Re: OT: Physicians for a National Health Program

[socko <s@xxxx>]

Robert L Bass wrote:
> "Nathan W. Collier" wrote:
>>
>> _kerry_ discredited kerry.  the swift boat veterans that happened to
>> actually be serving their country at a time when kerry was being a
>> traitor before congress to promote his own political aspirations only
>> told of their first hand experiences with kerry.
>
> I have no idea how old you are or whether you were even around during
> the Vietnam war.  Several friends and one member of my family died over
> there.  A lot more came back with ruined lives.  When I was called up by
> the draft board and reported for the pre-induction exam, I was scared
> stiff (as were almost all the other guys there).  I was lucky.  A minor
> medical problem let me off the hook so I didn't have to go.  Many others
> weren't so lucky.  They got drafted and they had no choice but to
> serve.  Kerry and Bush were exceptions.  Kerry _volunteered_ for
> Vietnam.  Bush went AWOL and spent his time drinking and snorting cocaine.
>
> The following is quoted from snopes.com, one of the more reliable online
> debunkers of myth and modern urban legend.  It tells the true story of
> Kerry's service in Vietnam.  The story was told by those who served with
> Kerry and by his superior officers, all of whom describe Kerry as a hero:
>
> -- Service Mettle --
>
> Claim:   John Kerry's Vietnam War service medals (a Bronze Star, a
> Silver Star and three Purple Hearts) were earned under "fishy"
> circumstances.
>
> Status:   False.
>
> Origins:   In Vietnam, Lieutenant John Kerry served aboard 50-foot
> aluminum boats known as PCFs (from "patrol craft fast") or "Swift boats"
> (supposedly an acronym for "Shallow Water Inshore Fast Tactical Craft").
> Despite the implications contained in the piece quoted above ("that duty
> wasn't the worst you could draw"), Swift boat duty was plenty dangerous:
> ... two weeks after [Kerry] arrived in Vietnam, the swift boat mission
> changed ? and Kerry went from having one of the safest assignments in
> the escalating conflict to one of the most dangerous. Under the newly
> launched Operation SEALORD, swift boats were charged with patrolling the
> narrow waterways of the Mekong Delta to draw fire and smoke out the
> enemy. Cruising inlets and coves and canals, swift boats were especially
> vulnerable targets.
>
> Originally designed to ferry oil workers to ocean rigs, swift boats
> offered flimsy protection. Because bullets could easily penetrate the
> hull, sailors hung flak jackets over the sides. The boat's loud engine
> invited ambushes. Speed was its saving grace ? but that wasn't always an
> option in narrow, heavily mined canals.
>
> The swift boat crew typically consisted of a college-educated skipper,
> such as Kerry, and five blue-collar sailors averaging 19 years old. The
> most vulnerable sailor sat in the "tub" ? a squat nest that rose above
> the pilot house ? and operated a pair of .50-caliber machine guns.
> Another gunner was in the rear. Kerry's mission was to wait until hidden
> Viet Cong guerrillas started shooting, then order his men to return
> fire.  It  was not at all unusual that a Swift boat crew member might be
> wounded more than once in a relatively short period of time, or that
> injuries meriting the award of a Purple Heart might not be serious
> enough to require time off from duty. According to a Boston Globe
> overview of John Kerry's Vietnam experience:  Under [Navy Admiral Elmo]
> Zumwalt's command, swift boats would aggressively engage the enemy.
> Zumwalt, who died in 2000, calculated in his autobiography that these
> men under his command had a 75 percent chance of being killed or wounded
> during a typical year.
