Reporter who was on the mission with Kerry breaks silence!

[techs]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory...litics/2751054


A Chicago Tribune editor who was on the Vietnam mission for which John Kerry received the Silver Star is backing up Kerry's account of the incident.

William Rood, 61, said he decided to break his silence about the Feb. 28, 1969, mission because reports by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are incorrect and darken the reputations of veterans who served with Kerry, according to a report in the Tribune's Sunday editions.

"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," Rood said in a 1,700-word first-person account published in the newspaper. "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."

According to the Tribune, Rood's recollection of what happened that day in South Vietnam was backed by military documents, including his citation for a Bronze Star and a report written by then-Capt. Roy Hoffmann, who commanded his and Kerry's task force and is now a critic of the Democratic candidate.

Rood wrote that Kerry recently contacted him and other crew members, requesting that they go public with their accounts of what happened that February day.

"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."

[imaeditedbysowulo]

Very interesting...got a link to his 1700 page write-up? I'd like to read the words of someone that was actually there.

[techs]

Very interesting...got a link to his 1700 page write-up? I'd like to read the words of someone that was actually there.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/s...l=chi-news-hed

First 2 paragraphs:

There were three swift boats on the river that day in Vietnam more than 35 years ago—three officers and 15 crew members. Only two of those officers remain to talk about what happened on February 28, 1969.

One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other.

[imaeditedbysowulo]

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What's that website that gives you free account names for crap like this?

[techs]

Here is the story:


There were three swift boats on the river that day in Vietnam more than 35 years ago—three officers and 15 crew members. Only two of those officers remain to talk about what happened on February 28, 1969.

One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other.

For years, no one asked about those events. But now they are the focus of skirmishing in a presidential election with a group of swift boat veterans and others contending that Kerry didn't deserve the Silver Star for what he did on that day, or the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts he was awarded for other actions.

Many of us wanted to put it all behind us—the rivers, the ambushes, the killing. Ever since that time, I have refused all requests for interviews about Kerry's service—even those from reporters at the Chicago Tribune, where I work.

But Kerry's critics, armed with stories I know to be untrue, have charged that the accounts of what happened were overblown. 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.

Even though Kerry's own crew members have backed him, the attacks have continued, and in recent days Kerry has called me and others who were with him in those days, asking that we go public with our accounts.

I can't pretend those calls had no effect on me, but that is not why I am writing this. 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.

I was part of the operation that led to Kerry's Silver Star. I have no firsthand knowledge of the events that resulted in his winning the Purple Hearts or the Bronze Star.

But on Feb. 28, 1969, I was officer in charge of PCF-23, one of three swift boats—including Kerry's PCF-94 and Lt. j.g. Donald Droz's PCF-43—that carried Vietnamese regional and Popular Force troops and a Navy demolition team up the Dong Cung, a narrow tributary of the Bay Hap River, to conduct a sweep in the area.

The approach of the noisy 50-foot aluminum boats, each driven by two huge 12-cylinder diesels and loaded down with six crew members, troops and gear, was no secret.

Ambushes were a virtual certainty, and that day was no exception.

Instructions from Kerry

The difference was that Kerry, who had tactical command of that particular operation, had talked to Droz and me beforehand about not responding the way the boats usually did to an ambush.

We agreed that if we were not crippled by the initial volley and had a clear fix on the location of the ambush, we would turn directly into it, focusing the boats' twin .50-caliber machine guns on the attackers and beaching the boats. We told our crews about the plan.

The Viet Cong in the area had come to expect that the heavily loaded boats would lumber on past an ambush, firing at the entrenched attackers, beaching upstream and putting troops ashore to sweep back down on the ambush site. Often, they were long gone by the time the troops got there.

The first time we took fire—the usual rockets and automatic weapons—Kerry ordered a "turn 90" and the three boats roared in on the ambush. It worked. We routed the ambush, killing three of the attackers. The troops, led by an Army adviser, jumped off the boats and began a sweep, which killed another half dozen VC, wounded or captured others and found weapons, blast masks and other supplies used to stage ambushes.

Meanwhile, Kerry ordered our boat to head upstream with his, leaving Droz's boat at the first site.

It happened again, another ambush. And again, Kerry ordered the turn maneuver, and again it worked. As we headed for the riverbank, I remember seeing a loaded B-40 launcher pointed at the boats. It wasn't fired as two men jumped up from their spider holes.

We called Droz's boat up to assist us, and Kerry, followed by one member of his crew, jumped ashore and chased a VC behind a hooch—a thatched hut—maybe 15 yards inland from the ambush site. Some who were there that day recall the man being wounded as he ran. Neither I nor Jerry Leeds, our boat's leading petty officer with whom I've checked my recollection of all these events, recalls that, which is no surprise. Recollections of those who go through experiences like that frequently differ.

