Horseshit.
It’s really inconvenient to you guys that Kerry showed some balls in Vietnam, isn’t it?
Especially since your hero did not.
Summarizing your arguments already?
Gee, that’s really gonna be tough, gonna have to scroll all the way to very tip-top…
Contrast and compare:
Anything else?
Man, this is getting as pathetic as the WMD arguments. I’m beginning to warm to the idea of keeping this in play right up to the election. Money couldn’t buy this kind of inadvertent demolition of the far right by its own adherents. 
Actually, there is. Personally, I have no idea whether the launcher was loaded or not, nor does it make a bit of difference, so I have no axe to grind.
Fred Short claims that the RPG was loaded. Kerry claims he brought the rocket back to the US as a souvenir somewhow (footnote 8, page 204,)
Both Dave Wallace and Fred Short claim this man fired a rocket at PCF-94, Kerry’s boat. Kerry I assume would argue that the RPG was loaded (since he claimed to have taken the rocket home.)
Dave Wallace claims that the man would not have had enough time to reload, but who knows.
I wonder that since the man stood up, and aimed an RPG according to all accounts that there must be some reason he choose not to fire, but instead flee as he was being shot at. The foremost speculation as to why he did not is that he had previously fired and was not carrying a loaded weapon. My second speculation is that it misfired. My third is that in the heat of battle, he got scared and ran, could not murder enemy soldiers, felt pangs of conscious, or otherwise for whatever psychological reason failed to fire his weapon.
I have however, seen no account claiming that there was a second man with an RPG who fired first. Again, I ask you for such a cite.
Scroll up. I already posted the cite from Snopes.
Sorry but there had to be at least two RPG’s. That’s all there is to it.
The offocial account says that Kerru recovered an armed RPG, btw. Why didn’t he fire it? Who knows? Lots of people freeze under pressure. Just look at your president.
A couple of things wrong with that statement. Committing war crimes and then admitting to them in a post war mia copa are not the actions of a hero. They are the actions of someone who is indecisive and prone to peer-pressure.
Endangering the lives of POW’s with his war crimes testimony are not the actions of a hero. He could have protested the war without inditing the entire US armed forces.
2nd, President Bush did not use his service record or portray himself as a hero because of it. Kerry mentioned it regularly right up to his acceptance speech and the debates.
Kerry’s “war crimes” consisted of forced participation in free fire zones which ALL the Swifties participated in. Blowing the whistle on war crimes was heroic and couragous. It would have been immoral NOT to do it.
Please post your evidence that Kerry’s exposure of war crimes in any way “endangered the lives of POWs.” John McCain was a POW at the time Kerry gave his testimony and Senator McCain seems to have no problem with it. If you can’t support such a vile accusation as this then please refrain from making it.
Flight suit.
So what?
Yes. This is the final time I will explain this to you. I cannot decide whether you are just slow and don’t understand my post, or if you are being deliberately obtuse.
A battle occured shortly after Kerry and Medeiros beached their boats. This battle was conducted by the troops both boats carried. Kerry and Medeiros did not participate in this battle but stayed with the boats.
Kerry’s boat was then fired upon by a man with a rocket launcher. Kerry and Medeiros pursued and killed a man with an RPG (I am currently debating Diog as to whether this was the same man who fired the initial shot.)
Kerry did not lead a charge after a numerically superior force. This by the way is according to his own biography and journal.
He led a charge against a man with an RPG while other forces were engaging the main body of the Viet Cong.
Now, you may say that it is crappy to indict Kerry or say anything bad about him because of this, and I agree. I think he demonstrated heroism. I disagree with O’neil’s conclusion. I think it is shitty to try to indict Kerry for doing his job and demonstrating bravery in this respect, for protecting his crewmen and his boat.
While it is shitty and false to attack Kerry for this, IMO, it is however, correct to say that he did not charge a numerically superior enemy or engage in the firefight.
Instead of engaging in the firefight he was being shot at and chasing a guy with a bazooka. What in this is there to complain about concerning Kerry’s action? Nothing.
I think O’neil is wrong and what he said here is shitty, and false. It is however, technically true. If you will stop your knee-jerk opposition to everything I say, you might undertstand what I am trying to tell you. This however was the third and final time that I will repeat it for you, since you’ve failed to address it the previous two times.
