On 23 Aug 2004 10:34:43 -0500, Dave wrote:

On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 22:03:32 -0400, Walt said:

Larry Thurlow in an anti-John Kerry ad. Thurlow said he would consider
his own Bronze Star "fraudulent" if coming under enemy fire was the
basis for it. (AP)

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...

The question, of course, is whether those records reflect anything other
than Kerry's own reports. You do recall, don't you, that according to the
other flotilla COs Kerry habitually volunteered to write up the after-action
reports, and exaggerated his own heroism?

At this point, it appears that we have Kerry's written reports telling about
his own heroism against three eye witnesses who said there was no hostile
fire, and that Kerry's boat was the only one of the five that turned and ran
when the mine went off.


You must not pay much attention, Dave. Even this Sunday's Dallas
Morning News, down here in the heart of Bush Country, has been running
articles shredding the credibility of the Smear Boat Vets for Bush.
Did you not read the*first hand* account of William Rood over the
weekend? He WAS there.

"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."

Of course he was only responding to the one engagement where Kerry was
awarded his Silver Star. And your source to discredit him? Oh,
yeah...John O'Neill...Republican operative who wasn't even in Viet Nam
at the time, repeating third hand hearsay from someone who was told by
someone else.

How about another *first hand* account about the "now" disputed
Rassman rescue...

Another witness to Kerry's heroism, for which he won his Bronze Star,
steps forward to confirm that it went down just as the U.S. Navy, all
John Kerry's crewmates, and Jim Rassmann – the Green Beret whose life
Kerry saved that day – said it did. From WaPo:

In Colorado, Jim Russell, who participated in Swift boat operations
when Kerry did, wrote a letter to the editor of the Telluride Daily
Planet to angrily dispute the claim that Kerry was not under enemy
fire when he rescued Jim Rassman from the water, a feat that brought
Kerry a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

"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."


Although I admire your ability to tap dance by never actually
addressing an issue by dismissing the source or by claiming someone
else is "changing the subject", the facts are becoming more and more
clear and none of this supports the smear campaign.