>
> "There were an awful lot of Purple Hearts ? from shrapnel, some of those
> might have been M-40 grenades," said George Elliott, Kerry's commanding
> officer. "The Purple Hearts were coming down in boxes. Kerry, he had
> three Purple Hearts. None of them took him off duty. Not to belittle it,
> that was more the rule than the exception."  And according to Douglas
> Brinkley's history of John Kerry and the Vietnam War:  As generally
> understood, the Purple Heart is given to any U.S. citizen wounded in
> wartime service to the nation. Giving out Purple Hearts increased as the
> United States started sending Swifts up rivers. Sailors ? no longer safe
> on aircraft carriers or battleships in the Gulf of Tonkin ? were
> starting to bleed, a lot.  John Kerry was wounded in his first
> significant combat action, when he volunteered for a special mission on
> 2 December 1968:  "It was a half-assed action that hardly qualfied as
> combat, but it was my first, and that made it very exciting," [Kerry
> said]. "Three of us, two enlisted men and myself, had stayed up all
> night in a Boston Whaler [a foam-filled-fiberglass boat] patrolling the
> shore off a Viet Cong-infested peninsula north of Cam Ranh . . . Most of
> the night had been spent being scared shitless by fisherman whom we
> would suddenly creep up on in the darkness. Once, one of the sailors was
> so startled by two men who surprised us as we came around a corner ten
> yards from the shore that he actually pulled the trigger on his machine
> gun. Fortunately for the two men, he had forgotten to switch off the
> safety . . ."
>
> As it turned out, the two men really were just a pair of innocent
> fisherman who didn't know where one zone began and the other ended.
> Their papers were perfectly in order, if their night's fishing over. The
> fear was that they were VC. Allowing them to continue might have
> compromised the mission. For the next four hours Kerry's Boston Whaler,
> using paddles, brought boatloads of fisherman they found in sampans, all
> operating in a curfew zone, back to the Swift. It was tiring work. "We
> deposited them with the Swift boat that remained out in the deep water
> to give us cover," Kerry continued. "Then, very early in the morning,
> around 2:00 or 3:00, while it was still dark, we proceeded up the tiny
> inlet between the island and the peninsula to the point designated as
> our objective. The jungle closed in on us on both sides. It was scary as
> hell. You could hear yourself breathing. We were almost touching the
> shore. Suddenly, through the magnified moonlight of the infrared
> 'starlight scope,' I watched, mesmerized, as a group of sampans glided
> in toward the shore. We had been briefed that this was a favorite
> crossing area for VC trafficking contraband."
>
> With its motor turned off, Kerry paddled the Boston Whaler out of the
> inlet into the beginning of the bay. Simultaneously the Vietnamese
> pulled their sampans up onto the beach and began to unload something; he
> couldn't tell what, so he decided to illuminate the proceedings with a
> flare. The entire sky seemed to explode into daylight. The men from the
> sampans bolted erect, stiff with shock for only an instant before they
> sprang for cover like a herd of panicked gazelles Kerry had once seen on
> TV's Wild Kingdom. "We opened fire," he went on. "The light from the
> flares started to fade, the air was full of explosions. My M-16 jammed,
> and as I bent down in the boat to grab another gun, a stinging piece of
> heat socked into my arm and just seemed to burn like hell. By this time
> one of the sailors had started the engine and we ran by the beach,
> strafing it. Then it was quiet.
>
> "We stayed quiet and low because we did not want to illuminate ourselves
> at that point," Kerry explained. "In the dead of night, without any
> knowledge of what kind of force was there, we were not all about to go
> crawling on the beach to get our asses shot off. We were unprotected; we
> didn't have ammunition, we didn't have cover, we just weren't prepared
> for that . . . So we first shot the sampans so that they were destroyed
> and whatever was in them was destroyed." Then their cover boat warned of
> a possible VC ambush in the small channel they had to exit through, and
> Kerry and company departed the area.
> The "stinging piece of heat" Kerry felt in his arm had been caused by a
> piece of shrapnel, a wound for which he was awarded a Purple Heart. The
> injury was not serious ? Brinkley notes that Kerry went on a regular
> Swift boat patrol the next day with a bandage on his arm, and the Boston
> Globe quoted William Schachte, who oversaw the mission and went on to
> become a rear admiral, as recalling that "It was not a very serious
> wound at all."
