Chapter five - continued
<font size=4>Commander George Elliott, who wrote up the initial draft of Kerry’s Silver Star citation, confirms that neither he nor anyone else in the Silver Star process that he knows realized before 1996 that Kerry was facing a single, wounded young Viet Cong fleeing in a loincloth.
While Commander Elliott and many other Swiftees believe that Kerry committed no crime in killing the fleeing, wounded enemy (with a loaded or empty launcher), others feel differently. Commander Elliott indicates that a Silver Star recommendation would not have been made by him had he been aware of the actual facts. A more appropriate award for Kerry, if any, would have been the much lower Army Commendation Medal given to Doug Reese.
Swiftees have no answer (beyond that we simply did not know the actual facts) to the numerous Marine and Army veterans of Hue City, Khe Sanh, and other battles who have sent e-mails asking how Kerry could have possibly received a Silver Star for this limited achievement. The various other Silver Stars won by many of the signers of the May 4, 2004, statement opposing Kerry are stories of extraordinary heroism—stories that the nation will never hear. They are truly heroic acts: genuine charges into unknown hostile territory under intense fire, rescues of half-sunken boats with dead or wounded crews under horrible fire, and placing boats between the enemy and wounded, disabled, and dying to intercept the bombardment. These stories will never be used for self-advantage by the real heroes of our unit. In several cases, these tales are known only to themselves and God, unknown even to their children and families.
The Third Purple Heart and the Bronze Star
On March 13, 1969, John Kerry was involved in his final <font color=blue>“combat”<font color=black> in Vietnam. The public has seen it. The incident has been the subject of more than $50 million in paid political advertising and was featured in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary in Iowa, where Kerry met in tearful reunion with Jim Rassmann, the Special Forces lieutenant <font color=blue>“rescued from the water”<font color=black> by Kerry.
The following is Kerry’s account of the final episode of his Vietnam cameo: <font color=blue>A mine went off alongside Kerry’s boat. Lieutenant Rassmann was blown into the water. Kerry was terribly wounded from the underwater mine. Kerry turned back into the fire zone and, bleeding heavily from his arm and side, reached into the water and pulled Rassmann to safety with enemy fire all around. Kerry then towed a sinking boat out of the action.
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There is only one problem with this scenario: The above recounting is another gross exaggeration of what actually happened and, in several ways, is a total fraud perpetrated upon the Navy and the nation. Kerry’s conduct on March 13, 1969, was more worthy of disciplinary action than any sort of medal. The action certainly does not establish Kerry’s credentials for becoming the president of the United States.
Kerry’s March 13, 1969, <font color=blue>“Medals”<font color=black>
According to the records, Kerry claimed in the casualty report he prepared on March 13, 1969, that he was wounded as a result of a mine explosion. Within a short period, he presented his request to go home on the basis of his three Purple Hearts. By March 17, 1969, Kerry’s short combat career in Vietnam was over.
Regarding the action on March 13, 1969, Kerry’s medals were once again a complete fraud. Notwithstanding the fake submission for his Bronze Star, Kerry was never wounded or bleeding from his arm. All reports, including the medical reports, make clear that he suffered a minor bruise on his arm and minor shrapnel wounds on his buttocks. The minor bruise on his arm would never have justified a Purple Heart and is not mentioned in the citation.
This leaves only Kerry’s rear-end wound. This wound, like the Cam Ranh Bay wound, was of the minor tweezer-and-Band-Aid variety. How did Kerry receive a shrapnel wound in his buttocks from the explosion of an underwater mine, as his report suggests? Many participants in the incident state that neither weapons fire nor a mine explosion occurred near Kerry during the incident.
