RUSH: Making the complex understandable, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, talking with John O'Neill, the author of Unfit for (Command). Welcome back, Mr. O'Neill. First off, real quick question: What's the availability of the book? I'm hearing back orders, people going into stores unable to get it, some people thinking bookstores are purposely not stocking it. What's the status?
O'NEILL: Everybody is trying to get the book out as fast as possible. The easiest place to buy it, Rush, is on Amazon.com where it's delivered, you know, pretty darn promptly. You know, we basically wrote this book so that people would read it and not for any other reason. We just begged people to try and get hold of this book. Also Barnes & Noble, can be ordered online from there, too.
RUSH: And you're up to 500,000 copies scanned; is that right?
O'NEILL: That's what they say, 550,000 copies that either have been printed or --
RUSH: You're going to outsell Bill Clinton before this is all over. You might outsell Hillary Clinton before this is all over.
O'NEILL: And if it does, that will be a great thing because people will pick up an awful lot of information from this, and also will generate a nice royalty check for an awfully nice charity.
RUSH: Which is?
O'NEILL: I'm not sure if I should say, but what we've offered is, I've offered my total royalty interest in this to the Navy and Marine Corps Relief, which is the organization that aids --
RUSH: Children?
O'NEILL: -- families of people that are killed, servicemen --
RUSH: Feel free to. I'm very involved in one of those of my own, the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Scholarship Foundation, does the same thing. That's tremendous.
O'NEILL: -- and that's exactly where the total royalty interests attributable to me has been offered, and we hope that they'll accept that. If we don't, the money will also be given to another charity.
RUSH: I don't think you'll have any problem having it accepted. I'm glad I asked. Now, I want to hear it from your words. I've heard the story what happened in the river with Jim Rassmann. In fact, somewhere in my stack today, the Kerry camp has changed this, or I don't think changed it, or somebody "misspoke," but somebody, it might have been Tad Devine or Podesta, somebody, claims that Kerry now dove in after Rassmann. I always thought he pulled Rassmann out. Let me start with what is John Kerry's version of this story, and then tell us what your eyewitnesses say really happened.
O'NEILL: Yes, sir. Kerry said in over $50 million of advertising and at the Democratic convention, this was the famous story of March 13th entitled "No Man Left Behind." Actually that was the name of his ad that he ran: "No Man Left Behind." According to his story, a mine went off near another boat. There were five swift boats. They all began to take off. The mine went off near Kerry's boat. This knocked Rassmann in the water. There was intense fire, you know, small arms fire after these boats --
RUSH: Enemy fire?
O'NEILL: Enemy fire. The five boats cleared the kill zone, and then Kerry looked back and realized Rassmann was no longer there, and then single-handedly Kerry had been wounded by the water mine, both in the hip and had a bleeding arm. Nonetheless, despite his wounds, he led his boat back in and under terrible fire he crawled up to the bow, and I guess he dove in now, but in the old days, he pulled him out supposedly with his wounded arm. What this story is, is a total fabrication built around a small truth, and it's a very demonstrable fabrication. I might explain it if that's okay.
RUSH: Sure, go right ahead.
O'NEILL: There are three basic elements to the story that are a complete lie. The first element of the story is Kerry's wound. The Kerry camp has now admitted that although Kerry reported to the Navy that his hip wound came from an underwater mine, that his wound actually came from throwing a grenade into some rice earlier that morning when there was no enemy fire and no enemy around. He simply was playing around. He threw a grenade into some rice and got a tiny amount of rice and shrapnel in his fanny.
RUSH: Pardon me. Is there a strategic reason, like blowing up food stocks, blowing up rice, or is it just a thing to pass time?
O'NEILL: I think it was just horsing around. Nobody would ever throw a grenade into rice to try and destroy it. It doesn't destroy it, Rush, as far as I can tell. But be that as it may --
RUSH: Thought that.
O'NEILL: -- he had a tiny, I'm talking tweezer and Band-Aid deal.
