Larry Thurlow respons to Kerry smears
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| Thu, 08-19-2004 - 12:59pm |
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.
Kerry campaign spokespersons have conflicting accounts of this incident-the latest one being that Kerry's boat did leave but only briefly and returned under withering enemy fire to rescue Mr. Rassmann. However, none of the other boats on the river that day reported enemy fire nor was anyone wounded by small arms action. The only damage on that day was done to boat three-a result of the underwater mine. None of the other swift boats received damage from enemy gunfire.
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?
Edited 8/19/2004 1:14 pm ET ET by truemobile

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Swift boat memories
Eagle Point vet who was there backs Kerry’s assertion that bullets were flying the day he won two medals on a river in Vietnam
By PAUL FATTIG
Mail Tribune
Robert E. Lambert doesn’t plan to vote for John Kerry.
But the Eagle Point man challenges claims by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that there was no enemy fire aimed at the five swift boats, including the one commanded by Kerry, on March 13, 1969 on the Bay Hap River in the southern tip of what was then South Vietnam.
Lambert, now 64, was a crew member on swift boat PCF-51 that day. The boat was commanded by Navy Lt. Larry Thurlow, a now-retired officer who questions why Kerry was awarded a Bronze star for bravery and a third Purple Heart for the March 13 incident.
"He and another officer now say we weren’t under fire at that time," Lambert said Wednesday afternoon. "Well, I sure was under the impression we were."
Lambert’s Bronze Star medal citation for the incident praises his courage under fire in the aftermath of a mine explosion that rocked another swift boat on that day 35 years ago.
"Anytime you are blown out of the water like that, they always follow that up with small arms fire," he said.
Lambert contacted the Mail Tribune after reading a lengthy article from the Washington Post examining the controversy. That article, carried in the Tribune, indicated that Lambert was a witness to the event but declined to comment.
Although noting he was never contacted by the Post, Lambert stressed that he believes the swift boat controversy has no place in the presidential election.
"This is being blown out of proportion," he said. "It’s absolutely unnecessary and irrelevant, as far as I’m concerned. All of this is nothing but a distraction. It doesn’t have anything to do with what is going on today."
A registered independent, Lambert said the presidential debate ought to be on the future, not the past.
"They should be focused on our exit strategy from Iraq," he said.
Lambert does take issue with Kerry’s opposition to the Vietnam War once he returned to the states.
"That was absolutely reprehensible but, there again, I’m career military," said Lambert who retired from the Navy as a chief petty officer after 22 years of service.
Nor does he have much time for the debate over who wrote the medal citations. Thurlow says his citation for a Bronze Star, which states the boats were being fired upon, was based on an initial report written by Kerry.
Lambert doesn’t know who wrote the documents.
"They took what everybody said after they got in, piled it altogether and shipped it off and somebody wrote that, either at the division level, squadron level or commander of naval forces, Vietnam level," Lambert said. "They decided what kind of medal was going to be put on it.
"Mine was for pulling Lt. Thurlow out of the river while we were under fire," he said.
Lambert, whose stout arms sport tattoos he picked up in the Navy, was already an "old salt" by 1969. He had joined the Navy right after graduating in 1957 from high in Chino, Calif.
Altogether, he would serve three tours in Vietnam, including a year on a mine sweeper.
In 1969, he was on his second swift boat tour. Among his duties, he helped train the officers in charge of the swift boats. He did not train Kerry.
"When they brought a new crew into country, they broke the crew apart, put each man on a different boat," he said. "Even though I was only a petty officer first class, I trained the officer in charge. When we all decided the officer and crew was ready, we put them back together and gave them a boat."
Lambert has a photo album of swift boats, including several shots of Kerry’s PCF-94, although he doesn’t recall ever having met Kerry. One of his photographs of Kerry’s boat was taken on the morning of March 13, 1969, he added.
He flipped to a photograph of a bullet hole in the side of his swift boat — PCF-51.
"That’s the bullet hole they keep talking about that they got the day before in the 51 boat — that was my purple heart," he said, noting he was hit on the upper left arm.
