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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kevin Rose who wrote (605221)	8/18/2004 8:33:36 AM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

we got two different stories , were there other boats with kerry? What happen to the M-79 grenade launcher. Did Kerry fire one or not? this person doesn't mention Kerry firing a grenade launcher at all. "As an officer in command (OIC) in training, Kerry reported during this mission to William Schachte, who eventually retired as a Rear Admiral. Schachte flatly contradicts Kerry's claim to have been wounded by enemy fire, saying that after his M-16 jammed, Kerry picked up an M-79 grenade launcher and fired a grenade that exploded too close to the boat, causing a small piece of shrapnel to stick in the skin of his arm. Kerry himself did not report receiving hostile fire that night, which would have been required, and there is no record of hostile fire for the mission. Kerry succeeded in keeping the small piece of shrapnel in his arm until the following day, when he was treated by Dr. Louis Letson, whose version of the event matches William Schachte's account rather than Kerry's: I have a very clear memory of an incident which occurred while I was the Medical Officer at Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay. John Kerry was a (jg), the OinC or skipper of a Swift boat, newly arrived in Vietnam. On the night of December 2, he was on patrol north of Cam Ranh, up near Nha Trang area. The next day he came to sick bay, the medical facility, for treatment of a wound that had occurred that night. 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 fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action. 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. Not [sic] other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any reported damage to the boat. The following morning, John Kerry arrived at the office of Coastal Division 14 Commander Grant Hibbard to apply for a Purple Heart. Having already been informed by Schachte that Kerry's injury was self-inflicted rather than the result of hostile fire, Commander Hibbard told him to "forget it." Hibbard recently said of Kerry's minor scratch, "I’ve seen worse injuries from a rose thorn." Nevertheless, John Kerry managed to obtain his coveted Purple Heart for this incident nearly three months later after being transferred to Coastal Division 11. The circumstances remain obscure, as there are no written records of this award on file at the Naval Historical Center. Various other documents that might shed light on this award remain unavailable due to Senator Kerry's refusal to release his complete military records. Military regulations state that to qualify for a Purple Heart, an injury must come "from an outside force or agent," and treatment for the wound must "have been made a matter of official record." While John Kerry managed to satisfy the second criterion by insisting that an amused Dr. Letson provide an official Band-Aid, nicking himself with a fragment from his own poorly-aimed grenade fails to meet the first qualification." from swiftvets web site.

To: Kevin Rose who wrote (605221)	8/18/2004 9:04:20 AM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

did Runyon change his story from 35 years ago? Letson isn't referring to his "two crewmates" when he says others told him there was no hostile fire. He's speaking of the people who were there on the Swift boat which was in support of the Skimmer. Kerry likes to tell the story like he was all alone out there, but he wasn't. He was part of a mission which involved a Swift boat and crew. Kerry, for that night, was also a part of that crew and not restricted to the two on the skimmer. In fact after the mission the skimmer was towed by the Swift boat, on which John Kerry rode. It is the crew who remained on the Swift boat, John Kerry's crewmates for the night, who told Letson that there was no enemy fire involved. I would like to see an interview between Runyon and Letson.

To: Kevin Rose who wrote (605221)	8/18/2004 12:49:19 PM
From: Doren	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

It looks to me like the Swift boat smear is going to backfire on Bush. I think that except for the people who've alread decided Bush is their savior, most people don't like it and think it's a smear campaign. No matter how you stack it Bush's record vs. Kerry's record, Kerry comes out on top. There is just no way that most people are going to believe that Kerry was a coward or immoral, any more than anyone who faces combat. Personally I think the fact that Kerry could change his mind about the war takes guts. Either war. It's not easy to admit you were wrong, especially when you're former decisions have cost lives. Remember Lincoln changed his mind about slavery, could we use a man like that now.