RUSH: Yeah.
O'NEILL: What he did was report to the Navy that it came from a water mine. Now, that seemed to be very unlikely having seen a few water mines of my own in Vietnam.
RUSH: Were there witnesses to this that could contradict what he said?
O'NEILL: Yes. That was his first problem. There were at least two: Jim Rassmann, who had written about it earlier, and Larry Thurlow, who heard the grenade go off and was aware of it. But the biggest and most killing witness to Kerry was himself, because his own journal was quoted in the Brinkley book Tour of Duty and outlined exactly this incident. Brinkley apparently wasn't aware that he had lied to the Navy about it.
RUSH: That's another thing. All these people are coming out and you're debating them on TV. You're debating Lanny Davis and James Carville, and they stacked the deck against you. They weren't there. They're having to take somebody's word for what happened, and they're broadcasting it all over the place as though it's gospel. Nobody assumes that any of their sources are making anything up. It's gospel. They weren't there but yet they're noted authorities. You have eyewitnesses who were there and saw this, and you are still subject here to being impugned and discredited and laughed at, and you're bearing up under it rather well. But I can't help but think people are noticing this because you're out there so much doing this and you're keep your cool. You're not blowing up, and because you've got the facts on your side. I know you're a lawyer and you know how to do this and you know that facts speak volumes.
O'NEILL: It's exactly right. For example, on that, Rush, I have the false report. I have all the false accounts he filed on his website and all the false ads and then I have Kerry himself in his own book admitting that this rice deal was in the absence of enemy fire. He just threw a grenade in. There was no water mine.
RUSH: Well, now, wait. There has to have been a water mine. Something blew Rassmann in the water. Something blew up. Was there enemy fire or not?
O'NEILL: Well, we believe there was no enemy fire, but I think it's very important here to take this a step at a time.
RUSH: Okay.
O'NEILL: Step number 1 is, he wounded himself that morning, and also with respect to this wounded and bleeding arm, the records show that the was contusion minor, small bruise treated with cold cloth. There was no wounded, bleeding arm. So the third Purple Heart that he picked up to leave Vietnam in this incident was a complete fraud.
RUSH: Do you think he was trying to get out of Vietnam?
O'NEILL: Without question, Rush.
RUSH: Did not want to be there.
O'NEILL: He wanted out with medals, but he wanted out as fast as he could.
RUSH: But you all wanted out, right? Everybody wanted to get out.
O'NEILL: Oh, no, Rush. We were all volunteers. We were. Of course it was a hard time --
RUSH: I know, but I mean, you volunteered, but I mean, this is hell on earth over there. This is not something you get up to looking forward to every day.
O'NEILL: It was hard, but we all knew we were doing our duty. It was the honor of the thing. It may sound silly, but there aren't any 401(k)s for kids in the military. They're proud to be there. They just don't bail out. They're all there because they feel like they're doing the nation's work. It's honorable, and someday they hope to tell their kids about it. That's what motivates them, motivated all of us.
RUSH: But you believe he wanted out.
O'NEILL: He wanted out with some medals. The second big problem he's got in No Man Left Behind, remember he's got all five boats fleeing--
RUSH: Right.
O'NEILL: The physical evidence shows that PCF-3, not his boat, a boat captained by a man named Dick Pees in Cleveland, Ohio, was blown out of the water. That's how the whole action began. It was blown out of the water, and the guys on the boat, several of them, were blown into the water. The people left were unconscious or trapped in the boat, and so PCF-3 could go nowhere. The theory that all five boats escaped, they couldn't escape, Rush. PCF-3 couldn't go anywhere. What happened is all the boats, with one exception, went to the aid of PCF-3. That is, they closed on PCF-3 picking up swimmers, began trying to bring the boat under control and save it because it was sinking with people trapped on it. The one guy who was not there was John Kerry, exactly as he said, he fled. His boat took off and fled, and that was true. When he said he fled, that was right. He did.
RUSH: But none of the others did.
