HERE'S THE REAL KERRY AS WAR HERO
Insight Magazine
By Stephen Crump
April 12, 2004
Democratic presidential nominee in waiting Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) frequently speaks of courage, brotherhood and responsibility when he mentions his brief service in Vietnam. He took Super-8 home movies there in which he staged heroics in full-battle dress, so that later he might use them for campaign ads. Kerry has made so much of his Vietnam medals which he once pretended to throw away that critics have begun to wonder why he has been so cagey about the dubious circumstances surrounding the Purple Hearts that got him out of Vietnam after only four months of combat service. Under the rules, a serviceman had to be awarded three Purple Hearts to apply to go home. Not one or two, but three. And, say critics, there's the rub.
Kerry, who piloted Patrol Crafts Fast (PCFs) as a young Lt.(jg) in the Vietnam War, has always made much of those Purple Hearts. An award often pinned on the pillow of a combat warrior so badly wounded that he cannot sit up to receive it, the Purple Heart recognizes the sacrifices of combat when a soldier or officer has sustained a wound "from an outside force or agent" and received treatment from a medical officer. The records for such treatment "must have been made a matter of official record," according to the military definition of the award.
According to Kerry's own description in Douglas Brinkley's Tour of Duty, the Dec. 2, 1968, mission behind what he has claimed to be his first Purple Heart was "a half-assed action that hardly qualified as combat." Indeed. Kerry was stationed with Coastal Division 14 at Cam Ranh Bay. At that time he piloted a small foam-filled boat, known as a Boston Whaler, with two enlisted men in the darkness of early morning. The intent, apparently, was to patrol an area that was known for contraband trafficking, but it was an undocumented mission. Upon approaching the objective point, the crew noticed a sampan crossing the river. As it pulled to shore, Kerry and his little team opened fire, destroying the boat and whatever its cargo might have been.
In the confusion, Kerry claims to have received a "stinging piece of heat" in the arm, the result of a tiny piece of shrapnel. He was not incapacitated and continued with regular swiftboat-patrol duty. William Shachte, who oversaw this ad hoc mission, was quoted by the Boston Globe as saying Kerry's injury, from whatever source, "was not a serious wound at all."
But Kerry met with his immediate superior officer, Lt.Cmdr. Grant Hibbard, the next morning and requested a Purple Heart for his wound. Hibbard recalls that Kerry had a "minor scratch" on his arm and was holding in his hand what appeared to be a fragment of a U.S. M-79 grenade, the shrapnel that had caused the wound. "They didn't receive enemy fire," Hibbard tells Insight. Since this was an essential requirement for the award, the commander rejected Kerry's request. Hibbard does not remember that Kerry received medical attention of any kind and confirms that no one else on the mission suffered any injuries.
Shortly thereafter, Kerry was transferred to Coastal Division 11 at An Thoi. Apparently, Kerry petitioned to have his Purple Heart request reconsidered. Hibbard remembers getting correspondence from Kerry's new division, asking for his approval. In the hurried process of moving to a new command himself, Hibbard thinks he might have signed off on the award. If so, "it was to my chagrin," Hibbard remembers. Kerry's second commander, Lt.Cmdr. G.M. Elliott, says he has no recollection of such an event ever occurring.
There are no written records of Kerry's magical first Purple Heart on file at the Naval Historical Center in Washington, the nation's primary repository for such documentation. A Purple Heart normally is not requested but is awarded de facto for a wound inflicted by the enemy - a wound serious enough to require medical attention. The Naval Historical Center keeps all documents connected to such awards to U.S. Navy and Marine personnel. These typewritten "casualty cards" list the date, location and prognosis of the wound for which the Purple Heart is given, and they are produced by the medical facility that provides treatment for the combat wound at the hands of the enemy. There are two such cards for Kerry - for his slight wounds on Feb. 20 and March 13, 1969, but none for his December 1968 claim.
After receiving a Purple Heart for the March 13 scratch and bruise, Kerry sought an early pass out of combat duty, invoking the informal Navy "instruction" known as 1300.39. According to the Boston Globe, 1300.39 meant an officer could request a reassignment from his superior officer after receiving three Purple Hearts. The instruction states that, rather than being automatic, the reassignment would "be determined after consideration of his physical classification for duty and on an individual basis." Of the 138 servicemen and officers in Kerry's unit who received Purple Hearts during the time he was there, records indicate only two received more than two. These were Lt.(jg) Jim Galvin and a boatswain's mate named Stevens. When Insight reached Galvin he said all three of his Purple Hearts were the result of shrapnel or glass shards. Such minor injuries were common on PCF boats with their glass windows and thin metal hulls, and, like Kerry's, Galvin's injuries were not serious enough to take him out of combat for more than a few days.