Larry Thurlow, an experienced, genuine hero and PCF veteran, commanded the boat behind Kerry on March 13, 1969. Thurlow was on the shore with Kerry and a group of Nung soldiers (mercenaries working with the South Vietnamese) that morning of March 13, 1969. Thurlow recalls that Kerry had that morning wounded himself in the buttocks with a grenade that he set off too close to a stock of rice he was trying to destroy. The incident is all too reminiscent of the M-79 grenade Kerry exploded too close to some rocks on shore, causing the wound at Cam Ranh Bay that resulted in his first Purple Heart. As the Boston Globe biographers note:<font color=blue>
At one point, Kerry and Rassmann threw grenades into a huge rice cache that had been captured from the Vietcong and was thus slated for destruction. After tossing the grenades, the two dove for cover. Rassmann escaped the ensuing explosion of rice, but Kerry was not as lucky—thousands of grains stuck to him. The result was hilarious, and the two men formed a bond.<font color=black>13
Very probably, the incident Rassmann describes that resulted in Kerry’s self-inflicted wound is the very wound that Kerry used to claim his final Purple Heart. Indeed, Kerry’s report for that day mentions the rice he destroyed. He dishonestly transferred the time and cause of the injury to coincide with the PCF action later in the day and claimed that the cause of the injury was the mine exploding during the action.
By March 1969, most of Kerry’s peers at An Thoi were aware of his reputation as an unscrupulous self-promoter with an insatiable appetite for medals. But no one actually understood what Kerry pulled off. When Thurlow finally realized that the PCF 3 incident was the same incident described by the Kerry advertisement and in Tour of Duty, Thurlow instantly knew that Kerry had used the PCF 3 mine explosion and tragedy for its crew as his ticket home.
Thurlow was astounded by the metamorphosis that had taken place in the explanation of Kerry’s wound: from Kerry’s own grenade as a cause, which Thurlow knew about; to a grenade error by friendly forces in the absence of hostile fire (Kerry’s secret journal and Tour of Duty); and then finally to the mine explosion (Kerry’s report and Purple Heart citation).
Unfortunately for Kerry, he ended up telling the truth by mistake. On page 313 of Tour of Duty and evidently in his secret journal written on or about March 13, 1969, which is quoted in the book, Kerry relates his injury from the rice stock explosion, although he tries to place the time and context of the incident later in the day and tries to claim that it resulted from friendly forces (the Nungs) but at a time in which there was no hostile fire:
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The Nung blew up some huge bins of rice they had found, as it was assumed, as always, that these were the local stockpiles earmarked to feed the hungry VC moving through the Delta smuggling weapons. “I got a piece of small grenade in my ass from one of the rice-bin explosions and then we started to move back to the boats, firing to our rear as we went.”<font color=black>14
Unless one believes in the amazing coincidence that Kerry got two wounds in the same place on the same day and from the same type of incident, then Kerry’s wound of March 13, 1969, was not the result of hostile fire at all but, once again, simply a self-inflicted minor wound about which he lied to get a Purple Heart. Whatever the facts of the March 13 incident, it seems incontrovertible that:
(1) Kerry lied in the Bronze Star citation about having any arm wound other than a minor bruise; and
(2) Kerry fraudulently secured a Purple Heart by falsely attributing his self-inflicted <font color=blue>“piece of small grenade in my ass”<font color=black> to the mine explosion hitting PCF 3 or to any other hostile action.
What Actually Happened
In addition to fabricating wounds from hostile fire to gain his third Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, and a quick trip home, Kerry falsely described the incident in his 1969 operating report, in his campaign biography, in his advertising, and even on his 2004 campaign website.
On March 13, 1969, Jack Chenoweth commanded the boat in front of Kerry, and his gunner, Van Odell, had a clear view of the entire incident. Dick Pease commanded PCF 3, which was blown up by the mine that day. None of these Swiftees recognized the incident as described by Kerry in his report, by Douglas Brinkley in Tour of Duty, or on Kerry’s website. They were furious when they realized Kerry’s fraudulent account.
In reality, Kerry’s boat was on the right side of the river when a mine went off on the opposite side, under PCF 3. The boat’s crewmen were thrown into the water. The officers of PCF 3 were injured by the explosion and suffered concussions. A Viet Cong sympathizer in an adjoining bunker had touched off the mine. Besides the mine exploding under PCF 3, there was no other hostile fire and there were no other mines, according to Chenoweth, Odell, Pease, and Thurlow. The boats had begun firing after the mine exploded, but they ceased after a short time because of the lack of hostile fire.