With our troops involved in the sweep of the first ambush site, Richard Lamberson, a member of my crew, and I also went ashore to search the area. I was checking out the inside of the hooch when I heard gunfire nearby.

Not long after that, Kerry returned, reporting that he had killed the man he chased behind the hooch. He also had picked up a loaded B-40 rocket launcher, which we took back to our base in An Thoi after the operation.

John O'Neill, author of a highly critical account of Kerry's Vietnam service, describes the man Kerry chased as a "teenager" in a "loincloth." I have no idea how old the gunner Kerry chased that day was, but both Leeds and I recall that he was a grown man, dressed in the kind of garb the VC usually wore.

The man Kerry chased was not the "lone" attacker at that site, as O'Neill suggests. There were others who fled. There was also firing from the tree line well behind the spider holes and at one point, from the opposite riverbank as well. It was not the work of just one attacker.

Our initial reports of the day's action caused an immediate response from our task force headquarters in Cam Ranh Bay.

Congratulatory message

Known over radio circuits by the call sign "Latch," then-Capt. and now retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the task force commander, fired off a message congratulating the three swift boats, saying at one point that the tactic of charging the ambushes 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."

Hoffmann has become a leading critic of Kerry's and now says that what the boats did on that day demonstrated Kerry's inclination to be impulsive to a fault.

Our decision to use that tactic under the right circumstances was not impulsive but was the result of discussions well beforehand and a mutual agreement of all three boat officers.

It was also well within the aggressive tradition that was embraced by the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, then commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam. Months before that day in February, a fellow boat officer, Michael Bernique, was summoned to Saigon to explain to top Navy commanders why he had made an unauthorized run up the Giang Thanh River, which runs along the Vietnam-Cambodia border. Bernique, who speaks French fluently, had been told by a source in Ha Tien at the mouth of the river that a VC tax collector was operating upstream.

Ignoring the prohibition against it, Bernique and his crew went upstream and routed the VC, pursuing and killing several.

Instead of facing disciplinary action as he had expected, Bernique was given the Silver Star, and Zumwalt ordered other swifts, which had largely patrolled coastal waters, into the rivers.

The decision sent a clear message, underscored repeatedly by Hoffmann's congratulatory messages, that aggressive patrolling was expected and that well-timed, if unconventional, tactics like Bernique's were encouraged.

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

Zumwalt made that clear when he flew down to our base at An Thoi off the southern tip of Vietnam to pin the Silver Star on Kerry and assorted Bronze Stars and commendation medals on the rest of us.

My Bronze Star citation, signed by Zumwalt, praised the charge tactic we used that day, saying the VC were "caught completely off guard."

There's at least one mistake in that citation. It incorrectly identifies the river where the main action occurred, a reminder that such documents were often done in haste and sometimes authored for their signers by staffers. It's 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. While they mean to hurt Kerry, what they're saying impugns others who are not in the public eye.

Men like Larry Lee, who was on our bow with an M-60 machine gun as we charged the riverbank, Kenneth Martin, who was in the .50-caliber gun tub atop our boat, and Benjamin Cueva, our engineman, who was at our aft gun mount suppressing the fire from the opposite bank.

Wayne Langhoffer and the other crewmen on Droz's boat went through even worse on April 12, 1969, when they saw Droz killed in a brutal ambush that left PCF-43 an abandoned pile of wreckage on the banks of the Duong Keo River. That was just a few months after the birth of his only child, Tracy.

The survivors of all these events are scattered across the country now.

Jerry Leeds lives in a tiny Kansas town where he built and sold a successful printing business. He owns a beautiful home with a lawn that sweeps to the edge of a small lake, which he also owns. Every year, flights of purple martins return to the stately birdhouses on the tall poles in his back yard.

With the debate over that long-ago day in February, they're all living that war another time.

[techs]

Hey, Ya_Know don't the Marines have a saying for what Kerry did?
Improvise, Adapt, Overcome?

[ilovetheusers]

On the radio the swift boat vets had a saying "Kery, open your sealed military records to public scrutiny". maybe when Kerry opens ALL of his records this will shut up. For some odd reason, he hasn't from what I've heard.


Further, why do I trust the words of the reporter over the large # of men who I know were there and fought beside him?

[inferno_gn]

Hi there,

Do you give a darm about what ahppen in the past? It's what is happening now that is more important and the future ahead. My friend's father (was is Vietnamese) died in the Vietnam war and do anyone give a crap, noooo! So just learn from your mistake, keep moving forward, peoples.

