Please excuse this if it is a dupe.  Just got this in my email from my paw-in-law.

Caveat emptor: Facts have not been independently verified by the author of this thread (that's me, you douchebag! ).

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Subject: Alston Never Served Under Kerry

For those of you who have not been fully following the Swift Vet's story, one of Kerry's traveling entourage (David Alston) claimed he was under Kerry's command on a PBF and found Kerry to be a great leader. He even gave a speech to that effect at the Democratic National Convention, where he said the following:

"I know him from a small boat in Vietnam, where we fought and bled together, serving our country. There were six of us aboard PCF-94, a 50-foot, twin-engine craft known as a "Swift Boat." We all came from different walks of life, but all of us-including our skipper, John Kerry-volunteered for combat duty. And combat is what we got."

However, one intrepid blogger now has proven that to be a lie, Alston never served under Kerry because Alston was wounded and out of action before Kerry took command of Alston's boat. Here is the final bit of proof (published early this morning), I suggest you go to Captain's Quarters to find all the previous analysis leading up to this astonishing coup de gras (pass the word):

Alston Never Served Under Kerry
Thanks to reader Lori in Texas, I think we've just about pieced the record together on David Alston and his supposed service under John Kerry's command. Lori points out a sympathetic article on Dale Sandusky, one of the few Swift boat veterans supporting Kerry and one that served on his boat, specifically gives the timing on Kerry's command of PCF-94:

In January 1969, Sandusky's boat, PCF-94, came under attack during one such ambush. Lt. Ted Peck, the officer in charge, and another crewman were seriously wounded. Sandusky had to take command. The boat was sinking and on fire, but Sandusky steered it back to safety. They counted 155 bullet holes in the boat and found a live enemy rocket in the main cabin. It had come to rest in a sack of potatoes.

For his actions, Sandusky would receive the Bronze Star.
With their officer headed home, the crew of PCF-94 needed a leader. And Lt. j.g. John Kerry, whose crew on PCF-44 had rotated back home, needed men to lead.
"I was sure glad he came along," Sandusky said, "because to be honest, I didn't want to take command."

From Jan. 30 to March 13, 1969, Kerry and the crew of the PCF-94 would conduct 18 missions in the Mekong Delta river system. In that time, Kerry would earn a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and add two Purple Hearts to the one he received earlier.

Bingo! Yachtzee! Alston received his serious wounds in that same exact battle that took Peck out of service. On January 29th, Alston was medevaced out to a hospital with head wounds and no records indicate that he ever returned to the unit. Kerry took command of PCF-94 the next day. Alston never served a day under Kerry's command. In fact, Kerry received a replacement, Fred Short, on 28 February as a replacement for Alston.

Now what does that tell us about Kerry and his Viet Nam narrative?

1. He and Alston conspired to deceive people about Alston's service under Kerry. That conspiracy was intended to give John Kerry cover against exactly the kind of campaign he faces from the other Swiftvets.

2. The "end of January" language on Kerry's website was intentionally vague in order to fuzzy up the timeline and keep Alston's true status a secret. Obviously, Sandusky remembers the dates well enough, and Kerry could easily have gotten them from him if he wanted to be as specific as his other dates on the timeline.

3. The DNC either were saps or actively participated in the conspiracy in order to assist Kerry in his Viet Nam mythology. Otherwise, why would they have allowed David Alston to speak at the convention about his experiences serving with John Kerry on the boat?

4. Kerry's band of brothers have some complicity in this cover-up as well. Those who served on PCF-94 surely remember that Alston never served under Kerry; Sandusky specifically recalls Peck being wounded and removed from command, but he wouldn't remember that Alston left at the same time?

5. One could argue that they served on the same boat, of course, and I look forward to that Clintonian parsing used in Kerry's defense. After holding Alston up as an expert on his leadership, he'll be hard pressed to explain how that expertise came to Alston from a hospital bed miles away from Kerry and his old PCF.

If this gets out to the mainstream media, this story kills Kerry's campaign. This isn't just a guy embellishing his war record -- this is a deliberate and longstanding attempt to mislead and defraud people by creating his own witnesses after the fact. That he could have done such a clumsy job should disqualify him for higher office on that basis alone.

Updated version of the story:
idexer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=26#26

The original story: idexer.com/articles/alston_kerry.htm

Bryon York, NRO second take: www.nationalreview.com/york/york200408160842.asp

The last word I have seen is that Alston may well have been with Kerry for one to two weeks.  It does appear that they have ...fudged... a little about being present with each other for two incidents when they probably were not.

I noted this statement today on the Swiftvets discussion forum http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2603 :

"Admin note:

Until further notice, any further exploration or development of this line of inquiry or the reproduction of any material associated with this line of inquiry is prohibited within this forum.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

Admin"

So something is up and the SwiftVets are not making Alston an issue.

Can you ask your source to ask their source for the original posting? Is this from a reliable website, or jsut someone's casual work?

If this is all valid information, more than "definition of is" will be needed to correct the damage. To have had that man speaking at the convention giving everyone the impression that he served under Kerry, but then establish did not actually serve under Kerry would probably affect Kerry's credibility among the Kerry diehards more than anything else to date. Rhetoric is rhetoric, art of law wording is a skill, but those people took it as gospel that the man served on Kerry's boat under Kerry's command.

Quoted: I noted this statement today on the Swiftvets discussion forum www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2603 : "Admin note: Until further notice, any further exploration or development of this line of inquiry or the reproduction of any material associated with this line of inquiry is prohibited within this forum. Thanks in advance for your cooperation. Admin" So something is up and the SwiftVets are not making Alston an issue.

Wouldn't surprise me if the Kerry camp actively has people trying to plant bombs in the SwiftVets forum (with the hopes that someone will bite and then the lefties can spring the trap)

Kerry screwed up enough on his own, the Swifties are doing the right thing by thoroughly vetting ALL new Kerry tales.

Quoted: Can you ask your source to ask their source for the original posting? Is this from a reliable website, or jsut someone's casual work? If this is all valid information, more than "definition of is" will be needed to correct the damage. To have had that man speaking at the convention giving everyone the impression that he served under Kerry, but then establish did not actually serve under Kerry would probably affect Kerry's credibility among the Kerry diehards more than anything else to date. Rhetoric is rhetoric, art of law wording is a skill, but those people took it as gospel that the man served on Kerry's boat under Kerry's command.

Sorry, guys.  Just now got back to this thread.  You can follow the link below to the results of an advanced Google search:

www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&as_qdr=all&q=+%22alston+never+served+under+kerry%22&btnG=Search

It returned 207 results, and from just looking at the first page, a lot of mentions come from bloggers.

There's a link to a different blog/article on the same topic on FreeRepublic:

www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1191488/posts


I do think it's interesting what SG688 noted that an admin on the Swift Vets website had said...........

Also, Merrell, I don't think you're too far off when it comes to planting "bombs".....

[ross_perot]
"Dadgum dirty tricks, I tell ya....  What?  Kerry's not Republican?  Oh, well, nevermind, you see.  Space aliens must be behind it all.  That's right - I pick up their frequencies in my radar-dish-like ears........"
[/ross_perot]