Army records contradict the attack ads

[Mavdog]

The records of the event are saying that the Swift Attack Vets revisionist statements are all wrong. Of course, the Vet who wants to change the history of the event says these Army records are wrong, too, and that's Kerry's fault as well.
Man, did Kerry have all his superiors hypnotised or something? Was it voodoo? what a crock.
That's the problem when someone attempts to rewrite history, those dang records get in the way.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Records Counter a Critic of Kerry
Fellow Skipper's Citation Refers To Enemy Fire

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 19, 2004; Page A01


Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.

In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day.

But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."

As one of five Swift boat skippers who led the raid up the Bay Hap River, Thurlow was a direct participant in the disputed events. He is also a leading member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a public advocacy group of Vietnam veterans dismayed by Kerry's subsequent antiwar activities, which has aired a controversial television advertisement attacking his war record.

In interviews and written reminiscences, Kerry has described how his 50-foot patrol boat came under fire from the banks of the Bay Hap after a mine explosion disabled another U.S. patrol boat. According to Kerry and members of his crew, the firing continued as an injured Kerry leaned over the bow of his ship to rescue a Special Forces officer who was blown overboard in a second explosion.

Last month, Thurlow swore in an affidavit that Kerry was "not under fire" when he fished Lt. James Rassmann out of the water. He described Kerry's Bronze Star citation, which says that all units involved came under "small arms and automatic weapons fire," as "totally fabricated."

"I never heard a shot," Thurlow said in his affidavit, which was released by Swift Boats Veterans for Truth. The group claims the backing of more than 250 Vietnam veterans, including a majority of Kerry's fellow boat commanders.

A document recommending Thurlow for the Bronze Star noted that all his actions "took place under constant enemy small arms fire which LTJG THURLOW completely ignored in providing immediate assistance" to the disabled boat and its crew. The citation states that all other units in the flotilla also came under fire.

"It's like a Hollywood presentation here, which wasn't the case," Thurlow said last night after being read the full text of his Bronze Star citation. "My personal feeling was always that I got the award for coming to the rescue of the boat that was mined. This casts doubt on anybody's awards. It is sickening and disgusting."

Thurlow said he would consider his award "fraudulent" if coming under enemy fire was the basis for it. "I am here to state that we weren't under fire," he said. He speculated that Kerry could have been the source of at least some of the language used in the citation.

In a telephone interview Tuesday evening after he attended a Swift Boat Veterans strategy session in an Arlington hotel, Thurlow said he lost his Bronze Star citation more than 20 years ago. He said he was unwilling to authorize release of his military records because he feared attempts by the Kerry campaign to discredit him and other anti-Kerry veterans.

The Post filed an independent request for the documents with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, which is the central repository for veterans' records. The documents were faxed to The Post by officials at the records center yesterday.

Thurlow and other anti-Kerry veterans have repeatedly alleged that Kerry was the author of an after-action report that described how his boat came under enemy fire. Kerry campaign researchers dispute that assertion, and there is no convincing documentary evidence to settle the argument. As the senior skipper in the flotilla, Thurlow might have been expected to write the after-action report for March 13, but he said that Kerry routinely "duked the system" to present his version of events.

For much of the episode, Kerry was not in a position to know firsthand what was happening on Thurlow's boat, as Kerry's boat had sped down the river after the mine exploded under another boat. He later returned to provide assistance to the stricken boat.

Thurlow, an oil industry worker and former teacher in Kansas, said he was angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities on his return to the United States and particularly Kerry's claim before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that U.S. troops in Vietnam had committed war crimes "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

" 'Upset' is too mild a word," said Thurlow, a registered Republican, of his reaction to Kerry then. "He did it strictly for his own personal political gain, and it directly affected every single one of us as we were trying to put our lives together."

Two other Swift boat skippers who were direct participants in the March 13, 1969, mine explosion on the Bay Hap, Jack Chenoweth and Richard Pees, have said they do not remember coming under "enemy fire." A fourth commander, Don Droz, who was one of Kerry's closest friends in Vietnam, was killed in action a month later.

The incident featured prominently in an anti-Kerry television ad produced by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth earlier this month. "John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star," says Van Odell, a gunner on PCF-23, one of the boats that came to the rescue of the stricken boat. "I know. I was there."

The Bronze Star controversy is also a major focus of an anti-Kerry book by John E. O'Neill, "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," which will hit No. 2 on The Post's bestseller list this weekend. The book accuses Kerry of "fleeing the scene" and lying repeatedly about his role.