Unlike Kerry, Galvin elected to stay with his men. Indeed, though a professional Navy officer, he never had heard of instruction 1300.39. It was not until early April of 1969, when Galvin noticed that Kerry was preparing to leave the officers' barracks at An Thoi that he learned about "three Purple Hearts and you're out." According to Galvin, it was Kerry who told him, "There's a rule that gets you out of here and I'm getting out. You ought to do the same." Galvin remembers, "He seemed to take care of everything pretty quickly," because that was the last time Galvin saw Kerry in Vietnam.
The three-times wounded Galvin stayed with his men, transferred to Cam Ranh Bay to get them a respite from the dicey Mekong Delta, and eventually left the swiftboats for destroyer school.
Insight: contacted many men who served in Coastal Division at the same time Kerry did to ask if any of them had heard of anyone leaving the combat zone by invoking three minor wounds. Of the 12 who replied, none had heard of anyone doing so but John Kerry."
Less than a month after having claimed three wounds for which he lost no more than a total of two days of duty, Kerry reported as an aide to a navy yard admiral in Brooklyn, New York, leaving his crew in Vietnam. Two years later, preparing for a congressional race in a left-wing Massachusetts district - where the seat eventually was won by the even more radical Rev. Robert Drinan - Kerry was working with Maoists and other radicals in Vietnam Veterans Against the War, saying of those he left behind who were being killed and wounded for real that they were committing crimes "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels."
Indeed, Kerry said, he knew men who in Vietnam "had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the countryside." Addressing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971, about these and other alleged war crimes, he called on the United States to pay "extensive reparations."
Stephen Crump is an associate reporter for Insight magazine
As Kerry Tells It!
MEMO: I'd like to see the official Military Medical Records for these awards of the Purple Hearts and Citations for the other awards. I don't believe a thing Kerry says, he lied before so he'll lie again. Read all the material on this page before making up your mind--RLNoe
Kerry threatens to sue the internet people who keep "challenging his record in Vietnam." Touchy touchy...bring it on.
Vietnam lessons shape Kerry as a leader By Andrea Stone,
USA TODAY
John Kerry stood in the pilothouse of his swift boat as it churned noisily up the mangrove-choked Dong Cung River in Vietnam's Ca Mau Peninsula. The young lieutenant inhaled the sweet fragrance of wood fires and the pungent odor of fish sauce. But his thoughts were on the ambush that most surely lay ahead.
Interviews with officers and sailors who served with John Kerry in Vietnam mostly portray a young leader with an aggressive command style.
John Kerry campaign
"We were one helluva target," Kerry recalls, 35 years after serving in Vietnam. For nearly three months, his lightly armed patrol boats had been sitting ducks for Viet Cong snipers. The usual response was to clear the ambush zone and shoot back from a safer distance. Sailors stayed on board.
But the young officer had a more "creative" plan on Feb. 28, 1969. This time, Kerry beached his boat toward the attacking VC. He jumped ashore, chased a startled, armed guerrilla and killed him. Crewmates say the audacious move saved their lives. Kerry was awarded the Silver Star, the Navy's third-highest combat award.
"He was hard-charging," recalls Del Sandusky, the senior enlisted sailor who drove Patrol Craft Fast (PCF) 94 that day. "Kerry thought offense was the best defense."
The fierceness Kerry exhibited then is on display as the Massachusetts senator battles President Bush in what is already a nasty campaign. While Bush has been forced to defend his service in the Texas Air National Guard, Kerry has willingly conjured up his past as a combat-tested Mekong Delta skipper. Campaign ads feature footage of him in the jungle. Kerry, 60, says his actions then inform his leadership now.
"I was a good leader, a strong leader. I had strong awareness and perception of the things around me. I listened. I took things in," Kerry said in a 50-minute interview. "I was decisive."
Interviews with 18 officers and enlisted sailors who served with Kerry in Vietnam mostly portray a young leader with an aggressive command style. Many recall a warm, compassionate officer who cared deeply about his working-class crew. They also remember a warrior who ferried pregnant women and hungry villagers down river for medical care and food.
They recall how he initiated water-balloon fights to break the tension. How he asked his crew to call him "John" on the river and "sir" back at base. And how he listened to their problems in a way that foretold a career in politics.