"When those bullets hit that aluminum, it was like hitting glass," he added. "There was shrapnel everywhere."
His photographs include swift boats riddled from AK-47 rifle rounds and larger holes from rocket blasts.
Lambert said that while he disagrees with Thurlow over whether they were being fired at that day, he and the crew liked and respected him.
"He was an excellent officer," he said. "The man was absolutely professional all the way. I would have went anywhere with him, he was that good.
"But I can understand why Thurlow doesn’t like Kerry — these people did a year in Vietnam, not four months," he said later.
The five swift boats were operating off U.S. Coast Guard cutters farther out in the bay on March 13. The swift boats had dropped off a load of Chinese mercenaries and American Special Forces. The mission of the ground forces was to push the enemy out of the jungle and onto the beach, where the swift boat crews were ready to pounce with their .50-caliber machine guns and other weapons.
According to Kerry’s Bronze Star citation, he was awarded the medal for rescuing Special Forces officer Jim Rassmann, who had been blown off his swift boat. Rassmann, who lives in Florence, has repeatedly stated the boats were under fire.
"We were done with our OPs and on the way back out to sea," Lambert recalled. "We were exiting the river. Kerry’s boat went through, then the 43 boat."
Then PCF-3 hit a mine.
"The mine was right underneath it, just lifted it right out of the water," he said.
The six-member crew was stunned and shaken by the blast; the boat was running free.
"It was running wide open — we were all running wide open, trying to get out of there," he said.
But while PCF-3 was running at full throttle, there was no one at the helm.
Thurlow pulled his boat up along the PCF-3 boat and told Lambert to take control of the PCF-51 boat, Lambert said.
"Everybody was shooting back," he said. "After my boat officer (Thurlow) jumped on the 3 boat, he was looking at people (the crew). His boat hit a sandbar and he was knocked overboard. So we went in and got him out."
Lambert, who reached down to help Thurlow aboard, was awarded the Bronze Star for his "courage under fire," according to his citation.
"We went right back to the 3 boat and he (Thurlow) went back on the boat," he said. "We got the 3 boat off the sandbar, got a boat tied to each side of it and down the river we went."
Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com
You can find this story online at:
http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2004/0826/local/stories/01local.htm
C
Venus
"Reporting by the Washington Post's Michael Dobbs points out that although the Kerry campaign insists that it has released Kerry's full military records, the Post was only able to get six pages of records under its Freedom of Information Act request out of the "at least a hundred pages" a Naval Personnel Office spokesman called the "full file."
What could that more than 100 pages contain? Questions have been raised about President Bush's drill attendance in the reserves, but Bush received his honorable discharge on schedule. Kerry, who should have been discharged from the Navy about the same time -- July 1, 1972 -- wasn't given the discharge he has on his campaign Web site until July 13, 1978. What delayed the discharge for six years? This raises serious questions about Kerry's performance while in the reserves that are far more potentially damaging than those raised against Bush."
http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-lips27.html
Renee ~~~
Edited 8/27/2004 6:11 pm ET ET by cl-wrhen
Renee ~~~
Venus
So if what Kerry said about his VN experiences 30 years ago counts for character then:
No one is trying to shut down the conversation. I am asking you all to think, beyond the dogma. Think, read, listen, look. We are losing our country today, now, this minute. Other countries in the world have lost a great deal of respect for us. GW doesn't care because we have all the power so why shouldn't he be arrogant and not care? Now he is in the repairing of his own mess in Iraq and NOW he wants help from those who told him not to go there in the first place, not so soon, not so impulsively.
Why are we talking about VN experiences 30 years ago between a man who was there and brougt home medals and a man who avoided going easily because of his family's influence and then possibly did not even show up at all the first year? Let's look at the character of these men today. One talks of making things better for all of us, the other talks of keeping money in the pockets of his rich friends and special interest groups who have supported him all these years. He believes in payback at the expense of all Americans. Let's look at the real issues facing us TODAY not what happened in another war 30 years ago.
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