:00:22Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > But I’m pushed into defending their right to speak mainly because of the excessively over-the-top attacks on them coming from some of you. Oh, well, it’s good to know that it’s only the attacks from the left that have made you a staunch defender of these goobs. Y’know, as opposed to the unsubstantiated attacks from the goobs in question, I mean. They’re just fellers tryin’ to get their story heard, right? > [@](#): > > It’s important in this matter that we all keep the facts straight on both sides. I’m not sure if you noticed the irony dripping from the above. Take another look. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/194 "2004-08-08T03:04:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Sam Stone, thank you for posting the citation. The citation is the rational place for this discussion to start. Next question is who says the recitations in the citation are false, in what respect are they claimed to be false and on what basis are they claimed to be false and what are the facts of the case as proposed by the person / persons who say the citation’s recitations are false. We can belly ache all we want about mud throwing and dishonest and dishonorable propaganda and Commander Elliot changing his story, or not changing his story, as the case might be, but until we figure out who is saying what, as opposed to who is throwing around unsubstantiated conclusions, all this is all just so much smoke and mirrors. It is just a titillating as it could be but it is not substance. We have the official Navy version , now what is the Swift Boat Guys version? Thank you. All I’ve been trying to do is get all the facts on the table to understand this. I’m already on record as saying that Kerry deserves the benefit of the doubt, and these guys need to substantiate their allegations, and I’ve offered my suspicion that they are letting their hatred of Kerry over the ‘Winter Soldier’ stuff cloud their judgement and lead them to making charges that they maybe shouldn’t be making. But I don’t have all the info, and I’ve been trying to understand the situation. So far, for my effort I’ve been called names and had my honor questioned. Nice to see someone else here who is trying to be level-headed and fair. > [@](#): > > Let me speculate that the impetus for the citation was after action reports by Kerry and the other boat commanders, and the next commander up the chain, which may or may not have been Commander Elliot. If it was Elliot, if he is changing his story (which by necessity is based on what he was told happened in reports and informally, not on his personal observation of the engagement) it is incumbent on him now that he has gone public to plainly and directly tell us what he now understands the facts to be. I agree. He is implying now that ‘had he known then’ what he knows now, he would not have recommended Kerry for the Silver Star. That implies that the story that is out there now is not the story that is in the after-action report. If that’s the case, he needs to tell us what he read in that report, and be prepared to stand by that claim if the Kerry camp decides to release it publically. Unfortunately, the after action report for Kerry’s Silver Star is one of the documents he is apparently refusing to release. That confuses me. I can’t understand a motive for witholding that document - unless it makes exaggerated claims. But perhaps there are other reasons. Another that comes to mind is that he could have made critical statements of fellow crewmen/officers in it, and doesn’t want to drag their names through the mud. > [@](#): > > Until that happens we are just engaging in so much conjecture and speculation. Well, there are other facts we can check up on. For instance, Kerry has claimed repeatedly in the past that he was in Cambodia on Christmas eve in 1968. He has described that mission in great detail, and he apparently used it in 1986 Congressional testimony in support of the claim that officers ordered their men to partake of war crimes. That speech should be in the congressional record, and should be easily checked (anyone feel like doing that? It’s not available online prior to 1994, and being in Canada it won’t be in my library). Every officer in his chain of command disputes that story, and it would appear that Kerry’s own journal does as well. And in his later book “Tour of Duty”, he omits the story. All of this should be verifiable. If it turns out that Kerry was not in Cambodia at all while in Vietnam, but he gave testimony to that effect to a session of congress while being a Senator himself, that’s a pretty big deal. This is something the media could find out in about ten minutes with a little legwork. > [@](#): > > As far as the “shoot ‘em in the back” theory is concerned, I’ll tell you that an armed enemy on the battlefield is a legitimate and proper target no matter what way he is facing or moving. Until the enemy is disarmed and clearly surrendered he is a target, and a dangerous one at that. Spare me the shoot in the back stuff. Firefights are not conducted by Marquis of Queensberry rules, not by people who hope to survive the fight, anyway. I agree completely. I’ll even go further and say that Kerry’s actions would be heroic even if it turned out the guy was unarmed, because A) when he jumped ashore he had no way of knowing if this was another ambush and he was going to be hit by 30 enemy VC, and B) he has no way of knowing if the guy is armed or not. After having read all this over again, it appears to me that what these men might be mad about is, A) they all made the agreement to use the strategy of beaching and counter-attacking if they were attacked, B) The first engagement (which Kerry wasn’t a part of) involved other men doing exactly what Kerry did - taking fire, beaching their boat, jumping off and killing a bunch of VC. In the first action, it looks like there was quite a bit of fighting, and a number of VC were killed. And yet, no one got a medal. C) Kerry goes downriver, attacks a single guy and kills him, and walks away with a Silver Star, while claiming or implying that it was a spur-of-the-minute decision of his alone. This would fall under the category of ‘sour grapes’. My speculation is that they’re pissed because they think he wrote himself an after-action report that downplayed the actions of the other men and inflated his own, and he got a Silver Star out of it. At least, that’s their story. They see that as dishonorable. And if their story is true, you could make that case. But it wouldn’t diminish the fact that it took courage for Kerry to jump out of that boat, and that the Silver Star is legitimate. Unless Kerry flat-out lied in the report, but we have no way of knowing unless he authorizes the release of that document. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/195 "2004-08-08T03:21:37Z")