"His concern for us was overwhelming," says Fred Short, a PCF-94 gunner's mate who would get the shakes when the adrenaline of battle wore off. "He would come around then and put his hand on your shoulder and ask if you're all right," says Short, 56, of North Little Rock "I never had another officer do that."
Ambitious self-promoter?
Asmaller number of veterans remember an ambitious self-promoter who left Vietnam after only four months, his ticket out the three Purple Hearts he earned for minor wounds. They recall a budding politician who, at just 25, already had an eye on posterity and would write about his experiences for hours rather than join fellow officers at the beach or for a beer. They say it was no accident that Kerry volunteered for swift boats, the Vietnam equivalent of John Kennedy's PT-109 in World War II.
"John was a master at looking out for John," says Larry Thurlow, a fellow boat commander. "John has never been bashful about saying, 'Man, I'm a war hero.' "
Yet, except for one crewmate, even those who felt betrayed by Kerry for later leading Vietnam Veterans Against the War and who call themselves Bush supporters acknowledge that he showed courage under fire. "He was extremely brave, and I wouldn't argue that point," Thurlow says.
Douglas Brinkley, whose Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War mined Kerry's letters and other writings, says the senator has long suffered jealousy of his wealth and intelligence, even of his JFK initials.
"He's a very passionate person, and nothing is he more passionate about than Vietnam," Brinkley says. "Vietnam is part of this guy's makeup."
In his senior year at Yale, Kerry signed on as a Navy officer. He joined several equally privileged friends with the means to avoid the draft who volunteered for the military. He would lose six close friends by war's end.
Kerry's first tour in early 1968, aboard the guided-missile frigate USS Gridley off the coast of Vietnam, proved a bore. He wanted his own command and volunteered for swift boats, the 50-foot, aluminum-clad crafts that patrolled the relatively safe Vietnamese coast.
A new, dangerous mission
But shortly after arriving at Cam Ranh Bay in November 1968, he was assigned to Operation Sealords. The new mission sent six-man boats deep into Viet Cong territory to "show the flag" and harass enemy forces who controlled the dense, remote jungles south of Saigon.
Vice Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, the Navy's commander in Vietnam, later wrote that Sealords sailors had a 75% casualty rate.
"The level of danger was extremely high," says Jim Rassmann, the Army Special Forces officer who rode PCF-94 for nearly a month before Kerry saved his life during a ferocious river battle. The noisy boats "had no place to hide. People could hear them coming a half-mile away."
Ambushes were a constant. Viet Cong lurked among civilians. Boat officers were given wide berth in "free-fire" zones where troops were allowed to shoot first and ask questions later. Kerry preferred caution unless fired upon.
"He wouldn't let you go randomly down the river shooting up everything in sight," says Stephen Hatch, who served on the first of Kerry's two boats.
Still, innocents were sometimes killed. One pitch-black night, Kerry's PCF-94 stopped a Vietnamese sampan boat after curfew in a free-fire zone. Kerry told his gunner to fire a warning round, but in the ensuing confusion the entire crew began shooting. Moments later, they learned to their horror that they had killed a small child, the limp body already covered by the child's mother. Although they had done nothing technically wrong, Kerry refused to uncover the body for fear, he later wrote, that the face would haunt him forever.
"The image of that child on that pile of rice in the night will never leave me," he says. "And the terror in the eyes of the faces of civilians. The look of our own wounded, and seeing someone carrying a human being in two halves. Those things stay with you."
Such incidents convinced Kerry and other officers that the river excursions, which took no terrain but resulted in many casualties, made more enemies than friends. But the missions continued.
On the February 1969 mission to transport South Vietnamese troops deep into enemy territory, three boats under Kerry's tactical command came under small-arms fire. But this time, the convoy did the unexpected.
"Zero-Nine-Zero. All boats turn," Kerry ordered. Whipping sharply to shore, the boats terrified the ambushers, who were quickly overwhelmed. The tactic, Kerry recalled, "worked superbly."
Hearing shots ahead, Kerry headed farther up the river, where his boat was attacked a second time. Kerry signaled Sandusky, his driver, to ram the shoreline again. They hit just 10 feet from a bamboo-covered spider hole. A panicked guerrilla wearing a loincloth and wielding a B-40 rocket launcher sprang up and started to run.
Kerry jumped onto the bank and chased him. The guerrilla fell when his leg was grazed by fire, but quickly got up and ran down a path. He was about to duck out of sight behind a hut when Kerry "dispatched him" with his M-16, says radio operator Michael Medeiros, who followed close behind.
