Subject: Fwd: Something Fishy In a message dated 2/18/2004
>9:54:26 AM US Mountain Standard Time, snipped-for-privacy@cox.net writes: >
>
>Dick I was with CTF115 Coastal Surveillance Force in 1971-1972 in
>CamRahn Bay, We moved to Saigon and became CTF 115/SEA OPS
>CMD,Under MACV,This is when we combined Blue Water and Brown
>Water Operations,I don't remember recieving any reports from
>other than Market Time Units until after the move, I was Watch
>Supervisor in the CMD CENTER.
>
>Sent to me by an old shipmate....
>
>I was in the Delta shortly after he left. I know that area well.
>I know the operations he was involved in well. I know the
>tactics and the doctrine used. I know the equipment. Although I
>was attached to CTF-116 (PBRs) I spent a fair amount of time with
>CTF-115 (swift boats), Kerry's command.
>
>Here are my problems and suspicions:
>
>(1) Kerry was in-country less than four months and collected, a
>Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three purple hearts. I never
>heard of anybody with any outfit I worked with (including SEAL
>One, the Sea Wolves, Riverines and the River Patrol Force)
>collecting that much hardware so fast, and for such pedestrian
>actions. The Swifts did a commendable job.
>
>But that duty wasn't the worst you could draw. They operated
>only along the coast and in the major rivers (Bassac and Mekong).
>The rough stuff in the hot areas was mainly handled by the
>smaller, faster PBRs.
>
>(2) Three Purple Hearts but no limp. All injuries so minor that
>no time lost from duty. Amazing luck. Or he was putting himself
>in for medals every time he bumped his head on the wheel house
>hatch? Combat on the boats was almost always at close range.
>You didn't have minor wounds. At least not often. Not three
>times in a row. Then he used the three purple hearts to request
>a trip home eight months before the end of his tour. Fishy.
>
>(3) The details of the event for which he was given the Silver
>Star make no sense at all. Supposedly, a B-40 was fired at the
>boat and missed. Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand,
>the bow gunner knocks him down with the twin .50, Kerry beaches
>the boat, jumps off, shoots Charlie, and retreives the launcher.
>If true, he did everything wrong.
>
>(a) Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put your
>stern to the action and go balls to the wall. A B-40 has the
>ballistic integrity of a frisbie after about 25 yards, so you put
>50 yards or so between you and the beach and begin raking it with >your .50's.
>
>(b) Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a .50 caliber
>round and get up? The guy was dead or dying. The rocket
>launcher was empty. There was no reason to go after him (except
>if you knew he was no danger to you just flopping around in the
>dust during his last few seconds on earth, and you wanted some
>derring do in your after-action report). And we didn't shoot
>wounded people. We had rules against that, too.
>
>(c) Kerry got off the boat. This was a major breach of standing
>procedures. Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat in a hot
>area. EVER! The reason was simple. If you had somebody on the
>beach your boat was defenseless. It coudn't run and it couldn' t
>return fire. It was stupid and it put his crew in danger. He
>should have been relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any
>boat crewman ever leaving a boat during or after a firefight.
>
>Something is fishy.
>
>Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court
>martial for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple
>people killed by running across the bow of a Jap destroyer) who
>is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get a good tan, collects
>medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots of medals
>weren't common, gets sent home eight months early, requests
>separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run
>for Congress, finds out war heros don't sell well in Massachsetts
>in 1970 so reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons
>in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political
>career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and
>Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting, winds up in
>the Senate himself a few years later, votes against every major
>defense bill, says the CIA is irrelevant after the Wall came
>down, votes against the Gulf War, a big mistake since that turned
>out well, decides not to make the same mistake twice so votes for
>invading Iraq, but oops, that didn't turn out so well so he now
>says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to
>allow him to go to war.
>
>I'm real glad you or I never had this guy covering our flanks
>in Vietnam. I sure don't want him as Commander in Chief. I hope
>that somebody from CTF-115 shows up with some facts challenging
>Kerry's Vietnam record. I know in my gut it's wildy inflated.
>And fishy.
>
> Stay informed on Election 2004 and the race to Super Tuesday.
>
>
>Raymond P. Perks
>
>
The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute -- get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed. " Lazarus Long