On 24 Aug 2004 10:39:32 -0500, Dave wrote:

On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 02:45:38 GMT, felton said:

Oh, and BTW, did he dispute the statement of the (living) COs of the other
three boats saying Kerry's was the only boat of the four that cut and ran
when the first boat hit a mine?

Yeah, actually he did dispute the third party hearsay.

Ding Ding! Wrong again. He was, of course, addressing an entirely different
event.

I gotta give credit to the lawyer who crafted that statement. It's a
masterpiece of deception. Note that he doesn't dispute the substance of the
Swiftees' claim. Instead he says that the lone VC wasn't wearing a
loincloth, and appeared to be older than a teenager. Nor does he dispute
that the VC was wounded (he doesn't remember) or that the VC was the only
one in the area when Kerry chased him. In fact if you read it carefully, he
concedes that the others had already fled. Another nice lawyerly job of
smoke and mirrors from Team Kerry.

Dave, if you are going to persist in your absurd denials, at least try
to keep your misstatements consistent. First, the Rassman incident
was not the same engagement as the "lone, nearly naked VC" incident".

The Rassman incident, in which "other Swiftees" claimed there was no
gunfire at the time was rebutted by Jim Russell. This was the
incident in which Kerry won the Bronze Star.

"I was on No. 43 boat, skippered by Don Droz, who was later that year
killed by enemy fire," Russell wrote in the letter. "Forever pictured
in my mind since that day over 30 years ago [is] John Kerry bending
over his boat picking up one of the rangers that we were ferrying from
out of the water. All the time we were taking small arms fire from the
beach; although because of our fusillade into the jungle, I don't
think it was very accurate, thank God. Anyone who doesn't think that
we were being fired upon must have been on a different river."

Of course, we also have the recently unearthed Bronze Star Citation
given to Larry Thurlow, which also mentioned the hostile fire. Larry
now sputters that was all wrong, that Rassman was all wrong, that
Kerry's crew was all wrong and that the Official Navy records at the
time were all wrong. In any event, we now have this new guy, Jim
Russell, a crew member on one of the other boats confirming the
overwhelming evidence that supports Kerry's record.

Now, as to your delusion regarding the "lone, loin cloth clad
teenager", which was the centerpiece for the Smear Vets attempt to
discredit Kerry's Silver Star...a different action, do try to keep up,
we have William Rood, the only surviving officer, other than Kerry,
who participated in that mission. His story has been all over the
papers and the net, but probably not reported much in your preferred
news sources.

It was his story, published in the Chicago Tribune on August 22, 2004,
which completely and thoroughly supports the Official Navy records.



"There were three swift boats on the river that day in Vietnam more
than 35 years ago--three officers and 15 crew members. Only two of
those officers remain to talk about what happened on February 28,
1969.

One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a
Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other.

For years, no one asked about those events. But now they are the focus
of skirmishing in a presidential election with a group of swift boat
veterans and others contending that Kerry didn't deserve the Silver
Star for what he did on that day, or the Bronze Star and three Purple
Hearts he was awarded for other actions.

Many of us wanted to put it all behind us--the rivers, the ambushes,
the killing. Ever since that time, I have refused all requests for
interviews about Kerry's service--even those from reporters at the
Chicago Tribune, where I work.

But Kerry's critics, armed with stories I know to be untrue, have
charged that the accounts of what happened were overblown. The critics
have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit
of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on
all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were
there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they
come from people who were not there.

Even though Kerry's own crew members have backed him, the attacks have
continued, and in recent days Kerry has called me and others who were
with him in those days, asking that we go public with our accounts."


Feel free to read the entire article, although I doubt you will.
Frankly it amazes me that anyone can put any credence at all into this
Swift Boats smear campaign. I can only assume that people have not
made the attempt to look at the evidence and/or they are simply
incapable to exercising any degree of critical thinking.