Kerry & his Vietnam Buddies

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Kerry & his Vietnam Buddies
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Thu, 07-29-2004 - 9:52am
A perspective from Vietnam Vets who served with Kerry. Few Swift Officers support him. "Of 19 Swift boat skippers pictured other than Kerry" in the photo the Kerry campaign featured in an advertisement released in May titled Lifetime. "11 consider him unfit, 4 are neutral, two have died, and 2 are working with the Kerry campaign. Four other officers were not present for the photo session; all oppose Kerry."

http://www.swiftvets.com/

Senator John Kerry has made his 4-month combat tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of his bid for the Presidency. His campaign jets a handful of veterans around the country, and trots them out at public appearances to sing his praises. John Kerry wants us to believe that these men represent all those he calls his "band of brothers."


But most combat veterans who served with John Kerry in Vietnam see him in a very different light.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been formed to counter the false "war crimes" charges John Kerry repeatedly made against Vietnam veterans who served in our units and elsewhere, and to accurately portray Kerry's brief tour in Vietnam as a junior grade Lieutenant. We speak from personal experience -- our group includes men who served beside Kerry in combat as well as his commanders. Though we come from different backgrounds and hold varying political opinions, we agree on one thing: John Kerry misrepresented his record and ours in Vietnam and therefore exhibits serious flaws in character and lacks the potential to lead.

We regret the need to do this. Most Swift boat veterans would like nothing better than to support one of our own for America's highest office, regardless of whether he was running as a Democrat or a Republican. However, Kerry's phony war crimes charges, his exaggerated claims about his own service in Vietnam, and his deliberate misrepresentation of the nature and effectiveness of Swift boat operations compels us to step forward.

For more than thirty years, most Vietnam veterans kept silent as we were maligned as misfits, addicts, and baby killers. Now that a key creator of that poisonous image is seeking the Presidency we have resolved to end our silence.


The time has come to set the record straight.


(cont.)





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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Thu, 07-29-2004 - 11:35am
I have read about a lot of the Vietnam Veterans.

A good link to find out more about how they truly feel about Kerry is www.veteransagainstkerry.com (I think that is the right one).

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2004
Thu, 07-29-2004 - 12:50pm
Why do some veterans not like Kerry? According to this article and others I have read, it is because he simply said a truth when at the time it was wrong to do so.

"Some vets cannot forgive Kerry for protesting the war when he returned home and for testifying before Congress in 1971 about what he called atrocities committed by U.S. troops. "

If this is true, then isnt Kerry the type of man you would want as a leader? He stood up at a time, when very few would. If this is the only reason some vets do not like him, it is no wonder they like Bush. They have falled from the same tree that Bush did.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5542805/

Vietnam veterans find validation in Kerry

Nomination symbolizes generational affirmation for many

Peter Morgan / Reuters

Former Democratic Senator Max Cleland of Georgia speaks at a Veterans Caucus on the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

By David Maraniss

Updated: 1:37 a.m. ET July 29, 2004BOSTON, July 28 - Since the searing spring day in 1968 when a grenade blew away his legs and left only a stump of his right arm, Max Cleland has been on what he calls a long and discomforting search for meaning. He has wondered about the purpose of his time in Vietnam, the lessons of his wounds, the reasons for his survival. For seven minutes on Thursday night, when he rolls his wheelchair to center stage at the Democratic National Convention and introduces his friend John F. Kerry to the nation, Cleland thinks he will be closer than ever to answering those timeless questions.




It promises to be the most emotional scene of the convention: the gaunt presidential candidate from Massachusetts stooping to embrace the broad-faced triple amputee from Georgia -- fellow Vietnam vets and former Senate colleagues, both encircled by the aging warriors they call the band of brothers, including the Swift boat crewmates who served with young Lt. Kerry along the Mekong Delta 3 1/2 decades ago. The imagery is only a metaphor for something more profound, Cleland says, a culminating moment of personal and generational affirmation that sharply defines Kerry's rise and lends significance to the unresolved struggle of Cleland and many other Vietnam vets.

