Re: OT- Ref Draft during the Vietnam Period

Doug Reese wrote:
I also read the report where Kerry claimed a purple heart for a
*** wound caused when he tossed a grenade into a cache of
rice. This was a prosperous village with no known Cong
activity.

Please read carefully the paragraph you posted above.

Notice the description of the wound.

Purple Heart Number Two:
The Boston Globe - June 6, 2003 -- On Feb. 20, 1969, Kerry earned his
second Purple Heart after sustaining a shrapnel wound in his left thigh.
According to a previously unreported Navy report on the battle, a
two-boat patrol spotted three men on a riverbank who were wearing black
pajamas and running and engaged them in a firefight. While not
criticizing this engagement, the Navy report did challenge the decision
of unnamed skippers to fire at other "targets of opportunity" in the area.
"Area seemed extremely prosperous and open to psyops action, minimum
number of defensive and no offensive bunkers detected," the report said.
The naval official who wrote the report concluded: "Future missions in
this area should be oriented toward psyops rather than destruction."
The destruction included 40 sampans, 10 hut-style hootches, three
bunkers, and 5,000 pounds of rice. The crews from two swift boats had
expended more than 14,000 rounds of.50-caliber ammunition. No enemy
casualties were reported.

Recap: Purple Heart #1

The attending physician, Louis Letson says “The story he told was
different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. According
to Kerry, they had been engaged in a firefight. . . 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. . .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 band-aid.”

Kerry applied for a Purple Heart. His request was initially denied by
his superior Grant Hibbard, as Purple Heart eligibility requirements
that “the wound for which the award is made must have required treatment
by a medical officer” and Purple Hearts are not to be awarded for
“accidents. . .not related to or caused by enemy action” or for
“self-inflicted wounds. . .involving gross negligence.” Hibbard later
acquiesced.

There is a good summary of the Kerry's medals controversy in the report:
"Forging a Paper Hero: The Mystery of Kerry's Medals."

(Note: In Kerry's own journal written 9 days later, he writes that he
and his crew, "hadn't been shot at yet." Kerry's 2004 campaign said it
is possible his first Purple Heart was awarded for unintentionally
self-inflicted wounds.)

Crewman Steve Gardner states that he filed a false after-action report
to cover up a January incident involving the accidental shooting of a child.

(Kerry’s fellow officer George Bates similarly states that Kerry
habitually overreacted to threatening situations by using excessive
force, including on one occasion burning down a random village where
there was no sign of enemy presence.)

February 20, 1969 Kerry and crew come under automatic weapon and
rocket fire while on patrol in South Vietnam. Kerry was hit by shrapnel
in his left thigh. He is awarded a second Purple Heart.

(Note: Kerry's account is disputed by the Swift Boat Veterans, some of
whom state there was no enemy fire.)

That wound happened on March 13, 1969. Another minor wound happened later in the day -- a contusion to the arm. Left arm, I believe. At any rate, that was the day of his 3rd PH.

March 13, 1969
There is a detailed summary of the contradictory accounts of this event
in the report, "Forging a Paper Hero: The Mystery of Kerry's Medals":
"Where the reports state that Kerry’s buttocks injury occurred when the
mine exploded, Brinkley’s biography records the account of Kerry’s war
journal that the shrapnel in Kerry’s buttocks came from throwing a
grenade into a rice cache—as Kerry wrote, 'I got a piece of small
grenade in my ass from one of the rice bin explosions.' Rassmann recalls
the rice explosion incident occurring prior to the incident where Kerry
pulled him out of the water. Kerry’s fellow officer Larry Thurlow
reports that Kerry’s buttocks injury was a self-inflicted wound caused
by Kerry setting off a grenade too close to a stock of rice he was
trying to destroy. The after-action report mentions 'TWO TONS GRAIN AND
RICE DESTROYED.'"

I was there for the first wound of the day.

Where Kerry admits he caused his own *** wound? Were you a witness?

The village we were in that day (March 13) was, absolutely, a VC village.

The description you have below (from the Boston Globe) has nothing whatsoever to do with what you initially described

What I initially described was what the article stated. I've posted it
several times. You claim to have been there yet you dispute the article.

WERE you there when Kerry got his 2nd Purple Heart or not?

As I said, you have mixed up two incidents.

Wrong. You disputed the information I posted by dragging in a
completely different incident and are now trying to say that *I* got the
incidents mixed up.