>
> Kerry earned his second Purple Heart while returning from a PCF mission
> up the Bo De River on 20 February 1969:
> One of the mission's support helicopters had been hit by small-arms fire
> during the trip up the Bo De and the rest had returned with it to their
> base to refuel and get the damage inspected. While there the pilots
> found that they wouldn't be able to return to the Swifts for several
> more hours. "We therefore had a choice: to wait for what was not a
> confirmed return by the helos [and] give any snipers more time to set up
> an ambush for our exit or we could take a chance and exit immediately
> without any cover," Kerry recorded in his notebook. "We chose the latter."
>
> Just as they moved out onto the Cua Lon, at a junction known for
> unfriendliness in the past, kaboom! PCF-94 had taken a rocket-propelled
> grenade round off the port side, fired at them from the far left bank.
> Kerry felt a piece of hot shrapnel bore into his left leg. With blood
> running down the deck, the Swift managed to make an otherwise uneventful
> exit into the Gulf of Thailand, where they rendezvoused with a Coast
> Guard cutter. The injury Kerry suffered in that action earned him his
> second Purple Heart.  Brinkley noted that, as in the previous case,
> "Kerry's wound was not serious enough to require time off from duty."
>
> Kerry earned his Silver Star on 28 February 1969, when he beached his
> craft and jumped off it with an M-16 rifle in hand to chase and shoot a
> guerrilla who was running into position to launch a B-40 rocket at
> Kerry's boat. Contrary to the account quoted above, Kerry did not shoot
> a "Charlie" who had "fired at the boat and missed," whose "rocket
> launcher was empty," and who was "already dead or dying" after being
> "knocked down with a .50 caliber round." Kerry's boat had been hit by a
> rocket fired by someone else ? the guerrilla in question was still armed
> with a live B-40 and had only been clipped in the leg; when the
> guerrilla got up to run, Kerry assumed he was getting into position to
> launch a rocket and shot him:  On Feb. 28, 1969, Kerry's boat received
> word that a swift boat was being ambushed. As Kerry raced to the scene,
> his boat became another target, as a Viet Cong B-40 rocket blast
> shattered a window. Kerry could have ordered his crew to hit the enemy
> and run. But the skipper had a more aggressive reaction in mind. Beach
> the boat, Kerry ordered, and the craft's bow was quickly rammed upon the
> shoreline. Out of the bush appeared a teenager in a loin cloth,
> clutching a grenade launcher.
>
> An enemy was just feet away, holding a weapon with enough firepower to
> blow up the boat. Kerry's forward gunner, [Tommy] Belodeau, shot and
> clipped the Viet Cong in the leg. Then Belodeau's gun jammed, according
> to other crewmates (Belodeau died in 1997). [Michael] Medeiros tried to
> fire at the Viet Cong, but he couldn't get a shot off.
>
> In an interview, Kerry added a chilling detail.
>
> "This guy could have dispatched us in a second, but for . . . I'll never
> be able to explain, we were literally face to face, he with his B-40
> rocket and us in our boat, and he didn't pull the trigger. I would not
> be here today talking to you if he had," Kerry recalled. "And Tommy
> clipped him, and he started going [down.] I thought it was over."
>
> Instead, the guerrilla got up and started running. "We've got to get
> him, make sure he doesn't get behind the hut, and then we're in
> trouble," Kerry recalled.