'Search for meaning'

"John Kerry is really the tip of the iceberg, and the iceberg under the surface is the unconscious sense of lack of resolution of the Vietnam War," Cleland said in an interview Tuesday after taking part in a ceremony honoring veterans at Bunker Hill. "His success is like a validation of all this angst, storm and stress, and search for meaning, for people of his generation, not just for veterans, but especially for veterans because he personifies and embodies our own experience."





Cleland devoured a dripping cheeseburger at the old Warren Tavern as he spoke, his legless body perched snugly on a worn wooden bench. His longing for validation was echoed by many members of Kerry's old crew, who have been omnipresent in Boston this week and escorted the candidate as he made his way into town on a water taxi Wednesday afternoon.

"All of us have been waiting for this moment with John Kerry for 35 years," said Wade Sanders. "It has brought new meaning to our lives."

"Why did we live through this?" asked crewmate Del Sandusky. "Why are we here? For what is happening now."

John Hurley, another Vietnam vet who helped organize the band of brothers for Kerry during the winter primaries, said, "This is not just a campaign, it is a homecoming."

By no means do all veterans feel that way. A rump group of Swift boat veterans from other crews have expressed skepticism about accounts of Kerry's exploits. Some vets cannot forgive Kerry for protesting the war when he returned home and for testifying before Congress in 1971 about what he called atrocities committed by U.S. troops. And Republicans have tried to undercut Kerry's war experience by questioning, among other things, why he cut short his tour of duty after receiving three Purple Hearts for relatively superficial wounds. Cleland, from his wheelchair, finds particular force in countering that line of attack with a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo: "He jests at scars that never felt a wound."

Central theme

The extent to which Kerry has embraced his Vietnam story and used it here in Boston, where a veterans caucus attracted 500 delegates on Monday and Cleland draws standing ovations at one delegation meeting after another as a revered speaker, has provoked weariness in some quarters. "I don't think they mentioned it this much at Woodstock," comedian Jon Stewart said of the Vietnam War in an interview with Katie Couric on NBC's "Today" show Wednesday morning. "I keep expecting to hear Buffalo Springfield." But for decades, Vietnam vets have grown accustomed to large segments of the public growing tired of them and wanting to move on, so a touch of sarcasm is not going to stop them now or make Cleland worry that they are overdoing it.

Kerry is not the first Vietnam vet to be either major party's presidential nominee -- Al Gore served "in country" as an Army journalist -- but he is the first to make it a central theme of his candidacy, and that, Cleland said, makes all the difference.

"I campaigned for Al Gore, campaigned hard for him, beginning in Iowa in January 2000. But there was no magic," Cleland said. "No emphasis on veterans. No organized veterans effort. As a matter of fact, Gore didn't even talk about it. And there was no band of brothers out there. This time it's the real deal. Kerry knows from whence he came. And all of that comes in the context of the search for meaning for veterans and the way meaning is being stripped away in Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction. No nuclear weapons program. No ties to al Qaeda. Okay. Okay. You can't call back those thousand kids who are now dead. You can't call back those arms and limbs over there at Walter Reed that are now being fitted. That is what is so terrifying for the veterans of Vietnam. . . . I'm a student of history, and I can't think of a war in American history that had less meaning than Vietnam. And to sit and watch the meaning being stripped away again."

With Cleland, especially, the political and personal this year seem inextricably linked. "His resurrection has also been my personal resurrection," he said of Kerry's campaign.

A call to action

It was only two years ago that the 62-year-old from suburban Atlanta was defeated in his bid for reelection to the Senate and fell into a chasm of despair. Whatever rage he felt toward Republicans for running a campaign ad linking him to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and questioning his patriotism for voting against a version of the homeland security bill, was dampened by a life-numbing sensation that any purpose had been drained from his existence. He did not have the energy to get mad or get even. His fiancee, Nancy Ross, recalled that the low point was not election night, when he lost to Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R), 53 percent to 46 percent, but rather the morning of Jan. 6, 2003, when the next session of Congress opened and Cleland was at home with nothing to do. "From that point on, it was hard, very very hard," Ross said.

Kerry, Cleland said, was among the first friends to call him after that defeat, and kept calling for weeks thereafter, urging him to "get back in the game."

