Hmmmm.... Pretty much as I thought. Kerry's puffed up report is the ONLY report that was submitted. Lets see, two guys say there was "withering enemy fire", one of whom is running his campaign on the 30 year old war hero platform. Three other boats full of people with no major incentive to lie say there wasn't. It's so hard to figure out who to believe.
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Statement By Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Member Larry Thurlow
I am convinced that the language used in my citation for a Bronze Star was language taken directly from John Kerry's report which falsely described the action on the Bay Hap River as action that saw small arms fire and automatic weapons fire from both banks of the river.
To this day, I can say without a doubt in my mind, along with other accounts from my shipmates-there was no hostile enemy fire directed at my boat or at any of the five boats operating on the river that day.
I submitted no paperwork for a medal nor did I file an after action report describing the incident. To my knowledge, John Kerry was the only officer who filed a report describing his version of the incidents that occurred on the river that day.
It was not until I had left the Navy-approximately three months after I left the service-that I was notified that I was to receive a citation for my actions on that day.
I believed then as I believe now that I received my Bronze Star for my efforts to rescue the injured crewmen from swift boat number three and to conduct damage control to prevent that boat from sinking. My boat and several other swift boats went to the aid of our fellow swift boat sailors whose craft was adrift and taking on water. We provided immediate rescue and damage control to prevent boat three from sinking and to offer immediate protection and comfort to the injured crew.
After the mine exploded, leaving swift boat three dead in the water, John Kerry's boat, which was on the opposite side of the river, fled the scene. US Army Special Forces officer Jim Rassmann, who was on Kerry's boat at the time, fell off the boat and into the water. Kerry's boat returned several minutes later-under no hail of enemy gunfire-to retrieve Rassmann from the river only seconds before another boat was going to pick him up.
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And in a new development, Kerry campaign officials are now finally acknowledging that while Kerry's boat left the scene, none of the other boats on the river ever left the damaged swift boat. This is a direct contradiction to previous accounts made by Jim Rassmann in the Oregonian newspaper and a direct contradiction to the "No Man Left Behind" theme during the Democratic National Convention.
These ever changing accounts of the Bay Hap River incident by Kerry campaign officials leave me asking one question. If no one ever left the scene of the Bay Hap River incident, how could anyone be left behind?
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I'm no big fan of GWB really. I think he's marginal as a president . However Kerry is such an oozing, slime-filled, slithering, piece of self-aggrandizing trash that I can not stand him. If he'd never brought up his 4 months of service it wouldn't be an issue. But he wants to have it both ways. Take his word for it he's a hero, and any hero who says otherwise is a republican liar.
I wouldn't vote for him now if I were tortured.