What Renaissance Men in the Military are Saying About Kerry

Posted on: Tuesday, February 17th, 2004 by Renaissance Men

Letters that have crossed our desk for our military heroes who are renaissance men I've long thought that John Kerry's war record was phoney. We talked about it when you were here. It's mainly been instinct because, as you know, nobody who claims to have seen the action he does would so shamelessly flaunt it for political gain. So I spent a couple of hours on the internet yesterday, made a bunch of notes, and I'm sending them as an attachment. In addition, look at the website http://25thaviation.org/johnkerry/id15htm. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to chronicle Kerry's checkered career. I was in the Delta shortly after he left. I know that area well. I know the operations he was involved in well. I know the tactics and the doctrine used. I know the equipment. Although I was attached to CTF-116 (PBRs) I spent a fair amount of time with CTF-115 (swift boats), Kerry's command. Here are my problems and suspicions:

Kerry was in-country less than four months and collected, a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three purple hearts. I never heard of anybody with any outfit I worked with (including SEAL One, the Sea Wolves, Riverines and the River Patrol Force) collecting that much hardware so fast, and for such pedestrian actions. The Swifts did a commendable job. But that duty wasn't the worst you could draw. They operated only along the coast and in the major rivers (Bassac and Mekong). The rough stuff in the hot areas was mainly handled by the smaller, faster PBRs.

Three Purple Hearts but no limp. All injuries so minor that no time lost from duty. Amazing luck. Or he was putting himself in for medals every time he bumped his head on the wheel house hatch? Combat on the boats was almost always at close range. You didn't have minor wounds. At least not often. Not three times in a row. Then he used the three purple hearts to request a trip home eight months before the end of his tour. Fishy.

The details of the event for which he was given the Silver Star make no sense at all. Supposedly, a B-40 was fired at the boat and missed. Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand, the bow gunner knocks him down with the twin .50, Kerry beaches the boat, jumps off, shoots Charlie, and retreives the launcher. If true, he did everything wrong.

• Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put your stern to the action and go balls to the wall. A B-40 has the ballistic integrity of a frisbie after about 25 yards, so you put 50 yards or so between you and the beach and begin raking it with your .50's.
• Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a .50 caliber round and get up? The guy was dead or dying. The rocket launcher was empty. There was no reason to go after him (except if you knew he was no danger to you just flopping around in the dust during his last few seconds on earth, and you wanted some derring do in your after-action report). And we didn't shoot wounded people. We had rules against that, too.
• Kerry got off the boat. This was a major breach of standing procedures. Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat in a hot area. EVER! The reason was simple. If you had somebody on the beach your boat was defenseless. It coudn't run and it couldn' t return fire. It was stupid and it put his crew in danger. He should have been relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any boat crewman ever leaving a boat during or after a firefight. Something is fishy.

Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by running across the bow of a Jap destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early, requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for Congress, finds out war heros don't sell well in Massachsetts in 1970 so reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting, winds up in the Senate himself a few years later, votes against every major defense bill, says the CIA is irrelevant after the Wall came down, votes against the Gulf War, a big mistake since that turned out well, decides not to make the same mistake twice so votes for invading Iraq, but oops, that didn't turn out so well so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war. I'm real glad you or I never had this guy covering out flanks in Vietnam. I sure don't want him as Commander in Chief. I hope that somebody from CTF-115 shows up with some facts challenging Kerry's Vietnam record. I know in my gut it's wildy inflated. And fishy. Keep smiling, Mike Michael Benge is a Foreign Service officer and a former Vietnam POW (1968 to 1973) The amount of time spent to gain medals isn't the issue....4 months in combat is more than enough time in a hot area...to even have double the medals... it is the circumstances....how the hell did he come home during that time without a "million dollar " wound.....Being an Infantry type....I left early after my second Purple Heart ... with shrapnel & burned to a crisp ...flat on my back with and IV in my arm....then spent 6 months in 4 different Hospitals.....concentrate on how Kerry left....the circumstances...I think that is the key... I agree with this guy.... something is "fishy". Yours, ANDY P.S. In the 1st Air Cav unit I was in.... I saw Heroism all the time...I only wrote up one person....because Heroism was commonplace... from the Battalion Commander, down to the Riflemen in my Platoon....and it was all in our best interest.... so we could get outta the hellhole we were in. Note in the movie "Platoon" after all their engagements....there was no mention of "Hey, lets put so-and-so in for a medal etc....everyone I saw was more concerned about dry socks and getting a choice from the "C-Rations" case...something from the "sundries " kit....patching our small cuts up ( some from hits )....a letter from home...some sleep...bug juice to keep the bugs away....the small things to keep sane.... the rest of the time, we were saddling up for the next "Hump" or Combat Air Assault"...trading individual weapons offa the dead and wounded( as the M-16 sucked...and some were worse than others)... getting water.... getting ammo and grenades....claymores....etc..... Not much paperwork... but, I was Infantry....fighting North Vietnamese Regulars.... and the Infantry was a unforgiving and ever loving BITCH ! Andy Messing is one of our original Renaissance Men, and real war hero, patriot and humanitarian to boot

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