"He said, 'Max, come join me, help me turn this country around,' " Cleland recalled. "I said, 'John, I will when I can.' "

It took him six months to recover from the psychological wounds of his defeat, and when he was ready he headed out to Iowa and went to work. Week by week his energy and sense of purpose increased. His appetite was back, for food and people and work. He tooled around Iowa with such force that the wheels came off his wheelchair one day in western Iowa and he had to call across the border to the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Omaha in search of repairs. When a bureaucrat there told him that he was not in the system, Cleland, who was head of the Veterans Administration under President Jimmy Carter, cackled and shouted with glee, "Sweetheart, I am the system." He was back.

Targeting veteran vote

There was an evening in Des Moines in the dead of winter when Cleland realized that the fire was blazing inside him again. It was four degrees below zero when he headed over to Bakers Square for dinner. Sanders and Sandusky and the Swift boat guys were there, along with the Bolanos brothers of El Paso, four brothers who served together in Vietnam, and Kerry's Vietnam vet friends from Massachusetts, who called themselves the dog hunters and brought with them at least four vets they found at a Boston homeless shelter. Cleland pulled out his American Express card and paid for dinner for the whole crowd, and it was then that he recited parts of the well-worn St. Crispin's Day speech from "Henry V" and dubbed them the band of brothers.

Cleland had a sense then, long before the national press corps realized it, that Kerry could win Iowa and go on from there. "What organization has targeted veterans before? Nobody," he recalled. "But John Kerry did. And when he accepts the Democratic nomination Thursday night, a large part of the reason will be because of that."

When Kerry asked him to give the introductory speech on Thursday night, Cleland began shaping his thoughts. It was because of Vietnam that Cleland was handed the assignment, and he decided not to steer away from Vietnam as he put together the speech. Ten days ago, using the chicken-scratch cursive scrawl of his left hand, he began writing on some hotel stationery in Memphis. He kept writing until he had a draft that Ross could transcribe onto a computer. Then it went through three Kerry speechwriters and back to Cleland, who refined the final draft. The themes are simple: the Swift boat, the young skipper, the trust of his men, the band of brothers, the call to service, the quiet character, the affirmation of a generation, the skipper for the ship of state.

Cleland has a soft, deep, modulated voice with only a hint of the South. It evokes a radio voice from the past, which fits with his notion that he will be delivering a fireside chat to the convention hall and to the people back home. "I don't want to scream. That's not me," he said. "It'll be calmer and quieter and probably more emotional and intense than maybe I'm even comfortable with. But I think it will liberate my friend John Kerry. . . . I hope I can get through it without choking up."

Avatar for schifferle
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Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 07-29-2004 - 12:59pm
Couldn't get it. Site is under construction. I'll try again later. Thanks!
Avatar for schifferle
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Thu, 07-29-2004 - 1:09pm
http://www.swiftvets.com/index.php?topic=WarCrimes

On June 6, 1971, John Kerry described the work of the Swift boats to the Washington Star as follows:

"We established an American presence in most cases by showing the flag and firing at sampans and villages along the banks. Those were our instructions, but they seemed so out of line that we finally began to go ashore, against our orders, and investigate the villages that were supposed to be our targets. We discovered we were butchering a lot of innocent people, and morale became so low among the officers on those 'swift boats' that we were called back to Saigon for special instructions from Gen. Abrams. He told us we were doing the right thing. He said our efforts would help win the war in the long run. That's when I realized I could never remain silent about the realities of the war in Vietnam."

What John Kerry told the Washington Star was a lie.

Contrary to Kerry's claim, our consistent policy was to take every precaution to avoid harming civilians. On many occasions we did this at the cost of suffering additional casualties ourselves. We have interviewed hundreds of veterans who served on the Swift Boats or supported them, and there is simply no justification for Kerry's statement. Several members of our organization addressed the issue of atrocities during our May 4 press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

John Kerry also completely misrepresented our meeting with General Abrams and Admiral Zumwalt. Far from being a pep talk for officers distressed by their butchery of civilians, the purpose of this conference with the two highest-ranking American officers in Vietnam was to announce a new Swift boat mission: to drive the Vietcong out of the Ca Mau Peninsula. The goal of Operation SeaLords was to dominate the rivers in this area, and to eventually establish a permanent presence in the Cua Lon River, an effort later named Operation SeaFloat. This was to be done publicly, with the full participation of the media, to negate the claim of North Vietnamese negotiator Lee Duc Tho that Henry Kissinger could not legitimately represent South Vietnam because the U.S. did not control these areas.