Members of Kerry's crew have come to his defense, as has Rassmann, the Special Forces officer whom he fished from the river. Rassmann says he has vivid memories of being fired at from both banks after he fell into the river and as Kerry came to his rescue. The two had an emotional reunion on the eve of the Iowa Democratic caucuses in January, an event that some political analysts believe helped swing votes to Kerry at a crucial time.

The Bronze Star recommendations for both Kerry and Thurlow were signed by Lt. Cmdr. George M. Elliott, who received reports on the incident from his base in the Gulf of Thailand. Elliott is a supporter of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and has questioned Kerry's actions in Vietnam. But he has refused repeated requests for an interview after issuing conflicting statements to the Boston Globe about whether Kerry deserved a Silver Star. He was unreachable last night.

Money has poured into Swift Boat Veterans for Truth since the group launched its television advertisement attacking Kerry earlier this month. According to O'Neill, the group has received more than $450,000 over the past two weeks, mainly in small contributions. The Dallas Morning News reported yesterday that the organization has also received two $100,000 checks from Houston home builder Bob Perry, who backed George W. Bush's campaigns for Texas governor and for president.

Bush campaign officials have said they have no connection to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is not permitted to coordinate its activities with a presidential campaign under federal election law.

[reeds]

Classic...I am sure Drbio and Dude are already trying to find evidence to dispute this as we speak..bottom line- military records dont lie- just Kerry bashers

[kg_veteran]

I have a couple of questions:

1. I may have missed it, but has the Washington Post been putting in requests for John Kerry's military records under the Freedom of Information Act? It seems to me that they're putting a lot more time into digging up the past of Thurlow than they are for the actual presidential candidate.

2. Do those records say anything about John Kerry's Bronze Star? I could have sworn they didn't. They talk about Thurlow.

[LRB]

1st question is are these army or navy records. Thurlow was a navy officer as was Kerry. They chain of command would go up through the navy until an very senior ranking officer probably at least 2 stars. So why would Thrulow be writing army reports?

Also how about a link to the article to see if any more information is contained there. This article is extremely sketchy on facts. I would like to see a copy of this supposed document and read it directly versus someone's interpretation of it. The author of this news article seemed to be unsure of just who wrote this after action report. In this article I really don't see that much of consequence one way or another.

[MavKikiNYC]

Uhm...

Thurlow and other anti-Kerry veterans have repeatedly alleged that Kerry was the author of an after-action report that described how his boat came under enemy fire. Kerry campaign researchers dispute that assertion, and there is no convincing documentary evidence to settle the argument. (emphasis added) As the senior skipper in the flotilla, Thurlow might have been expected to write the after-action report for March 13, but he said that Kerry routinely "duked the system" to present his version of events.

Interesting paragraph.

"It's like a Hollywood presentation here, which wasn't the case," Thurlow said last night after being read the full text of his Bronze Star citation. "My personal feeling was always that I got the award for coming to the rescue of the boat that was mined. This casts doubt on anybody's awards. It is sickening and disgusting."

Thurlow said he would consider his award "fraudulent" if coming under enemy fire was the basis for it. "I am here to state that we weren't under fire," he said. He speculated that Kerry could have been the source of at least some of the language used in the citation.

Interesting quotes.

I'm not sure though, that I see Thurlow's account as being definitively or substantially or signifiicantly refuted. Plus, it's not just his version. There seem to be several other accounts that conflict with the "official" account, the language of which Kerry very plausibly could have contributed to.

Pardon me if I'm not convinced.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: kg_veteran
I have a couple of questions:

1. I may have missed it, but has the Washington Post been putting in requests for John Kerry's military records under the Freedom of Information Act? It seems to me that they're putting a lot more time into digging up the past of Thurlow than they are for the actual presidential candidate.

Can't speak for the Post, but if they did do a FofIA for Kerry's records wouldn't the above (which contained the contradiction of Thurlow) be in those? i.e. they wouldn't need to be researching Thurlow's records.

Kerry and Bush service records

2. Do those records say anything about John Kerry's Bronze Star? I could have sworn they didn't. They talk about Thurlow.

Here's Kerry's citation for the Bronze Star.

Bronze Star Citation

[Drbio]

See the other thread where Thurlow disputes it and is willing to sign teh 180 form to open his records. The dimocraps know that they are on thini ice so they now will attack yet another decorated war veteran who honorably served his country. It's all they have at this point.

Wah.

[dude1394]

Funny that the washington post HAS requested the swifties records but not the flippers.

[LRB]

I'm still waiting on the explanation of how these are army records BTW.

[dude1394]

The MSM better watch out, the blogosphere moves a HELL of a lot faster than they do and fact checks them but good.