Doug Reese

Bull***. I was there, pal. We had a guy killed -- blown to bits
and pieces by a command detonated mine. "Prosperous village with
no known Cong activity". Where in the world do you come up with
this nonsense?
Navy Reports---unlike you who got all his information from Kerry's imaginary biography.

If you were there, give the date of this action.

The Boston Globe - June 6, 2003 -- According to a previously
unreported Navy report on the battle, a two-boat patrol spotted
three men on a riverbank who were wearing black pajamas and running
and engaged them in a firefight. While not criticizing this
engagement, the Navy report did challenge the decision of unnamed
skippers to fire at other "targets of opportunity" in the area. "Area seemed extremely prosperous and open to psyops action,
minimum number of defensive and no offensive bunkers detected," the
report said. The naval official who wrote the report concluded:
"Future missions in this area should be oriented toward psyops
rather than destruction." The destruction included 40 sampans, 10
hut-style hootches, three bunkers, and 5,000 pounds of rice. The
crews from two swift boats had expended more than 14,000 rounds
of.50-caliber ammunition. No enemy casualties were reported.

Kerry and his intrepid group fired 14,000 rounds of .50 caliber
but the body count was zero.
More bull***, but at least you're consistent.
Contest the Navy's report not the messenger who exposes your many
lies on this subject.

Kerry publicly expressed opposition to the war in speeches at Yale in
1965 and 1966.4 He tried unsuccessfully to persuade the draft board to
let him study abroad in France before he finally enlisted in February
1966, according to a version of the story he gave in 1970 after he had
joined the antiwar movement.5 However thirty years later when Kerry was
touting his record as a war hero, he boasted, “I could have gone to law
school, like. . .many of my friends did. I chose not to.”6

After Kerry had failed to avoid military service, he followed Bundy’s
advice and enlisted to be an officer. He initially considered joining
the Air Force like his father, but rejected this option when his father
warned him that combat flying might taint his enjoyment of recreational
flying.7 Instead in February 1966 he enlisted in the US Naval Reserve
(not the Navy, as incorrectly stated in several Kerry biographies).8
Soon after his appointment as a Reserve Officer that winter, he
expressed a preference for assignment to a Patrol Craft Fast (PCF), or
“Swift Boat”.9 At this time Swift Boats were used primarily for a
coastal interdiction mission called Operation Market Time,10 which
involved relatively less risk of combat action than other assignments,
so Kerry assumed his requested assignment would not involve combat. As
he put it in a 1986 book, “I didn’t really want to get involved in the
war. . .When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do
with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that’s what I
thought I was going to be doing.”11


Kerry was initially stationed with Coastal Division 14 at Cam Ranh Bay,
a port base considered the safest assignment in Vietnam. There on
December 2, two weeks after arriving, during an incident where no
after-action report of enemy fire has

been released, Kerry suffered a minor shrapnel injury to his arm, for
which he was awarded his first Purple Heart. Kerry told his biographer
Douglas Brinkley that “I never saw where the piece of shrapnel had come
from”. According to witness Lieutenant William Schachte (later a Rear
Admiral), “Kerry nicked himself with a M-79” grenade launcher by
improperly firing it. After being treated for his injury by Dr. Louis
Letson—who recalls being surprised that Kerry bothered coming in for
medical attention, since the thorn-sized piece of shrapnel was barely
hanging in Kerry’s arm and was easily removed with a tweezers—Kerry
applied for a Purple Heart. His request was initially denied by his
superior Grant Hibbard, per Purple Heart eligibility requirements that
“the wound for which the award is made must have required treatment by a
medical officer” and Purple Hearts are not to be awarded for “accidents.
. .not related to or caused by enemy action” or for “self-inflicted
wounds. . .involving gross negligence”. Hibbard later acquiesced to the
award after receiving some correspondence—from whom he does not recall.
After controversy had arisen over the circumstances of the award, Kerry
reportedly showed Boston Globe reporters a 1-page document describing
the treatment of the injury in the following terms: “Shrapnel in left
arm above elbow. Shrapnel removed and apply Bacitracin dressing. Ret to
duty.” The Kerry campaign failed to answer the Boston Globe reporters’
questions about whether or not Kerry remembered receiving enemy fire or
having the Purple Heart application questioned by a superior officer,
but Kerry in a USA Today interview later remembered “someone raising a
question”. Later, after Schachte, Letson, and Hibbard’s accounts of
Kerry’s wound were publicized, readers of Brinkley’s biography
discovered a passage quoting an entry from Kerry’s war diary written
after December 11 where Kerry recorded that “we hadn’t been shot at
yet”. After this was pointed out, Kerry’s campaign acknowledged that
Kerry’s wound may have been self-inflicted.13