We succeeded in that mission. We returned to Anthoi and drove the Vietcong out of the region, and soon the North Vietnamese and Vietcong representatives in Paris returned to the negotiating tables.


----------

As its dominant tactic in their battle against the war, the antiwar movement successfully demonized Vietnam veterans by calling a series of "tribunals" or hearings into war crimes. But... they were packed with pretenders and liars -- historian Guenter Lewy, writing in "America in Vietnam"

John Kerry's lies about the activities of the Swift boats were part of a larger pattern of deception. As a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), Kerry testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on April 22, 1971, telling the Senators and a national audience that American troops "...had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam..." and accused the U.S. military of committing war crimes "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

Kerry's charges were based on a VVAW conference called the "Winter Soldier Investigation" -- a leftist propaganda event funded primarily by Jane Fonda. None of the Winter Soldier "witnesses" Kerry cited were willing to sign affadavits, and their gruesome stories lacked the names, dates and places that would allow their claims to be tested. Few were willing to cooperate with military investigators. The Naval Investigative Service found that several of the veterans said to have given statements at Winter Soldier were in fact imposters using the name of real veterans.

False testimony and exaggerations were primary characteristics of the war crimes disinformation campaign, and also of the VVAW itself. Executive Secretary Al Hubbard, for example, claimed to have been an Air Force Captain wounded in Vietnam piloting a transport plane. In fact, Hubbard had been a staff sergeant who was not a pilot and who was never assigned to Vietnam.

John Kerry and the VVAW worked closely with America's wartime enemies, arranged multiple meetings with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong leadership, and consistently supported their positions. Kerry and his radical comrades also played a key role in defining the false, damaging image of Vietnam veterans as psychologically disabled alcoholics and addicts, haunted by the crimes they had been forced to commit in a "racist" war.

Detailed information about the anti-war activities of John Kerry and the VVAW can be found at WinterSoldier.com.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.swiftvets.com/index.php?topic=KerryinVietnam

John Kerry's service in Vietnam lasted 4 months and 12 days, beginning in November 1968 when he reported to Cam Rahn Bay for a month of training. His abbreviated combat tour ended shortly after he requested a transfer out of Vietnam on March 17, 1969, citing Navy instruction 1300.39 permitting personnel with three Purple Hearts to request reassignment. So far as we are able to determine, Kerry was the only Swift sailor ever to leave Vietnam without completing the standard one-year tour of duty, other than those who were seriously wounded or killed.

It is clear that at least one of Kerry's Purple Heart awards was the result of his own negligence, not enemy fire, and that Kerry went to unusual lengths to obtain the award after being turned down by his own commanding officer.

John Kerry has long insisted that using the three-injury loophole to leave combat early was his own idea, but Kerry's fellow Swift officer Thomas Wright, who served on occasion as the OIC (Officer in Charge) of Kerry's boat group, contradicts that claim. Wright reports that he "had a lot of trouble getting Kerry to follow orders," and that those who worked with Kerry found him "oriented towards his personal, rather than unit goals and objectives." He therefore requested that Kerry be removed from his boat group. After John Kerry qualified for his third Purple Heart, Thomas Wright and two fellow officers informed him of the obscure regulation, and told him to go home. Wright concluded, "We knew how the system worked and we didn’t want him in Coastal Division 11."

Constructing a complete picture of Kerry's service is difficult due to gaps in the Naval records provided by the Kerry campaign. These gaps include missing and incomplete fitness reports, missing medical records and missing records related to his medal awards.

For this reason we call upon Senator Kerry to authorize complete access to all his military records by filing a standard Form 180, a simple two-page release form.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is in the process of researching John Kerry's time in Vietnam by conducting interviews with eyewitnesses to his activities, and we plan to add material to this section over the next several weeks as it becomes available. We will report the true circumstances of Kerry's medal awards and injuries, describe other controversial missions, and provide in-depth analysis of his fitness reports.