OK..Wapo publishes their account. However this blog has a swiftie account of just WHY Larry Thurlow MIGHT have thought he was getting a medal even though there was no enemy fire. Pretty good blog as well as this guy is a lawyer and is pretty precise in his thinking.

beldarblog

Update (Thu Aug 19, 2004): The SwiftVets have also published a related statement by Van Odell regarding Mr. Thurlow, whose own statement didn't include any of the context that might have shown why his own Bronze Star was merited, enemy small arms fire or not (italics in original):

And another comment on the WaPO story..

And in another statement, SwiftVet Jack Chenoweth takes strong issue with WaPo reporter Dobbs' phrasing when he wrote that "Two other Swift boat skippers who were direct participants in the March 13, 1969, mine explosion on the Bay Hap, Jack Chenoweth and Richard Pees, have said they do not remember coming under 'enemy fire.'" Mr. Chenoweth writes,

This reminds me of my habitual response as a trial lawyer, whenever a witness answers a question with "I don't recall." Unless I'm asleep, I immediately shoot back with, "Are you saying you have no recollection one way or the other, or are you saying that you have a clear, present recollection to the effect that [such and such] definitely did not happen?" Mr. Chenoweth understandably wants the record to be clear that in speaking with reporter Dobbs, Mr. Chenoweth was saying the latter.

[LRB]

All boats came to the aid of PCF-3, except one: John Kerry’s boat. Kerry fled.

Cowardness in Kerry what a shock?!?! [img]i/expressions/moon.gif[/img]







Not!!!!

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: LRB
I'm still waiting on the explanation of how these are army records BTW.

ok ok, it should be navy records.

[MavKikiNYC]

Too little too late.


Kerry Might Pay Price for Failing to Strike Back Quickly
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Published: August 21, 2004


WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 - The fierce back and forth over John Kerry's Vietnam War record may seem an odd storm to break out during the summer lull before the Republican convention. But it goes to the heart of his challenge to President Bush, and its resolution may prove pivotal in determining Mr. Kerry's hopes of victory this fall.

If there is one thing that Republicans and Democrats agree on, it is that Mr. Kerry's record as a decorated Vietnam veteran makes him a powerful opponent to Mr. Bush in a presidential campaign being conducted against a backdrop of terrorism and international turmoil. [No, not all Republicans agree about this. Kerry's version, unchecked, allows him to give the illusion of being a potentially effective Commander-in-Chief, and a tough opponent of terrorism. Under scrutiny, this image doesn't necessarily hold up.]The television advertisements and a book challenging Mr. Kerry's account of his injuries and war medals this month seek to destroy what has been the central argument for his candidacy since he entered the race nearly two years ago.

Mr. Kerry decided to respond this week by blaming Mr. Bush for what he described as a scurrilous attack, and by filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Friday. His actions came after confronting considerable evidence that two weeks of largely unanswered attacks were taking their toll.

A CBS News poll found that support for Mr. Kerry among veterans has declined markedly since the convention, and some Democrats said they believed that the attacks had at the least slowed whatever momentum Mr. Kerry enjoyed after his convention.{Snicker.}

The question now is whether his response came in time.

Mr. Kerry's aides said the candidate's decision to confront the questions had undercut the accusations and put the White House on the defensive by forcing Mr. Bush's political aides to deny that he had orchestrated the attack.

Still, more than a few Democrats expressed surprise on Friday that a campaign that has made such a point of presenting itself as aggressive and fast-footed had let this story go on unattended for so long.

For one thing, this was no ordinary issue, since it was so central to Mr. Kerry's candidacy. For another, it was no ordinary time, coming right after his convention. And finally, one Democrat said, even if the White House was not behind the attacks, stories questioning Mr. Kerry's account of this central moment in his biography had the effect of reinforcing a main line of Republican attack - that Mr. Kerry was not trustworthy.

"They made a strategic mistake," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, said of Mr. Kerry's campaign. "The ad has been largely effective because it wasn't rebutted."

A senior Democrat political consultant who is close to the Kerry campaign said: "I think the campaign was slow to respond to this. And with some justification. The rulebook says don't help somebody sell their book. But on this one, it just seemed to take on a life of its own."

Mr. Kerry's deputy campaign manager, Steve Elmendorf, disputed any suggestion that the campaign had acted too slowly, and said that the campaign appreciated from the start the potential potency of this line of attack. "They are not doing this because we're fighting over the veterans' vote," Mr. Elmendorf said. "They're doing it because it goes to John Kerry's character and to his war record."

In fairness to Mr. Kerry, his aides were faced with a strategic dilemma that has become distressingly familiar to campaigns in this era when so much unsubstantiated or even false information can reach the public through so many different forums, be it blogs or talk-show radio.