Despite the absence of hostile fire, Kerry fled the scene. The remaining PCFs, in accord with standard doctrine, stood to defend the disabled PCF 3 and its crewmen in the water. Kerry disappeared several hundred yards away, returning only when it was clear that there was no return fire.
Chenoweth (who received no medal) picked up the PCF 3 crewmen thrown into the water. As a result of the explosion, PCF 3’s engines were knocked out on one side and frozen on 500 RPM on the other side. The boat weaved dangerously, hitting sandbars, with a dazed or unconscious crew aboard. Thurlow sought a secure hold on his boat so he could jump across and board PCF 3. However, he was thrown into the water as his first attempt to board PCF 3 failed and the boat hit the sandbars. Later, Thurlow brought PCF 3 to a stop, and the boat slowly began to sink.
During the incident, Jim Rassmann had fallen or had been knocked off either Kerry’s boat or PCF 35. When he was spotted in the water, Chenoweth’s boat, with the PCF 3 crew aboard, went to pick him up. Kerry’s boat, returning to the scene after its flight, reached him about twenty yards before Chenoweth.
Kerry did the decent thing by going a short distance to pick up Rassmann, justifiably earning Rassmann’s gratitude. The claim that Kerry <font color=blue>“returned”<font color=black> to a hostile fire zone is a lie according to Chenoweth, Thurlow, and many others. Meanwhile, the serious work of saving PCF 3 continued.
Kerry’s false after-action report, prepared to justify his medals, reports <font color=blue>“5,000 meters”<font color=black>—about two and a half miles—<font color=blue>of heavy fire<font color=black>, about the same distance as a large Civil War battlefield. Not a shot of this fire was heard by Chenoweth, Thurlow, Odell, or Pease.
Kerry’s false after-action report ignores Chenoweth’s heroic action in rescuing the PCF 3 survivors and Thurlow’s action in saving PCF 3, while highlighting his own routine pickup of Rassmann and PCF 94’s minor role in saving PCF 3.
When Chenoweth’s boat left a second time to deliver the wounded PCF 3 crewmen to a Coast Guard cutter offshore, Kerry jumped into the boat, leaving the few remaining officers and men the job of saving PCF 3, which was then in terrible condition, sinking just outside the river. Kerry’s eagerness to secure his third and final Purple Heart evidently outweighed any feelings he may have had of loyalty, duty, or honor with regard to his fellow sailors. Thurlow and the brave sailors who saved PCF 3 and towed it out did not seek Purple Hearts for their <font color=blue>“minor contusions.”<font color=black> Indeed, several of the PCF 3 sailors did not seek or receive Purple Hearts. Chenoweth, Odell, and their boatmates who fished out and saved the sailors of PCF 3 likewise had no thought of seeking medals but only of rescuing their comrades and saving PCF 3.
Kerry, however, portrays himself towing the disabled PCF 3 to safety after saving it. Another lie: The damage control on PCF 3 was done by Thurlow. While Kerry’s boat, PCF 94, participated in towing PCF 3, Kerry was no longer on it for most of the trip (he was safely on the Coast Guard cutter), and Thurlow and Chenoweth are certain that Kerry played no role in saving PCF 3 or its crew.
When Chenoweth and Thurlow (as well as several other Swiftees who were there on March 13, 1969) first saw the Kerry ads, they believed the event that Kerry had described in his campaign biography and that was portrayed in his campaign television ads (as well as in the medal citations) had to be different events involving different people. What they had experienced on March 13, 1969, was so unlike the incident Kerry described that they could not imagine that he was describing the same event. They were horrified when they finally realized Kerry had received medals for the incident they remembered.