.

Kerry's Medals

1st Purple Heart: December 2, 1968

2nd Purple Heart: February 20, 1969

Silver Star: February 28, 1969

Bronze Star / 3rd Purple Heart: March 13, 1969


.

Other Missions

Sampan Incident: January 20, 1969.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.swiftvets.com/staticpages/index.php?page=Fitreps

Context

John Kerry's campaign representatives quote a few words from one of his best Navy fitness reports to support their misleading claim that Kerry's military evaluations were those of a top-flight officer. They carefully ignore the existence of several other reports that range from mediocre to substandard, thereby presenting an inaccurate picture of Kerry's service record.

There are also gaps in the documentations made public to date by the Kerry campaign, where no fitness reports are provided at all. Here we present an analysis of the available record.

An Introduction to Navy Fitness Reports

Navy officer fitness reports ("FITREPs") are of vital importance. Selection boards use them to promote the officer. Assignment officers use them to “sell” the officer into his or her next assignment. Only truly outstanding officers get the best jobs (or “billets”). Officers with adverse or spotty records are unsalable for anything but the most backwater assignments.

To read and understand FITREPs correctly, there are several crucial things to understand.

Dings and RAPs

First and foremost, a FITREP is a relative picture. You are not reading absolutes. If an officer is graded, say, as “outstanding,” it is meaningful only if he is ranked ahead of his contemporaries and the rest of the FITREP contains no glaring negatives.

Second, what matters most are marks or grades above and especially below the norm. Marks below the norm may fall under a very positive word (e.g., “excellent”) and appear positive to the casual reader, but no matter: any mark to the right of the norm is a strong, clear sign to both promotion boards and assignment officers (e.g., “detailers”) that there is a performance shortfall. A mark to the right is a “ding.” You don’t want a ding in your FITREP.

Third, what is not said in the narrative section is just as important as what is said. The truly superlative officer should be “RAPped,” meaning "Recommended for accelerated promotion." If Block 21 says only "Recommended for promotion" this is faint praise. It means that the officer should be considered for promotion along with the rest of his year group (all those commissioned in a given fiscal year constitute a “year group”). In the context of other marks and remarks, a “Recommended for promotion” mark means that the officer may just be average, called a “pack player.”

NOTE: An officer “Not Recommended for Promotion” is an officer in deep trouble. In a combat zone, failure to recommend for promotion may be indicative of problems in conduct, not just performance.

Key: Would His Commander Want Him to Command?

Fourth, if the officer is an Unrestricted Line Officer, he or she is in line for operational command (of a ship, an aviation squadron, etc.). Thus, one the most important marks on a FITREP for a line officer is “desirability for command,” referred to in the shorthand of selection boards and detailers as “command.” Thus, for a seagoing officer, a “ding in command” is big trouble. Likewise with the skill of “seamanship and ship handling”: a ship-driver “dinged in ship handling” is in big trouble.

As a footnote, line officers must win qualification as a Officer of the Deck for formation steaming that officer who stands watch on the bridge and is responsible for ship movement (and, frankly, everything that happens on that ship) while “formation steaming” or steaming in company with other ships. Officers must first qualify as OOD while in port . The quicker the climb to OOD(F) the better.

Also, Unrestricted Line Officers aboard ships (now called “Surface Warfare Officers”) must strive to be recommended for Navy Destroyer School which prepares the junior officer for his pivotal tour as a Lieutenant or Lieutenant (j.g.) -- a department head tour aboard a destroyer. A recommendation in a FITREP for Destroyer School is meaningful, however, if and only if the officer has qualified as OOD(F). The CO must qualify the officer as OOD for in-formation steaming; otherwise a Destroyer School recommendation is empty.

Thus, for the junior officer aboard ship, the number one performance goal is: qualify as OOD(F) and get recommended for Destroyer School. The unwritten rule is, don’t leave your first ship without the OOD(F) qualification.