Four days after the December 2 incident, Kerry was transferred to a more
dangerous unit, Costal Division 11 at An Thoi, an isolated base on an
island near an enemy position. Brinkley’s biography records that Kerry
was opposed to this reassignment. Witnesses Tedd Peck and William Franke
report that Kerry began to complain he had not volunteered for this type
of risky assignment and to demand that he be transferred back to safer
coastal patrol duty. According to Peck and Franke, Kerry’s superiors
decided that the easiest way to deal with Kerry was to get rid of him.
After a week with Coastal Division 11, Kerry was transferred on December
13 to Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo, which had wider, less dangerous
rivers. There he joined a unit which provided support to Zumwalt’s
Operation SEALORDS.14

Within a few weeks Kerry was reassigned back to An Thoi, where his
crewman Steve Gardner states that he filed a false after-action report
to cover up a January incident involving the accidental shooting of a
child. Kerry’s fellow officer George Bates similarly states that Kerry
habitually overreacted to threatening situations by using excessive
force, including on one occasion burning down a random village where
there was no sign of enemy presence.15 During the month of January,
Kerry was chosen to be one of a group of officers to be personally
introduced to Admiral Zumwalt and General Creighton Abrams on the
22nd.16 Zumwalt’s Pentagon colleague W. Scott Thompson later recalled
the Admiral complaining that “young Kerry had created great problems for
him and the other top brass, by killing so many non-combatant civilians
and going after other non-military targets. ‘We had virtually to
straitjacket him to keep him under control,’ the admiral said. ‘Bud’
Zumwalt got it right when he assessed Kerry as having large
ambitions—but promised that his career in Vietnam would haunt him if he
were ever on the national stage.”17 Then-Captain Hoffmann (later a Rear
Admiral) similarly recalls that in March, to deal with Kerry’s habitual
failure to obey orders, he made a special trip to Kerry’s unit to
deliver a warning that anyone who failed to obey orders in the future
would be shipped to Saigon without further notice.18

Purple Heart #2: February 20, 1969
Kerry’s account to Douglas Brinkley: “PCF 94 had taken a
rocket-propelled grenade off the port side. . .Kerry felt a piece of hot
shrapnel bore into his left leg.”

Witness Robert Hildreth: No rocket or rifle fire.

According to Kerry’s account as reported by biographers Gerald Nicosia and Douglas Brinkley, paperwork was submitted requesting that Kerry be awarded a Navy Cross (a very rare award only given to 120 Naval personnel during the entire Vietnam War)20, but Admiral Zumwalt intercepted the paperwork and changed the request to a Silver Star in order that he could authorize the request himself and bypass the lengthy process of Congressional approval, for the sake of boosting the morale of Coastal Division 11, allegedly. But the paperwork for Kerry’s Silver Star contains puzzling discrepancies. According to the original Silver Star citation bearing Admiral Zumwalt’s signature, “Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY leaped ashore, pursued the man behind a hootch and killed him”. The original citation was later revised twice, and the two revisions omit any mention of Kerry shooting the man behind the hootch. The third version of the citation bears the signature of Reagan administration Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, who states, “It is a total mystery to me. I never saw it. I never signed it. I never approved it. And the additional language it contains was not written by me.”21


Purple Heart #3 and Bronze Star: March 13, 1969 Documentary Record

Bronze Star citations substitute “bleeding” for “contusions”.
Kerry’s war journal: “I got a piece of small grenade in my ass from one of the rice bin explosions.”

Rassman to Boston Globe August 6, 2004: “Rassmann. . .said there were two separate events: One was earlier in the day, when he and Kerry blew up a rice cache, and the explosion caused some of the rice to hit Kerry, and perhaps some weapon fragments as well. The second involved a mine explosion as Kerry and Rassmann were on patrol. The explosion, Rassmann said, knocked him overboard and threw Kerry against the pilot house, injuring his arm. Rassmann said that he has always believed that Kerry got the third Purple Heart solely for the injury to his arm as a result of the explosion in the water. 'If he got fragments in the buttocks due to the mine, that is new information to me,' Rassmann said. 'I would say there is confusion. Maybe they did lump it together. It was my understanding he got it for the wound being thrown across the pilot house.'"”