O'NEILL: They all stayed. Rush, we all drank out of the same cup. We would never flee a boat in those circumstances. We all would rather sit and die together.
RUSH: What did he do, mistake the mine for enemy fire?
O'NEILL: No, he simply bailed out. He's never explained why he bailed out. He tried to claim in some accounts, one account he claimed it was, or one of his crewmen, that it was just a turn. It was the longest turn, Rush, ever made by a PCF.
RUSH: I think guys like this, they drive me nuts.
O'NEILL: The next story was he was really going down somewhere to put troops in far away, but you see, Rush, the problem is we had guys right in the water there that were unconscious. They'd be dead by the time anybody got back to them and that's why all the other guys stayed. Now, that's undeniable. One and two are established as fact. You can look at the Washington Post diagram of yesterday, and I don't think Kerry denies that he may try and explain it. What Kerry has tried to do is let the tail on the dog be the dog. He's trying to argue while there was fire beyond the original mine. That, of course, is the smallest question of all, because it meant that the wound was fabricated on the, you know, this hip shrapnel wound. He admits that he fled and everybody else stayed. Now he's really trying to claim that when he came back to where everybody else was, there was still fire. I've got to tell you, I think we have overwhelming evidence we are right. Here's the evidence. We have ten guys on those boats including all the officers who say that there was no fire. We have the width of this little river as 75 yards. Those boats were there for an hour and a half saving the three boat and saving the people on it. There is not a bullet hole on any of those boats from that day. There's not a man wounded that day from anything but the original mine.
RUSH: Except John Kerry.
O'NEILL: Except John Kerry's hip wound from the rice explosion --
RUSH: Yes.
O'NEILL: -- and then the elbow that he claims banged up against the bulkhead, that was a minor bruise. Unlike our evidence on all this, the way he's been able to cloud that issue is at least one or more of his crewmen and Rassmann say there was fire. With respect to Mr. Rassmann, I think it's important to realize that he was in the water struggling for his life after he fell off the Kerry boat and that he did see the Kerry stern disappearing and maybe that's why he thought everybody left.
RUSH: Now, was he blown off? Do you know whether he was blown off? If the mine did not hit Kerry's boat, if it hit the 3 boat --
O'NEILL: Right.
RUSH: -- then how did Rassmann fall off?
O'NEILL: That's a wonderful question. First of all, all of our guys say there was no second mine, as reported by Kerry. At least none of them heard it. There's no evidence of any damage to the Kerry boat from any second mine. Kerry produced a damage report, but it reflects injuries the day before to his boat, not that day. We know that from page 304 of his book Tour. So there's no indication of any damage to the boat, and one of his crewmen now says there was no mine, it must have been a grenade. But a grenades wouldn't move a boat or tip a boat or push someone into the (water). I mean, Rush, we had I don't know how many grenades, you know, hit our boat or rockets, that didn't move the boat. These are deals that went through the boat. It would never cause someone to bump up against the edge or fall off. But, in any event, that's what they say. I don't think it's particularly material to the story because the problem is first, he fabricated the wounds and that wound and used it to leave Vietnam, even the tiny little scratch on his fanny, and second he fled when they all stayed. With respect to whether there was fire afterwards, I strongly believe that our guys are telling the truth, and truthfully any combat veteran I think will agree with us, but he's trying to use the third issue to cloud one and two.
RUSH: Okay, this happened. He's young. He wants out of there. You've stipulated that.
O'NEILL: Right.
RUSH: Three Purple Hearts and you go. How, in your estimation, does this damage his credibility or qualifications to be president of the United States in 2004? I mean, essentially he's going to have more to do as president than just be commander-in-chief. What does it say about his character? Is this a character problem that you have with him? Is it a veracity or honesty problem you have with him overall?
O'NEILL: It's a terrible problem, Rush. It isn't just lying to the Navy all those years ago. The problem is he was lying to the whole country, you know, three weeks ago about this incident. The Cambodia deal he described as the turning point in his whole life.