Language and Other Signals

Fifth, FITREP language tends to be positive for officers who perform at a reasonably satisfactory level. That way, the FITREP tends to be a motivational tool to keep the officer on the right performance track. Thus, when COs feel the need to convey a signal to selection boards and detailers about performance that is lackluster, they will use code words. “Potential” is one of the key negative code words. Genuinely excellent officers should be performing; if they merely demonstrate “potential,” even “great potential,” this is read as a clear signal from the Commanding Officer that they are not performing.

Another signal is “trend of performance.” Unless it’s a “first report,” all good officers should be marked as “improving,” never “consistent” and certainly not “declining.”

Still another signal, particularly for line officers, is the broad categories of content in the narrative. A line officer’s FITREP should be glowing in praise of his or her ship handling and leadership abilities. Selection boards want to know how this officer performs on the bridge, not in some significantly less important collateral duty (e.g., public affairs officer). A CO who emphasizes performance in collateral duties is signaling that there is something lacking on the bridge.

Sixth, there can be no gaps. There must be one continuous thread of fitness reports in an officer’s jacket.

Seventh, it’s the operational tours that count. As long as the officer passes the school and stays out trouble, FITREPs from school commands don’t matter much.

Eighth, selection boards and detailers will examine the way the Commanding Officer grades his or her officers. Some of their considerations:

o They are looking for “good break-outs,” reports that clearly identify top-performers (called “water-walkers”) and distinguish them from “pack-plus” officers (above average performers) or “pack” officers (average). When a CO writes a “gift” FITREP (ranks everyone as top performers), boards and detailers tend to discount such “easy graders” and will look to a subsequent report for a clearer performance picture from another CO.

o Glowing, end-of-tour FITREPs are often viewed as “swan song” FITREPs (the officer is usually ranked 1 of 1) and don’t matter nearly as much as in-tour FITREPs when the officer is ranked with his or her peers. (Of course, if an officer is smacked in an end-of-tour report, you can be assured that boards sit up and pay close attention.)

What Do the Kerry FITREPs Really Say?

Knowing the above, what do the FITREPs selectively released by the Kerry campaign say about John Kerry as a junior officer in the U.S. Navy?

Kerry’s FITREPs are awash in dings, and some of the reports border on the adverse, particularly his combat FITREPs. The FITREPs convey significant performance problems and suggest problems in conduct, so much so that it is surprising that the campaign chose to release them. This may suggest that the FITREPs held from public view are even more adverse.

In what would customarily be an opportunity for a glowing “swan song” FITREP, the Commanding Officer of USS Gridley (DLG-21) tacitly blasts Kerry on his departure for Swift Boat duty by ranking him significantly below the norm in desirability for virtually every Navy assignment possible -– command, staff, whatever. He is a ship handler who is dinged in ship handling. He is in line for command, but his CO doesn’t want him near the bridge. He is slammed in all performance areas –- most notably and significantly in initiative and reliability. The “nice” narrative emphasizes performance in collateral duties, but in the grades and marks, the CO is telling the selection board and detailer loud and clear that this officer is lazy, unreliable and not suited for command. 3 SEP 68 (W.E. HARPER).

Another “swan song” opportunity is lost when Kerry departs a brief tour of duty as an Aide. Kerry is dinged in staff desirability, management and military bearing by Rear Admiral Walter Schlech (2 MAR 70 Schlech) while Kerry served as Schlech’s Aide. The Admiral makes considerable mention in the narrative section about Kerry’s ambition to run for Congress, and no doubt the glowing words were meant as a parting gift to someone who might become a member of Congress. The narrative notwithstanding, any detailer or selection board would consider the FITREP a bad one. Had Kerry remained in the Navy, it would be difficult to “sell” him to a new Aide assignment when his last boss, an Admiral, had dinged him in precisely those attributes indispensable for Aides.

The real performance problems are evidenced in FITREPs for his operational tours.

Because it is a FITREP that only covers about a month, LCDR Grant Hibbard’s first FITREP on Kerry should simply be marked “not observed” all the way down the line -– no grades, marks or narrative. Significantly, LCDR Hibbard chooses otherwise. Hibbard detects a personal behavior problem – a conduct problem – and smacks him for it in the report. He also dings Kerry on initiative and cooperation, just like his last CO in Gridley. 17 DEC 68 (HIBBARD).