PCF-51 skipper Larry Thurlow to New York Post: "'We decided to clear the area, and that's when John decided to throw a grenade into a sampan,' Larry Thurlow, a Swift boat commander and member of the veterans group, told The Post. . .'He's not very careful, and he ends up getting some rice in his backside.' But Thurlow, who said he heard the explosion, conceded to The Post that he didn't see what happened—he was busy carrying the dead Nung's body—and was only told about it later. 'I was taking this guy's body to the boat. I asked somebody nearby and they said, 'John blew up a sampan with some rice.' "

Kerry at 1997 eulogy for Tom Belodeau: “There was the time we were carrying Special Forces up a river and a mine exploded under our boat sending it 2 feet into the air. We were receiving incoming rocket and small arms fire and Tommy was returning fire with his M-60 machine gun when it literally broke apart in his hands. He was left holding the pieces unable to fire back while one of the Green Berets walked along the edge of the boat to get Tommy another M-60. As he was doing so, the boat made a high speed turn to starboard and the Green Beret kept going—straight into the river.”

Kerry campaign press release, January 17, 2004: “On March 13, 1969, Rassmann, a Green Beret, was traveling down the Bay Hap river in a boat behind Kerry’s when both were ambushed by exploding land mines and enemy fire coming from the shore. Kerry was hit in the arm, while a mine blew Rassmann’s boat out of the water. With enemy fire coming from both sides of the river and swift boats evacuating from the area, Kerry’s crew chose to turn their boat toward the ambush to save Rassmann. ‘We were still under fire, and he was wounded at the time…,’ recalled Rassmann. And with his boat’s gunners providing suppressing fire, Kerry extended his wounded arm into the water and the two lieutenants locked arms.”

PCF-3 skipper *** Pees, PCF-51 skipper Larry Thurlow, PCF-23 skipper Jack Chernoweth, PCF-23 gunner Van Odell: Recall only one mine going off under PCF-3, recall no hostile fire.

Van Odell, PCF-23 gunner: “As the 3 boat passed the weir on the narrowest part of the river it was hit by a mine, which lifted it completely out of the water. I immediately began firing my twin 50’s towards river left to suppress any fire. I fired a couple of hundred rounds and realized we were not receiving any return fire from either bank. The other boats quit firing and we commenced rescue operations for the PCF-3 crew and boat. WE DID NOT RECEIVE ANY FIRE FROM EITHER BANK. Our boat picked up members of the disabled PCF-3.”

Odell and Chernoweth to New York Post: "Rice and shrapnel were taken out of Kerry's backside, and his right forearm arm was X-rayed, medical records say. The arm was bruised but not broken. A doctor wrapped it with an Ace bandage. Just how badly the arm was injured remains a point of contention. Kerry said the arm was bleeding at one point, but Odell said, 'There was no blood on his uniform. He had something wrapped around his arm.' Chenoweth talked with Kerry about the injuries on the way back. 'He said he had a shrapnel wound to the hip and a possible broken arm—his arm was wrapped in a white cloth.'"
Two weeks later, on March 13, 1969, Kerry received another pair of minor injuries during a set of incidents which resulted in him being awarded a third Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. According to the after-action report, five boats were involved in the events: PCF-94, under Kerry’s command; PCF-3, under Lietenant *** Pees; PCF-51; under Lieutenant Larry Thurlow; PCF-23, under Lieutenant Jack Chernoweth; and PCF-43, under Lieutenant Donald Droz.

The documentary record on these incidents is internally inconsistent. The after-action report mentions a mine going off “UNDER PCF-3” and “CLOSE ABOARD PCF-94”. However, the boat damage report lists no damage to PCF-3 but severe damage to PCF-94, which is described as having its wiring, generator, steering, and bilge pump in inoperable condition. Yet despite describing PCF-94 as being in this condition, the report states that “94 TOWED PCF 3 AS BUCKET BRIGADE CONTROLLED FLOODING”. The after-action report describes mine explosion injuries to several crew members of PCF-3, but Kerry is the only one on PCF-94 listed with mine explosion injuries. There are no descriptions of bullet damage to any craft or crew. The after-action report and casualty report state that “KERRY SUFFERED SHRAPNEL WOUNDS IN HIS LEFT BUTTOCKS AND CONTUSIONS ON HIS RIGHT FOREARM WHEN A MINE DETONATED CLOSE ABOARD PCF-94”. The after-action report characterizes Kerry’s right forearm injury as “MINOR”. The recommendation for Kerry’s Bronze Star, submitted by Kerry’s commanding officer Lieutenant Commander George Elliott and citing as an eyewitness Kerry’s second-in-command Del Sandusky, elaborates that a mine “detonated close aboard PCF-94, knocking 1st LT RASSMAN [James Rassmann] into the water and wounding LTJG KERRY in the right arm. . .LTJG KERRY. . .managed to pull LT RASSMAN aboard despite the painful wound in his right arm.” Kerry’s Bronze Star citation, originally written by Admiral Zumwalt and later revised under Secretary Lehman’s signature, substitutes for the above-mentioned contusions the detail that Kerry’s arm was “bleeding”.