The first choice is to discredit the attack before it takes hold. Many Democrats counseled Mr. Kerry's aides to do this the moment the advertisements began.

The other choice is to ignore what appears to be noise from the sideline, in the calculation that attacking serves to elevate the attack to the public's attention. This was the argument that some of Mr. Kerry's advisers had been making over the past two weeks in urging supporters to play down the advertisements.

In initially holding back, Mr. Kerry's advisers noted that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had spent a relatively small amount of money on the advertisements, about $500,000.

What they apparently FAILED to calculate was the extent that advertisements featuring other Vietnam veterans, speaking coolly and directly to the camera, would become the subject of television news shows. That was all the more true because the advertisements and the book were released in August, a slow month when news outlets are hungry for any kind of news.

A University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey released on Friday found that more than half the country had seen or heard about the advertisement. "Having heard about it is a sign of effective advertising," said Ms. Jamieson, who oversaw the poll. "If you can put information in place that is hostile to a person, you increase the likelihood that you are going to change attitudes.

Mr. Kerry's communications director, Stephanie Cutter, did not dispute that the attacks had taken a toll. But, she she said she thought Mr. Kerry's campaign would now be able to turn it around on Mr. Bush. "When somebody launches a series of lies, it has an impact," she said. "But getting the truth out has a bigger impact. Bush stepped too far into this and didn't. In the end it's going to do more harm to him than to John Kerry.'' {Wishful thinking.}

[dude1394]

On the FRONT PAGE of the Washington Post.....FINALLY...All it took was three weeks, an obvious lie about cambodia to actually make the news.

William Ferris was confined to a bed in a military hospital, his severed sciatic nerve reminding him of the attack on his Navy Swift boat in a Vietnamese river. A shot from a recoilless rifle had pierced the boat's pilothouse and then Ferris's body, leaving him in constant agony.

But it was what appeared on Ferris's television that really pained him. John F. Kerry, a decorated fellow Swift boat driver, was testifying before Congress about atrocities in Vietnam, throwing his medals away, speaking at antiwar rallies. Ferris, who was trying to rehabilitate himself back to active duty, felt betrayed.

"I was livid," Ferris, 57, of Long Island, N.Y., said yesterday, recalling how his dislike for the presidential candidate began in the early 1970s. "I said to myself at the time, this is someone who is using his experience for his own purposes, and this was long before he ever ran for office. I thought he was using, actually manipulating, what he had done in Vietnam. Just like he's doing now."

Ferris is one of 250 Swift boat veterans who in May signed an open letter to the Massachusetts senator asking for full disclosure of his military records, specifically focusing on events during a four-month tour in Vietnam for which Kerry was awarded medals for bravery in combat. The veterans group -- Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- has criticized Kerry for using his military experience as a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, arguing that the Democrat has exaggerated his experiences at war for political gain.

[LRB]

Things aren't looking too good for Kerry right now. This could actually become very entertaining, in a sick sadistic sort of way, watching Kerry squirm and back pedal to try and recover from his pack of lies being exposed to the public .

[dude1394]

Oh in a wonderful way. The hypocrisy of it all. The dems are showing that they don't give a damn who runs as long as they think he might win. The msm is showing that they are a partisan wing of the dems.

I'm saddened about the media, but they have to get their come-uppance and they are big time.

[LRB]

Ultimate Dude this will cost the MSM heavily as viewers and readers flock to not traditional methods to get news after losing faith in the MSM. Once you lose credibility, it's almost impossible to get it back. With politics the MSM is little better than the National Enquirer.

[dude1394]

Agreed..It's sort of shocking to think that 44% had already seen the ad and neither the nytime or wapo had word one. Here is a link to a very interesting article. It talks about the current media situation and sort of compares blogs to the old pamphletering. And that the left has never had to create alternative sites because they knew they had the msm and that is WHY the msm has ultimately become so partisan democrat. If they did not have this monopoly, they would have been creating the talk radios, weblogs, etc, instead of just using what they had.

[quote]
The "mainstream press" may be in the process of squandering a precious resource that its leaders no longer have the institutional memory to recognize as the source of its legitimacy and its living. In the last few years -- essentially since 9/11 plunged us into a new world, a new agenda, that the press did not understand -- the major organs of civilized journalism, once trusted by the billion most effective people on the planet, have given away their credibility upon a trifle. ..therest

[LRB]

It's sort of shocking to think that 44% had already seen the ad and neither the nytime or wapo

How can they call themselves newspapers and and not report on something that almost half of America has known for weeks? This is pathetic.