Some critics have cited remarks at the time by George Elliott, Kerry's division commander, for sparking questions about Kerry's actions. After the battle, Elliott says he cracked "tongue-in-cheek" that he didn't know whether to court-martial Kerry or give him a medal. But in a recent interview, he was clear: "This was an exemplary action. There's no question about it."
In an evaluation written in late 1969, Elliott said Kerry's decisiveness was "unsurpassed" and he was an "acknowledged leader in his peer group. His bearing and appearance are above reproach."
"When he recognizes a threat or problem that is serious, many of us would become defensive and perhaps try to move ourselves from the threat," says Skip Barker, a retired Navy captain who met Kerry during swift boat training in Coronado, Calif. "John's reaction is different. It gets his attention. He focuses on it and goes after it."
Friends and foes
Not everyone agrees. Stephen Gardner, a gunner's mate on PCF-44, spoke out for the first time last month after hearing conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh question Kerry's war credentials. Gardner, who says "this country's in a world of trouble" if the Democrat is elected president, calls Kerry a "hesitant" commander who shunned danger.
Gardner, 56, claims Kerry retreated during a firefight under the pretense that he wanted to get Gardner medical attention. "It was a panic run," says Gardner, who calls his wound superficial. While he refuses to call Kerry a coward, he recalls "a guy who was protecting himself most of the time."
That view does not square with the recollections of eight other enlisted sailors who served with Kerry and were interviewed for this story. Kerry and other PCF-44 veterans say the shooting was over when they turned back to base.
"I never saw John back down from anything," crewmember Bill Zaladonis says.
"I have no idea where he's coming from," Kerry says of Gardner.
Rassmann also dismisses the idea of a cautious Kerry. He says he is alive today because of Kerry's courage during a vicious battle in March 1969. The special forces soldier had been blown off PCF-94 by a mine that also injured Kerry's right arm. Swimming in the river while being strafed from both banks, Rassmann was convinced he was about to die before Kerry's boat returned. As the soldier struggled to climb scramble nets draped over the boat's bow, Kerry reached down with his uninjured arm and pulled him on board.
"He was frankly nuts coming up to the bow and exposing himself" to the barrage of bullets and mortars, Rassmann says. The two met in an emotional reunion in Iowa in January after Rassmann called the campaign and offered to appear at an event. It became a pivotal moment in Kerry's comeback, which culminated days later in the state's caucuses.
Rassmann, a Republican, now works on Kerry's campaign. But a few other Vietnam veterans have spread stories — some of which Thurlow admits are "hearsay" — on conservative Web sites.
Kerry says his war record has become "a target of right-wing revisionism." His campaign is considering legal action against what officials call lies and slander spread on the Internet. The accusations range from calling him a "baby killer" to questioning whether he legitimately earned his Purple Hearts. "I'm not going to suffer someone on the Internet playing games," Kerry says. "They weren't there and don't know what the hell they're talking about."
Tedd Peck, who skippered PCF-94 before being wounded and giving way to Kerry, says he "had a dislike for the man as soon as I met him. He was not a genuine type of guy." Peck, 60, never went on a mission with Kerry; PCF-94's enlisted sailors compare his leadership style unfavorably to Kerry's. But Peck charges that Kerry "politicked" for his first Purple Heart after being wounded Dec. 2, 1968.
Three Purple Hearts and out
Questions about Kerry's award may be relevant because Navy regulations stated that sailors wounded three times, "regardless of the nature of the wound or treatment required," were eligible to go home early. Kerry left after just four months of his second tour.
Grant Hibbard, the division commander, says he initially rejected Kerry's first Purple Heart because he only had a "little scratch" on his arm and a "squiggly" one-eighth-inch shrapnel shard in his left hand. A Navy "sick call" sheet provided by the Kerry campaign shows that he was treated the next day for shrapnel in his left arm above the elbow.
"It just didn't seem to warrant" a Purple Heart, Hibbard says. He later "acquiesced" after receiving "some correspondence" — he doesn't remember from whom — and because he was going home soon and didn't feel like fighting it.
Kerry doesn't remember Hibbard or the conversation but does recall "someone raising a question" about the award. If he asked for the award, he says, it was because he didn't realize Purple Hearts were given automatically and not at the discretion of commanders. "They decided to award it," he says. "I'm not going to rehash a judgment made by the Navy 35 years ago."
Nor will he apologize for serving less than a year. By the time Kerry says commanders told him he could go home, the young lieutenant had decided that he wanted to work to end the war.
"Some people don't like the fact I went back and spoke out against the war," Kerry says. "These guys are working overtime searching for something destructive, trying to tie me to all kinds of things. I know my record. It will stand."
GZ |
