About Swift Boats and Purple Hearts

["Sixhits"]

From a man who ought to know:

David H. Hackworth

>>>
Now a number of war veterans have picked the campaign-stumping season to question the first Purple Heart that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry received during his four months as a small-boat skipper ? where one day out on Vietnam's rivers and canals was a lifetime, and four months had to have been an eternity.

That Purple Heart was one of three awarded to Kerry. (He also won Silver and Bronze stars.) His critics ? who incidentally never served under Kerry on his swift boat ? are saying his particular wound wasn't serious enough to warrant the award.
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and

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But I do think that Kerry's Purple Heart wouldn't be considered problematic if he weren't a presidential candidate. The grousers, to a man, seem to be simply passing on secondhand bilge that they ought to stow in their sea bags and lay off.

The Purple Heart deserves less petty quantifying and more respect.

No one should play politics with any warrior's wounds.
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I mention this just to keep up my appearances here.  

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-06-15-hackman_x.htm

[seth]

another one:

By Tim Jones
Tribune national correspondent
Published August 21, 2004

The commander of a Navy swift boat who served alongside Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry during the Vietnam War stepped forward Saturday to dispute attacks challenging Kerry's integrity and war record.

William Rood, an editor on the Chicago Tribune's metropolitan desk, said he broke 35 years of silence about the Feb. 28, 1969, mission that resulted in Kerry's receiving a Silver Star because recent portrayals of Kerry's actions published in the best-selling book "Unfit for Command" are wrong and smear the reputations of veterans who served with Kerry.

Rood, who commanded one of three swift boats during that 1969 mission, said Kerry came under rocket and automatic weapons fire from Viet Cong forces and that Kerry devised an aggressive attack strategy that was praised by their superiors. He called allegations that Kerry's accomplishments were "overblown" untrue.

"The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there," Rood said in a 1,700-word first-person account published in Sunday's Tribune.

Rood's recollection of what happened on that day at the southern tip of South Vietnam was backed by key military documents, including his citation for a Bronze Star he earned in the battle and a glowing after-action report written by the Navy captain who commanded his and Kerry's task force, who is now a critic of the Democratic candidate.

Rood's previously untold story and the documents shed new light on a key historical event that has taken center stage in an extraordinary political and media firestorm generated by a group calling itself the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Allegations in the book, co-authored by one of the leaders of the group, accuse Kerry of being a coward who fabricated wartime events and used comrades for his "insatiable appetite for medals." The allegations have fueled a nearly two-week-long TV ad campaign against the Democratic nominee. Talk radio and cable news channels have feasted on the story.

Animosity from some veterans toward Kerry goes back more than 30 years, when Kerry returned from Vietnam to take a leadership role in the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Anger reached a boiling point with Kerry's presidential nomination and his own highlighting of his service during the war, a centerpiece of his campaign strategy against President Bush, who spent the war stateside in the Air National Guard in Texas and Alabama.

Many know of ads

A poll released Friday by the National Annenberg Election Survey reported that more than half the country has heard about or seen TV ads attacking Kerry's war record, a remarkable impact for ads that have appeared in only a handful of states.

Kerry strongly disputes the allegations. Last week he called on the White House to denounce the TV ads and accused Bush of relying on the Vietnam veterans "to do his dirty work." On Thursday, Kerry challenged Bush to a debate on their respective war records. Democrats point to unresolved questions about whether Bush in fact served all the time he was credited with serving in Alabama.

The Bush campaign has denied any association with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but so far has refused to condemn the book and the group's TV ads. A report in Friday's New York Times disclosed connections between the anti-Kerry vets and the Bush family, Bush's chief political aide Karl Rove and several high-ranking Texas Republicans. Some of the recent accounts from veterans critical of Kerry have been contradicted by their own earlier statements, the Times reported.

Rood's account also sharply contradicts the version currently put forth by the anti-Kerry veterans. Rood, 61, wrote that Kerry had personally contacted him and other crew members in recent days asking that they go public with their accounts of what happened on that day.

Rood said that, ever since the war, he had "wanted to put it all behind us?the rivers, the ambushes, the killing. ? I have refused all requests for interviews about Kerry's service?even those from reporters at the Chicago Tribune."

"I can't pretend those calls [from Kerry] had no effect on me, but that is not why I am writing this," Rood said. "What matters most to me is that this is hurting crewmen who are not public figures and who deserved to be honored for what they did. My intent is to tell the story here and to never again talk publicly about it."

Rood declined requests from a Tribune reporter to be interviewed for this article. Rood wrote that he could testify only to the February 1969 mission and not to any of the other battlefield decorations challenged by Kerry's critics?a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts?because Rood was not an eyewitness to those engagements.

Ambush scenario

In February 1969, Rood was a lieutenant junior grade commanding PCF-23, one of the three 50-foot aluminum swift boats that carried troops up the Dong Cung, a tributary of the Bay Hap River. Kerry commanded another boat, PCF-94 and Lt. j.g. Donald Droz, who was killed in action six weeks later, commanded PCF-43. Ambushes from Viet Cong fighters were common because the noise from boats, powered by twin diesel engines, practically invited gunfire. Ambushes, Rood said, "were a virtual certainty."