In his FITREP for his combat tour as Officer in Charge of a SWIFT Boat -– arguably the most important FITREP among those released by the Kerry campaign –- Kerry is not dinged but slammed in command, seamanship and ship handling and in all major leadership traits (28 JAN 69 ELLIOTT). To Kerry and perhaps to other junior officers, it is an okay FITREP. To detailers and selection boards, it is a negative fitness report that borders on the adverse. LCDR Elliott ranks him well below the norm in traits essential for command: force, industry, analytical ability, judgment and more.

The PCF squadron commander, LCDR Elliott has 15 officers in his command, and his report (28 JAN 69) offers an excellent breakout. Elliott ranks his officers in two groups, the top and the bottom, and Elliott ranks Kerry among the top group. Or does he? Just like Hibbard, Elliott “red flags” Kerry in conduct by downgrading him significantly in judgment and personal behavior. When viewed in the context of the total FITREP, it is very clear to a detailer or selection board that Kerry probably ranks 7 of 15. He’s a “pack player” at best, but this is a worrisome FITREP to detailers and selection boards, because the significant flaws Elliott finds are in two critical areas: leadership traits and personal conduct. Moreover, because personal conduct issues have been raised by past commanders, detailers and selection boards would certainly conclude that the officer has exhibited major flaws in leadership and conduct over a sustained period of time that limit both his promotability and his salability to positions of responsibility. None of Kerry's evaluators had access to his previous FITREPS -- his commanders observed the same flaws independently.











iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Thu, 07-29-2004 - 1:45pm
So they were atrocity committers in 1971 and they're his Band of Brothers in 2004? People don't call him flip-flop for nothing....and no, we don't need this in the White House.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2004
Thu, 07-29-2004 - 2:18pm
His band of brothers are those who fight for truth and liberty, not those vets who feel necessary to hide what they did and think it was just fine to do those things. You seem to think these atrocities in IRaq and Vietnam are ok (from another post). That is your right. There are still many veterans that have nightmares over things they did. War makes people do things they normally would not do, and also makes freinds for those who typically would not be friends.

However, people can be freinds AND have different political ideas. Why are there some veterans who live in the streets and someone like McCain who was a POW, become successful? Why do some wish to speak about it and others do not? The veterans came from different backgrounds and have different ideas. But while there, all of that is usually put aside. It is either your 'band of brothers' or the enemy.

So if a vet likes to dislike Kerry, becuase he told the truth, then so be it. If that is there only reason, what a waste.

So yes this is what we need in the White House. What we have now is a person who is unable to speak full truths or even attempt to have his people research many things. We have a person who is willing to hide things and from your point, people that are willing to hide things are behind him.

***QUESTION***

What if you saw your best freind murder someone? Would you tell the police or keep it a secret?

Avatar for schifferle
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Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 07-29-2004 - 3:19pm
<< So if a vet likes to dislike Kerry, becuase he told the truth, then so be it. If that is there only reason, what a waste. >>

If you read further into http://www.swiftvets.com/, and I posted more information from there on #3497.5, you will see that the Vets claim Kerry was lying & not telling the truth. They further provide a strong case for believing Kerry got at least one purple heart due to his own negligence.

"Constructing a complete picture of Kerry's service is difficult due to gaps in the Naval records provided by the Kerry campaign. These gaps include missing and incomplete fitness reports, missing medical records and missing records related to his medal awards.

For this reason we call upon Senator Kerry to authorize complete access to all his military records by filing a standard Form 180, a simple two-page release form.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is in the process of researching John Kerry's time in Vietnam by conducting interviews with eyewitnesses to his activities, and we plan to add material to this section over the next several weeks as it becomes available. We will report the true circumstances of Kerry's medal awards and injuries, describe other controversial missions, and provide in-depth analysis of his fitness reports."

Kerry is not all he claims to be.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Thu, 07-29-2004 - 3:24pm
You need to read further....the band of brothers say he lied about the atrocities. Besides, if he had morals, he wouldn't be associating himself with babykillers and rapists...
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Registered: 05-21-2003
Thu, 07-29-2004 - 3:56pm
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2004
Thu, 07-29-2004 - 3:57pm


Hmm.. thanks for further providing such great statements and further insight from a republican!!!

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