> [@](#): > > _ZombiesAteMyBrain_ > > So I don’t think it’s fair to sneer at those ‘four months’… But I don’t think that’s a fair summation of my post, or my theme in this thread. You would honor me by preserving the context of that quote. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/196 "2004-08-08T03:31:35Z")
**Sam Stone** , unless I’m missing something the after action reports and the paperwork on the citation are not Senator Kerry’s to release or not to release. They are the Navy’s. If the Navy wants to release them Senator Kerry seems to have no say in it. If Senator Kerry was in command of the operation, as the citation expressly recites, he was responsible for the operations, its success or its failure. If the three boat operation went well then praise to LT(JG) Kerry. If it went badly then blame to him, no matter whose fault it was. Somebody has quoted ADM Z as saying he wasn’t sure whether to reward Kerry or have him court martialed. While speculative I can’t help but wonder if the Swift Boat Guys would want in on the action if ADM Z had decided the other way. Success, they say, has many fathers; failure is an orphan. I’v got to entertain my grey haired old mother in the morning. I’m off. ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/197 "2004-08-08T03:32:01Z")
Why should he. Every witness in his boat says it happened the way he said it did. Even if he does release the document they will have some other story about why it isn’t true. I think this has everything to do with the Winter soldier and not a damn thing to do with what Kerry did in Vietnam. These guys had to lead men into battle, some of whom died. In order to justify their own actions they had to believe what they were doing was absolutely right. When Kerry was in country he walked the walk, and so they signed papers for his medals. Then Kerry went home. He believed the government was betraying the men they were sending to Vietnam and the American public and he decided to speak out. Because he was freshly out of hell, and because he was not very old, he was not so good at pulling punches. Those guys who were fellow officers saw it as a huge slap in the face and a betrayal. So, they convinced themselves that clearly he couldn’t have done all those things. He must have been a coward, because he was betraying them. Sour Grapes? Not quite. Lying, maybe, mostly to themselves. This doesn’t perhaps explain some of the things like the Dr. who says he saw him but isn’t on any of the records but it maybe explains some of it. I suspect though that the betrayal is felt by most of those guys too. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/198 "2004-08-08T03:59:47Z")
> [@Spavined Gelding](#): > > Somebody has quoted ADM Z as saying he wasn’t sure whether to reward Kerry or have him court martialed. To be fair, he says he was joking and that he said to impress on Kerry his general disapproval of leaving the boat unmanned. He did not want that shit to become a habit but the the testimony of Kerry’s shipmates was such that the action taken was necessary to protect the boat and its crew. he wasn’t _seriously_ considering a court martial. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/199 "2004-08-08T04:10:32Z")
> [@](#): > > If Senator Kerry was in command of the operation, as the citation expressly recites, he was responsible for the operations, its success or its failure. If the three boat operation went well then praise to LT(JG) Kerry. If it went badly then blame to him, no matter whose fault it was. Somebody has quoted ADM Z as saying he wasn’t sure whether to reward Kerry or have him court martialed. While speculative I can’t help but wonder if the Swift Boat Guys would want in on the action if ADM Z had decided the other way. Success, they say, has many fathers; failure is an orphan. This is an excellent point. As the officer in charge, Kerry is going to take the brunt of the criticism - and therefore should be deserving of more of the credit if things go well. We also have to remember that during the time when Kerry got his medals, there was well-known medal inflation going on in Vietnam for political reasons. Commanders were trying to crank up morale and get some positive spin at home, so they were handing out medals for actions that wouldn’t have warranted them previously. Kerry may have been the beneficiary of this policy, but that can hardly be held against him. But it could cause some of his men to be annoyed by it. Then this guy goes home and start trashing them, and they become furious. The motivation here is easy to understand, even if Kerry did everything he said he did. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/200 "2004-08-08T04:40:24Z")
> [@](#): > > We also have to remember that during the time when Kerry got his medals, there was well-known medal inflation going on in Vietnam for political reasons. Commanders were trying to crank up morale and get some positive spin at home, so they were handing out medals for actions that wouldn’t have warranted them previously. Not so fast my Canadian friend. I will admit that in 69, 70 and 71 the Bronze Star was given to all sorts of people and maybe some smart asses thought it was witty to say it was a sort of the company grade officers good conduct metal, BUT Bronze Stars and the BS with device for valor and Silver Stars of any sort were hardly given away. If you saw a guy with a plain BS you could pretty well think you were looking at a staff officer who had done a bang up good job of planning operation, taking care of personnel matters, gotten people the right pay at the right time, made sure that the troops had water, food, ammo, boots and all the other stuff at the right time, in the right place and in the right amount, tried his cases efficiently and cleanly, provided medical services in a professional manner all under very trying circumstances, or a company officer or NCO or an EM who had behaved very professionally in the highest traditions of the service. If you saw a guy with a BS /w V device or a SS you knew that you were dealing with somebody who had done something pretty spectacular, maybe not the right thing but still something above and beyond the average and routine performance of duty. Those awards were hardly given away and, to my knowledge, every damned one of them was earned. Any implication to the contrary is just self-serving balderdash, especially in the context of this discussion. Remember things were no damn fun in SE Asia and remember also Napoleon’s injunction that with such baubles are men lead. This is off point, let’s get back to it – in what way is the official Navy version as stated on Senator Kerry’s citation incorrect? And now I’ll go to bed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249.md?page=11)