Before this day's mission, though, Kerry, the tactical commander of the mission, discussed with Rood and Droz a change in response to the anticipated ambushes: If possible, turn into the fire once it is identified and attack the ambushers, Rood recalled Kerry saying. The boats followed that new tactic with great success, Rood said, and the mission was highly praised.

In the book "Unfit for Command," Kerry's critics maintained otherwise. The book's authors, John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi, wrote that Kerry's attack on the Viet Cong ambush displayed "stupidity, not courage." The book was published by Regnery, a conservative publisher that has brought into print many books critical of Democratic politicians and policies.

"The only explanation for what Kerry did is the same justification that characterizes his entire short Vietnam adventure: the pursuit of medals and ribbons," wrote Corsi and O'Neill. Later in the war, O'Neill commanded the same Swift boat Kerry had led. O'Neill is now a leader of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

In the book, O'Neill and Corsi said Kerry chased down a "young Viet Cong in a loincloth ? clutching a grenade launcher which may or may not have been loaded."

Rood recalled the fleeing Viet Cong was "a grown man, dressed in the kind of garb the VC usually wore." There were other attackers as well, he said, and his boat and Kerry's boat took significant fire.

After the attack, the task force commanding officer, then-Capt. Roy Hoffmann, sent a message of congratulations to the three swift boats, saying their charge of the ambushers was a "shining example of completely overwhelming the enemy" and that it "may be the most efficacious [method] of dealing with small numbers of ambushers," Rood said.

In the official after-action message, obtained by the Tribune, Hoffmann wrote that the tactics developed and executed by Kerry, Rood and Droz were "immensely effictive [sic]" and that "this operation did unreparable [sic] damage to the enemy in this area."

"Well done," Hoffmann concluded in his message.

Change of story

But more than three decades later, Hoffmann, now a retired rear admiral, has changed his story. Today he is one of Kerry's most vocal critics, saying the attacks against the ambushers 35 years ago call into question Kerry's judgment and show his tendency to be impulsive.

Rood challenges that criticism, recalling that the direction for the actions they took on the river that day came from the highest ranks of the Navy command in Vietnam.

"What we did on Feb. 28, 1969, was well in line with the tone set by our top commanders," Rood said.

Asked for his response to Rood's account, O'Neill argued that the former swift boat skipper's version of events is not substantially different from what appeared in his book. The account of the Feb. 28 attack draws heavily on reporting from The Boston Globe, O'Neill said.

He said the congratulatory note from Hoffmann was based on the belief that Kerry was under heavy fire from the Viet Cong. But O'Neill claimed that "didn't happen." Had Hoffmann known the true circumstances of events that day, O'Neill said, he would not have issued the congratulatory note. Attempts to reach Hoffmann for comment were unsuccessful.

In his eyewitness account, Rood describes coming under rocket and automatic weapons fire from Viet Cong on the riverbank during two separate ambushes of his boat and Kerry's boat.

Praise for the mission led by Kerry came from Navy commanders who far outranked Hoffmann. Rood won a Bronze Star for his actions on that day. The Bronze Star citation from the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, then commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam, singled out the tactic used by the boats and said the Viet Cong were "caught completely off guard."

Longtime debate

The war about the war between O'Neill and Kerry has raged for more than three decades. O'Neill, who became a lawyer in Houston after returning from Vietnam, was recruited by the Nixon administration in 1971 to serve as a political counterweight to Kerry, who by then had left the military and was a vocal critic of the war.

The two debated the war on the Dick Cavett television show in 1971, with O'Neill accusing Kerry of the "attempted murder of the reputations of 2? million" Vietnam veterans.

Rood acknowledged in his first-person account that there could always be errors in recollection, especially with the passage of more than three decades. His Bronze Star citation, he said, misidentifies the river where the main action occurred.

That mistake, he said, is a "cautionary note for those trying to piece it all together. There's no final authority on something that happened so long ago?not the documents and not even the strained recollections of those of us who were there.

"But I know that what some people are saying now is wrong," Rood wrote. "While they mean to hurt Kerry, what they're saying impugns others who are not in the public eye."

[crypt]

I heard in US Government class that he blew himself up with a grenade, obviously it wasn't serious seeing his condition today. Can anyone confirm/elaborate on this without lying for him?

[BTs_GhostSniper]

I heard in US Government class that he blew himself up with a grenade, obviously it wasn't serious seeing his condition today. Can anyone confirm/elaborate on this without lying for him?

He threw a grenade into a pile of rice.  When it went off it sent rice flying like shrapnel, some of which struck Kerry and embedded in his skin.  That is where the story is coming from that he blew himself up with a grenade.

That is all I'm going to say about it.  I'm not going to get into a big discussion about his medals and whether he deserved them or not.  I for one was awarded some of the same medals as John Kerry, and although I don't go around waving them in people's faces, I also wouldn't want them questioned by people.[/size]

P.S. I can't stand John Kerry, and am a very big Bush supporter, but I'm not going to destroy the man's military reputation.  What Kerry did AFTER the war is far more damaging than anything he did during the war.