Ju Leon...

[imaeditedbysowulo]

On the radio the swift boat vets had a saying "Kery, open your sealed military records to public scrutiny". maybe when Kerry opens ALL of his records this will shut up. For some odd reason, he hasn't from what I've heard.


Further, why do I trust the words of the reporter over the large # of men who I know were there and fought beside him?

All of those men are veterans, none of them were on the mission with him. None of them directly served with Kerry. The reporter however, was there with him in the boats from what I understand.

[El_Squid]

The entire Vietnam rehash is due to Kerry's campaign strategy. He used to get the Democratic nomination and now he wants to ride on his medals into the Oval Office. My whole problem is the love/hate history he has with his own military past. Where the hell will he stand tomorrow?

Bush may not be the brightest bulb, but he is consistent. I know what he is and I can deal with that better than I can with someone who changes sides like his does his socks.

[ilovetheusers]

All of those men are veterans, none of them were on the mission with him. None of them directly served with Kerry. The reporter however, was there with him in the boats from what I understand.

That's not what I've heard. http://www.swiftvets.com/index.php has a stories from people who served directly with him from what I can see.

I was listening to the doctor who treated his wounds on the radio and the accounts of men who saw his boat after the firefight and they reported that the boat came back without shell casings laying about, blood or any other evidence of a fight.

This is from swiftvets about his 1st purple heart:

Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.

That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.

What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.

I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.

The wound was covered with a bandaid.



Further, listening to people who had been taken as POWs, they report that Kerry's antiwar propaghanda about war crimes and atrocities (that still have not been proven and many of them debunked) were used by the enemy against them during their imprisonment. Imagine that you are a POW and the enemy is playing your countires politicians and officers in your military saying things like "We are committing war crimes". I listened to a man last night who was a POW for 7 years and he said that Kerrys words were the most damning thing that they used (in the way of psychological warfare) because it came from a real officer. This man called John Kerry a traitor because he gave aid and comfort to the enemy with his lies.

[techs]

That's not what I've heard. http://www.swiftvets.com/index.php has a stories from people who served directly with him from what I can see.

I was listening to the doctor who treated his wounds on the radio and the accounts of men who saw his boat after the firefight and they reported that the boat came back without shell casings laying about, blood or any other evidence of a fight.

This is from swiftvets about his 1st purple heart:

Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.

That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.

What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.

I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.

The wound was covered with a bandaid.



Further, listening to people who had been taken as POWs, they report that Kerry's antiwar propaghanda about war crimes and atrocities (that still have not been proven and many of them debunked) were used by the enemy against them during their imprisonment. Imagine that you are a POW and the enemy is playing your countires politicians and officers in your military saying things like "We are committing war crimes". I listened to a man last night who was a POW for 7 years and he said that Kerrys words were the most damning thing that they used (in the way of psychological warfare) because it came from a real officer. This man called John Kerry a traitor because he gave aid and comfort to the enemy with his lies.

First off regardless of how he was wounded he was eligible for the purple heart. The statement "some of the crew confided" is wholly without support.
Second. While we Americans are wondering how Abu Ghraib could have gone on so long maybe we should look at how Kerry is being treated for exposing abuse by Americans during VietNam. Seems I read the same thing about how our prisoners would be treated by Iraqis when the guy blew the whistle. And as to Kerrys claims being debunked. PROVE IT.

[El_Squid]

And, people got purple hearts for getting egg shell fragments in their eye, while they ducked under the mess hall table during a mortar attack.

Kerry served his nation when called, that is fact. Then, he repudiated his service, his fellow servicemen and his country, which is also fact. I honor him as a decorated veteran, but distrust him for what he did afterwards.

[Zil]

Kerry served his nation when called, that is fact. Then, he repudiated his service, his fellow servicemen and his country, which is also fact. I honor him as a decorated veteran, but distrust him for what he did afterwards.

Exactly my thoughts on the matter. Whether or not he got hit in the buttocks with rice or a mortar round, the man deserves respect for volunteering and fighting our enemies. As for the stupidity he displayed after coming home (basically calling every soldier over there a war-criminal, including himself), I think he owes all the vets that were still over in Vietnam when he was protesting the war an apology. Notice how he never parades this around when he is meeting with vets.

[Cleetus]

You people are so smoking crack, he did one brave thing and you all praise him, then he bravely did a 180 and now you think he is akin to the anti-christ, both were very brave acts, war isn't the only brave thing you can do for your country. Standing up for what you believe in, esp if it isn't popular or goes against the entire government is very brave.