RUSH: Right.
O'NEILL: This incident here he described as the military highlight. I mean, he had a hundred million dollars --
RUSH: So the highlight and the searing point in his life seemed to have vagaries?
O'NEILL: They're made up. I mean, what they always are is a tiny amount of truth and a huge amount of lie built up, and they have a common theme. The theme is always everybody's a villain or a coward like all those guys that really went to the three boats' aid and then there's one big hero. It's always John Kerry. The other guys are always weaklings or cowards or they're ordering him to do things that are wrong.
RUSH: Yeah. John O'Neill is our guest and we've got a couple more segments to go.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Mr. O'Neill, I just got this from the San Francisco Chronicle website. It's an AP story, and it was posted just three minutes ago, and I just want to read the first paragraph to you --
O'NEILL: Yes, sir.
RUSH: -- and get your reaction to it. "President Bush denounced TV ads by outside groups attacking both John Kerry and himself on Monday and called for a halt to all such political efforts. He said, 'I think they're bad for the system.'" Now, I know you've said that the president could personally ask you to cease and desist and you wouldn't. What's your reaction to this?
O'NEILL: Well, you know, President Bush, all these guys are entitled to whatever opinion they want. To us this is not a matter of politics. This is deeply personal. We have 60 guys in our group that were wounded in Vietnam, and not wounds like Kerry, but real wounds. We have 254 people that were there for at least a year except for the ones who were badly injured. This guy has lied about our unit. He's lied about his service in our unit, and the truth is, we could care less what anybody has to say about it. We're going to go forward and get the facts to the American people to our last dollar and our last bit of energy, and all our guys feel that way.
RUSH: How are you dealing with the questions of whether or not you and Mr. Perry and so forth have had direct contact with the Bush campaign?
O'NEILL: Well, we haven't. The long and short of it is we really haven't. You know, it's interesting, because, for example, this MoveOn group is headed by Kerry's old campaign manager, and all these groups are pretty closely related, looks like to me, to the political figures. The one group of all of them that has an independent right to speak is ours. We were set up with our own money, although we collect money from whoever will give it to us legally. Who we are, just turn to our website, SwiftVets.com. We list the names of all 254 people. We outline exactly what we're going to do, what we stand for. We outline what our appearances are going to be. We filed our financial reports early. Actually, we've got huge amounts of individual contributions. On one day, Rush, we got $320,000 in contributions that average $59 apiece.
RUSH: And you're still accepting them at that website address?
O'NEILL: Absolutely. We'll accept them big or small. If George Soros wants to give us some money, we'll take it from him.
RUSH: (Laughing.) Yeah, you got a long way to go to get to his money. He's into $15 or $20 million already, to various Democrat 527s. Time is running short here. Let me ask you, are there any more ads coming? Are you in this for the duration of the campaign, or is there an end here for what you have to say and when?
O'NEILL: Not at all, sir. We're in to the very end. We have additional ads coming to the extent that we can raise money to see it. We have our guys going around at press conferences, and our guys are there. We're particularly there now since some of the attacks on us. We all served in Vietnam; we're not about to be intimidated by a bunch of people attacking us.
RUSH: I was going to ask about this, and that's something that struck me about Senator Kerry. Here he is a big war hero with all these medals and he's acting very afraid of you.
O'NEILL: Well, amazing for a war hero, he's afraid to even come out publicly and answer directly himself these rather obvious factual questions.
RUSH: Yeah. Mr. O'Neill --
O'NEILL: He's no war hero.
RUSH: Well, you are certainly one, and in the eyes of many in this country you're doing the Lord's work today, and for them I'll say, "God bless you," and because you're incurring a lot of personal assaults, personal attacks, as are your men, and as you just said you're doing it because you believe it, and you're willing to undergo it and take it. So we appreciate the time that you've given us today. We appreciate what you're doing and support your effort, and wish you the best in the coming months, and the best to you and your wife, too, and your health.
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