[BTs_Lee.Harvey]

even though they were not on the same swift boat as him does not man they didnt serve with him. The swift boats only have like 5 men onthem.. and on normal missions there were more then one envolved. like i have said b4.. thats like saying I was in the 7th cav with the guy fighting on the same battle field but i was in a diff platoon then him so i didnt serve with him... just b/c they were not on the same swift boat does not mean they didnt serve together.

[The Golden Shark]

This medal delema really bugs me.... First of, i love how republicans can attack the shit of a mans medals, while trying to hide the bold fact that Bush HID from the war, and his service. he totally hid. so while kerry was serving, and earning his medals, Bush was doing a line of coke.

I believe that a party system is good, and that our government, has at the very least set a great fundamental set of rules of which to govern our selfs. I also believe that we have lost the point of the election. We are going to decide who will run the country for the next 4 years. The inaccurate mud slinging and smear campains of any political party only seem to draw us farther away from the facts that should be the important issues about the upcoming elections.

I think that it is absud that if a canidate gets to specific about his platform he will loose the election. (The sentence i just wrote is totally accurate... don;t argue with me ) Case in point: AL SHARPTON (the man who should be our president.) didn't even come close to winning because, not only he was black, but because he knew what needed to be done, and told people what he would do. The American public are too scared to make commitments. I had a teacher once, who told me the wisest thing i have ever heard. "The hardest thing in life is saying yes or no."

Both parties' hipocracy make me puke. We need a great revolution, or reform.

Done ranting (?)
-Shark

[BTs_Lee.Harvey]

This medal delema really bugs me.... First of, i love how republicans can attack the shit of a mans medals, while trying to hide the bold fact that Bush HID from the war, and his service. he totally hid. so while kerry was serving, and earning his medals, Bush was doing a line of coke.

Did you also forget that Bill Clinton did the same thing?? And every praises Clinton as being a good prez.

I believe that a party system is good, and that our government, has at the very least set a great fundamental set of rules of which to govern our selfs. I also believe that we have lost the point of the election. We are going to decide who will run the country for the next 4 years. The inaccurate mud slinging and smear campains of any political party only seem to draw us farther away from the facts that should be the important issues about the upcoming elections.

This is all art of that.. Alot of peeps think kery is unfit to lead this country.. Now I'm not saying the Bush is.... But I'm not the type of person who is going to vote for someone just b/c they seem to be the lesser of 2 evils. Sence I dont like either canadate.. I will prolly not vote for either.

Case in point: AL SHARPTON (the man who should be our president.)

OMG.. did you realy say that... OK.. that just lost all credibilty in you post

I think that it is absud that if a canidate gets to specific about his platform he will loose the election. (The sentence i just wrote is totally accurate... don;t argue with me  )

It not totaly accurate.... you mispelled a word.. :-P absud... lol.. i think you ment absurd

[crypt]

LOL a reverand as our president. at least his speeches would be good.

[bronto]

Did you also forget that Bill Clinton did the same thing?? And every praises Clinton as being a good prez.

clinton never denied his ducking war. he actually admits to it, and i think it just makes him even more righteous when it comes to speaking out against conflicts that can be avoided. in his case it wasn't a matter of cowardice, but more of what he felt was right. bush did it because he didn't want to get hurt, and the way he goes about covering up his past is despicable, which makes him seem even more like a selfish slime bag.

but in both cases, this can be said: who the hell wants to go to war for someone else?

[Bondo]

I think when it comes to Presidents having war experience, it only matters based on how they thus handle military policy. Bush doesn't have the personal war experience to be qualified to determine military policy. As such, you should expect him to turn to those that have served in order to have sound policy. Unfortunately, he didn't. Those who advise him on the military issues (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, etc) also haven't served. Most are ideologues of the neo-con styling who have an agendum for military use but little of the actual knowledge of how to put it into play. Not to mention their agendum is dangerous and idiotic.

This lack of ability to plan is why we went into a war with Iraq without a proper strategy to win it. It is why Abu Gharib did not have the proper human resources to run it which led to the torture. Even if you absolve the higher ups as having not ordered the torture, they still are guilty of incompetence. And considering all the conversation about whether torture might be ok and trying to avoid the Geneve conventions, there is an air about the Administration that they condoned the acts and just are upset they got caught.

So in light of these problems, war record becomes more important than it was for Clinton who did a better job listening to military aids, though he wasn't always at liberty to act in the best interest of the nation due to the Republicans hounding him at home and accusing him of wagging the dog if he did anything. This is why Kerry's record is important this year, why certain Republicans are so desperate they will release an ad smearing Kerry's record directly in contrast to Navy documentation.

P.S. GhostSniper, I hope you go read Kerry's actual testimony to the Senate from 1971 if you haven't already. It is still probably justifiable to dislike what Kerry did after the war but much of the smear against him for his actions are not based on what he actually did/said. In the end, I think Kerry mostly represented a truth, even if it was painful. He may have been part of a large movement responsible for a hatred of Vietnam vets when they first returned...but better to be spit on upon return than left in Vietnam even longer in a losing and questionable war to be killed.