>
> So Kerry shot and killed the guerrilla. "I don't have a second's
> question about that, nor does anybody who was with me," he said. "He was
> running away with a live B-40, and, I thought, poised to turn around and
> fire it." Asked whether that meant Kerry shot the guerrilla in the back,
> Kerry said, "No, absolutely not. He was hurt, other guys were shooting
> from back, side, back. There is no, there is not a scintilla of question
> in any person's mind who was there [that] this guy was dangerous, he was
> a combatant, he had an armed weapon." Another member of the crew
> confirmed Kerry's account for the Boston Globe and expressed no doubt
> that Kerry's action had saved both the boat and its crew:  The crewman
> with the best view of the action was Frederic Short, the man in the tub
> operating the twin guns. Short had not talked to Kerry for 34 years,
> until after he was recently contacted by a Globe reporter. Kerry said he
> had "totally forgotten" Short was on board that day.
>
> Short had joined Kerry's crew just two weeks earlier, as a last-minute
> replacement, and he was as green as the Arkansas grass of his home. He
> said he didn't realize that he should have carried an M-16 rifle,
> figuring the tub's machine guns would be enough. But as Kerry stood face
> to face with the guerrilla carrying the rocket, Short realized his
> predicament. With the boat beached and the bow tilted up, a guard rail
> prevented him from taking aim at the enemy. For a terrifying moment, the
> guerrilla looked straight at Short with the rocket.
>
> Short believes the guerrilla didn't fire because he was too close and
> needed to be a suitable distance to hit the boat squarely and avoid
> ricochet debris. Short tried to protect his skipper.
>
> "I laid in fire with the twin .50s, and he got behind a hootch,"
> recalled Short. "I laid 50 rounds in there, and Mr. Kerry went in.
> Rounds were coming everywhere. We were getting fire from both sides of
> the river. It was a canal. We were receiving fire from the opposite
> bank, also, and there was no way I could bring my guns to bear on that."
>
> Short said there is "no doubt" that Kerry saved the boat and crew. "That
> was a him-or-us thing, that was a loaded weapon with a shape charge on
> it . . . It could pierce a tank. I wouldn't have been here talking to
> you. I probably prayed more up that creek than a Southern Baptist church
> does in a month."
>
> Charles Gibson, who served on Kerry's boat that day because he was on a
> one-week indoctrination course, said Kerry's action was dangerous but
> necessary. "Every day you wake up and say, 'How the hell did we get out
> of that alive?'" Gibson said. "Kerry was a good leader. He knew what he
> was doing."
>
> Although Kerry's superiors were somewhat concerned about the issue of
> his leaving his boat unattended, they nonetheless found his actions
> courageous and worthy of commendation:  When Kerry returned to his base,
> his commanding officer, George Elliott, raised an issue with Kerry: the
> fine line between whether the action merited a medal or a court-martial.
>
> "When [Kerry] came back from the well-publicized action where he beached
> his boat in middle of ambush and chased a VC around a hootch and ended
> his life, when [Kerry] came back and I heard his debrief, I said, 'John,
> I don't know whether you should be court-martialed or given a medal,
> court-martialed for leaving your ship, your post,'" Elliott recalled in
> an interview.
>
> "But I ended up writing it up for a Silver Star, which is well deserved,
> and I have no regrets or second thoughts at all about that," Elliott
> said. A Silver Star, which the Navy said is its fifth-highest medal,
> commends distinctive gallantry in action.
>
> Asked why he had raised the issue of a court-martial, Elliott said he
> did so "half tongue-in-cheek, because there was never any question I
> wanted him to realize I didn't want him to leave his boat unattended.
> That was in context of big-ship Navy ? my background. A C.O. [commanding
> officer] never leaves his ship in battle or anything else. I realize
> this, first of all, it was pretty courageous to turn into an ambush even
> though you usually find no more than two or three people there. On the
> other hand, on an operation some time later, down on the very tip of the
> peninsula, we had lost one boat and several men in a big operation, and
> they were hit by a lot more than two or three people."
>
> Elliott stressed that he never questioned Kerry's decision to kill the
> Viet Cong, and he appeared in Boston at Kerry's side during the 1996
> Senate race to back up that aspect of Kerry's action.