These self-contradictory documentary accounts are in further conflict with eyewitness accounts. Where the reports state that Kerry’s buttocks injury occurred when the mine exploded, Brinkley’s biography records the account of Kerry’s war journal that the shrapnel in Kerry’s buttocks came from throwing a grenade into a rice cache—as Kerry wrote, “I got a piece of small grenade in my ass from one of the rice bin explosions.” Rassmann recalls the rice explosion incident occurring prior to the incident where Kerry pulled him out of the water. Kerry’s fellow officer Larry Thurlow reports that Kerry’s buttocks injury was a self-inflicted wound caused by Kerry setting off a grenade too close to a stock of rice he was trying to destroy. The after-action report mentions “TWO TONS GRAIN AND RICE DESTROYED”.

Eyewitnesses are also in conflict with the documentary record and with each other over Kerry’s account of Rassmann’s rescue. For instance, in a eulogy for Tom Belodeau in 1997, Kerry recalled that it was a mine exploding under his own boat which knocked a Green Beret overboard; but more recently Brinkley’s biography recorded Kerry’s recollection that when Rassmann fell overboard he was sitting on another boat across the river, PCF-3; while a Kerry campaign press release from January 17, 2004 introduced Rassmann as “traveling down the Bay Hap river in a boat behind Kerry’s when both were ambushed by exploding land mines and enemy fire coming from the shore.” However when Rassman spoke to the Democratic National Convention in July 2004 he described his memory of eating a cookie on Kerry’s boat when a mine knocked him in the water. Four witnesses from other boats, including the skipper of PCF-3, Lieutenant *** Pees, only recall a mine going off under PCF-3, not under Kerry’s boat. The after-action report states, “MINE DETONATED UNDER PCF-3. . .TWO OTHER MINE EXPLOSIONS”.

The same four witnesses who only recall a mine going off under PCF-3 also recall no hostile gunfire or rocket fire. In contrast, Kerry’s crewmates and two members of other boats recall what they interpreted as hostile fire. The after-action report says that hostile fire continued for “ABOUT 5000 METERS”, but describes no bullet damage to any boat or bullet wounds to any crew members.

Finally, two witnesses to Kerry’s arm injury, Van Odell and Jack Chernoweth, contend that Kerry’s arm was not bleeding, contrary to what Kerry’s Bronze Star citation states. The after-action report concurs with this, describing Kerry’s injury as “CONTUSION RT. FOREARM (MINOR)”.22

In an attempt to explain the above discrepancies, some members of Kerry’s patrol have recalled that Kerry often volunteered to fill out the after-action reports. Larry Thurlow relates, “Back then, John would actually volunteer to write them up. . .Nobody wanted to write these things. . .You're already drained from hours out on whatever the situation was. You wanted to clean up, get something to eat and get some sleep. J ohn would say, 'I'll write this up.' [We'd say], 'Go for it, John.'” Kerry’s defenders have dismissed this as an unsubstantiated accusation, but in fact Kerry stands accused by his own words. During his 1971 Senate testimony when Kerry was asked the question, "do you think it is possible for the President or Congress to get accurate and undistorted information through official military channels?", he replied, "I had direct experience with that. . .I can recall often sending in the spot reports which we made after each mission, and including the GDA, gunfire damage assessments, in which we would say, maybe 15 sampans sunk or whatever it was. And I often read about my own missions in the Stars and Stripes and the very mission we had been on had been doubled in figures and tripled in figures."23

According to Swift Boat commander Thomas Wright, following the above incidents, several of Kerry’s Swift Boat comrades conferred about the fact that Kerry had been wounded three times and was now eligible to be transferred from combat duty. Wright then approached Kerry and suggested it would be in everyone’s best interests if he took the opportunity to leave. Kerry was subsequently transferred to duty at a desk assignment in New York. Wright later recalled, “When John Kerry got his Third Purple Heart, we told him to leave. We knew how the system worked and we didn’t want him in CosDiv11. Kerry didn’t decide to manipulate the system to go home after four months; we asked him to go home.”24
***********************

The reason there are so many inconsistencies in Kerry's stories is because they were all concocted. Witnesses tell a different story.
LZ


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