Rassmann appeared for a spontaneous embrace of Kerry at a campaign event in Iowa. He was understandably grateful to Kerry for fishing him out of the river, and he was evidently happy to participate in the <font color=blue>“no man left behind”<font color=black> version of the story being told by Kerry in his <font color=blue>“war hero”<font color=black> mode. As with most Kerry campaigns, Iowa ended with Kerry, the Vietnam hero. Still, the other Swiftees who learned of Kerry’s fraudulent citations and ads felt betrayed. William Franke, writes:
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You’ve just got to make them understand. We went out to operate and survive. We had no time to deal with the crap of John Kerry. We weren’t thinking of self-promotion like him. Just survival and doing the job. We didn’t want him around and we were happy he was gone.<font color=black>15
Tom Wright, another PCF commander at An Thoi, discussed John Kerry with several other Swiftees on base right after the March 13 incident. They were aware of the three Purple Heart rule that sounded like <font color=purple>“three strikes and you’re out.”<font color=black> John Kerry could be sent home. So Wright approached Kerry one night and proposed to him that several fellow Swiftees on the base felt that it might be best for everybody if Kerry simply left. The next thing Wright knew, Kerry was gone, the exact result Wright hoped to achieve.
Coming Home
Kerry followed up the March Purple Heart with a request to head home, the only Swiftee in the history of Coastal Division 11 to do so before the end of a tour, except of course, those who suffered a serious wound.16 Kerry arrived home in New York, completing his <font color=blue>“one year tour”<font color=black> in the record time of four months. According to his biography, when he got off the airplane at Kennedy Airport in New York to meet his fiancée, Julia Thorne, Kerry was supposedly so <font color=blue>“bandaged” that “some of it was sticking out.”<font color=black>17 Whether this was just another example of Kerry political theater is not clear. It is certain that Kerry had only a minor bruise on his arm and a minor self-inflicted wound on the buttocks from some two weeks earlier. It is unclear how either of these wounds could have accounted for bandages <font color=blue>“sticking out”<font color=black> from his clothing.
In his 1971 debate on the Dick Cavett Show with John O’Neill, Kerry made it seem as if his decision process to leave Vietnam had been tortured:
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The fact of the matter remains that after I received my third wound, I was told that I could return to the United States. I deliberated for about two weeks because there was a difficult decision in whether or not you leave your friends because you have an opportunity to go, but I finally made the decision to go back and did leave of my own volition because I felt I could do more against the war back here. . . . When I got back here. . . I wrote a letter through him [an admiral] requesting that I be released from the Navy early because of my opposition.<font color=black>18
This <font color=blue>“deliberation”<font color=black> was once again a complete lie. Kerry was <font color=blue>“wounded”<font color=black> on March 13, 1969, on the Bay Hap River, but by March 17, 1969, at 7:42 a.m., his request for reassignment to the United States (having been typed up far away in An Thoi and signed by the commander there) was at the Navy Department in Washington. His subsequent request to leave the Navy late in 1969 mentions nothing about his <font color=blue>“opposition to the war,”<font color=black> but only his ambition to run for Congress.19
The real Kerry <font color=blue>“homecoming”<font color=black> that most Swiftees will never forget occurred at St. Albans Naval Hospital in early April 1969, where Tedd Peck, the commander of PCF 94, lay recovering from terrible wounds that he suffered on January 29, 1969.20 Peck was horrified when he learned that PCF 94 and his crew had been turned over to Kerry after Peck had been wounded. He thought, <font color=blue>“How could the Navy do this to me after all I’ve suffered?”<font color=black>
Still in pain and suffering from his wounds, Peck was stunned to see a well-groomed John Kerry pop into his room, complete with dress whites and attaché cord. <font color=purple>“Kerry, you son of a bitch,”<font color=black> Peck said, <font color=purple>“what the hell are you doing here? You were only there a couple of months.”<font color=black>
Kerry replied (lying about his own request to come home), <font color=blue>“Tedd, the Navy decided it was time for me to come home.”<font color=black> Kerry explained that he was visiting the wounded as an admiral’s aide.
Within a short time, Kerry sought to recruit Peck for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), which Kerry described as a group he had organized. Peck, dumbfounded, asked Kerry, <font color=purple>“John, how can you do this? All of our guys are still over there, in Vietnam?”<font color=black>
Kerry had no answer.
We have never been given any more of a real answer from John Kerry than the one Tedd Peck received while lying in his hospital bed.<font size=3>
Copyright © 2004 by John E. O’Neill and Jerome L. Corsi |