The Navy says that Kerry DID lead the charge against a numerically superior force. Kerry went into an ambush of at least two RPG’s and small arms fire from both shores. That is numerically superior odds. What are you not understanding about this?
I missed it on preview.
Ok. Snopes appears to be wrong on this. THey assert there was a second man with an RPG, but they don’t say where they get this fact from.
They do not get it from the medal citation. They do not get it from Short, they don’t get it from Medeiros and they don’t get it from Kerry either from his journals or from his two biographies. They don’t get it from the Swiftvets either.
These are the only accounts of which I am aware. These are primary accounts from people who were there. The Snopes summary is an abbreviated one and does not cite the source for the assertion. I conclude it’s an error.
Not a single account mentions a second man with an RPG firing a rocket. Kerry himself seems to identify the man he chased as the one who fired the rocket. A rocket was fired. Kerry’s boat was hit. They looked to where the rocket had come and saw a man getting with an RPG. He was shot in the legs by a man on Kerry’s boat and but still fled. Kerry and Medeiros chased after him and Kerry killed him.
I certainly concede that it is possible that there was another man with an RPG. Maybe that man was just in the general vicinity of the man kerry saw and killed and he thought the one was the other. I have seen no account that says so, and in my good faith review of the incident in Kerry’s book it certainly seems that Kerry thinks the guy he killed was the guy who shot at his boat.
It was impossible for there NOT to be another RPG. The one Kerry recovered was still armed which means it could not have fired the round that hit his boat.
Here’s what I got from the Koppel vs O’Neill interview:
Kerry and others were fighting a numerically superior force. During the fight, Kerry “locked on” the one with the rocket launcher. Maybe he simply decided “I’m gonna get that guy”. Whether Kerry was in charge or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is, he was not chasing some lone kid, there was a real fight going on. What is relevant is, he had no way to know how many people might pop up with machine guns to kill him before he got the one with the rocket. Then it turns out, this “kid” was some sort of big shot in the Viet Cong.
The people who were the enemy are the ones telling this account. They have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. There is no vested interest.
On the other hand, we had O’Neill, who could only talk about that book. Read this book. Read our book. Screw the book. From where I sat, O’Neill not only looked like a liar, but a very bad one at that. I was almost hoping that Koppel would reach across the table and smack him across the mouth.
**Forced? Forced? NO, he was not forced to commit crimes. That is completely and utterly wrong. **
Please post your evidence that Kerry’s ex
posure of war crimes in any way “endangered the lives of POWs.” John McCain was a POW at the time Kerry gave his testimony and Senator McCain seems to have no problem with it. If you can’t support such a vile accusation as this then please refrain from making it.
**I’ve seen more than one POW on TV say they were tortured as a war criminal.
Please post that McCain is fine with Kerry’s testimony. I’ve heard him speak a number of times on the subject and he says the same thing. Kerry served his country as a soldier and he is not interested in rehashing Vietnam. He says nothing about Kerry’s testimony.**
Flight suit.
**Touche. You’d have to be a pilot to understand the stunt. He got to fly a jet again and ride it on to the deck of a ship. He absolutely played to the troops. You might take a poll of the sailors that were there but I think you find it was looked upon favorably. **
Nope. It’s a fact of Vietnam. Troops were ordered to enforce policies which violated the Geneva Convention.
What does that have to do with John Kerry?
Exactly. I guess he must be fine with. He is good buddies with Kerry, you know. They’ve been close personal friends for years.
Nonsense. I understood the stunt just fine.
Not to the troops, to the idiots watching on television. There was absolutely no reason that Bush could not have taken a helipocpter. He chose the counterfeit flight suit with the padded crotch to try to make it seem like had some kind og miltary cred, which he didn’t.
Let’s take a poll of the soldiers in Iraq instead…especially the ones who have had their benefits and combat pay cut off, their enlistments extended and their asses shot off.
Impossible is a strong word. It is not impossible. There is conflicting eyewitness testimony on this. It is possible that he reloaded. It is possible that there was more than one RPG launcher available. It is possible that recovered a different RPG. These things are all possible.
It is not possible to reload an RPG while hauling ass. Try it sometime.