>
> "I don't think they were exactly ready to court-martial him," said Wade
> Sanders, who commanded a swift boat that sometimes accompanied Kerry's
> vessel, and who later became deputy assistant secretary of the Navy. "I
> can only say from the certainty borne of experience that there must have
> been some rumbling about, 'What are we going to do with this guy, he
> turned his boat,' and I can hear the words, 'He endangered his crew.'
> But from our position, the tactic to take is whatever action is best
> designed to eliminate the enemy threat, which is what he did."
>
> Indeed, the Silver Star citation makes clear that Kerry's performance on
> that day was both extraordinary and risky. "With utter disregard for his
> own safety and the enemy rockets," the citation says, Kerry "again
> ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his boat only 10 feet from the
> Viet Cong rocket position and personally led a landing party ashore in
> pursuit of the enemy . . . The extraordinary daring and personal courage
> of Lt. Kerry in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of
> intense fire were responsible for the highly successful mission."
>
> Kerry was injured yet again on 13 March 1969, in an action for which he
> was awarded both a Bronze Star and his third Purple Heart. According to
> Kerry's Bronze Star citation (signed by Admiral Zumwalt himself):
>
> Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry was serving as an Officer-in-Charge of
> Inshore Patrol Craft 94, one of five boats conducting a Sealords
> operation in the Bay Hap River. While exiting the river, a mine
> detonated under another Inshore Patrol Craft and almost simultaneously,
> another mine detonated wounding Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry in the
> right arm. In addition, all units began receiving small arms and
> automatic weapons fire from the river banks. When Lieutenant (junior
> grade) Kerry discovered he had a man overboard, he returned upriver to
> assist. The man in the water was receiving sniper fire from both banks.
> Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry directed his gunners to provide
> suppressing fire, while from an exposed position on the bow, his arm
> bleeding and in pain and with disregard for his personal safety, he
> pulled the man aboard. Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry then directed his
> boat to return to and assist the other damaged boat to safety.
> Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry's calmness, professionalism and great
> personal courage under fire were in keeping with the highest traditions
> of the United States Naval Service.
>
> According to the Boston Globe, this was the only one of Kerry's three
> Purple Heart injuries that caused him to miss any days of service:
>
> Kerry had been wounded three times and received three Purple Hearts.
> Asked about the severity of the wounds, Kerry said that one of them cost
> him about two days of service, and that the other two did not interrupt
> his duty. "Walking wounded," as Kerry put it. A shrapnel wound in his
> left arm gave Kerry pain for years. Kerry declined a request from the
> Globe to sign a waiver authorizing the release of military documents
> that are covered under the Privacy Act and that might shed more light on
> the extent of the treatment Kerry needed as a result of the wounds.
>
> Back in 1969, Navy regulations specified that any soldier wounded in
> combat three times be automatically reassigned away from a combat zone
> to an assignment of his choosing (unless the thrice-wounded soldier
> specifically requested to stay). Four days after Kerry took his third
> hit of shrapnel, Commodore Charles F. Horne, an administrative official
> and commander of the coastal squadron in which Kerry served, forwarded a
> request on Kerry's behalf to the Navy Bureau of Personnel asking that
> Kerry be reassigned to "duty as a personal aide in Boston, New York, or
> Washington, D.C." Soon afterwards Kerry was transferred to Cam Ranh Bay
> to await further orders, and within a month he had been reassigned as a
> personal aide and flag lieutenant to Rear Admiral Walter F. Schlech, Jr.
> with the Military Sea Transportation Service based in Brooklyn, New York.
>
> Kerry served with Admiral Schlech until the end of 1969, when he
> requested an early discharge from the Navy in order to run for a
> Massachusetts congressional seat. Admiral Schlech approved the request,
> and on 3 January 1970 Kerry received an honorable discharge, six months
> early.
>
> Last updated:   2 September 2007
>
> The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/service.asp
>
> Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2007
> by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
> This material may not be reproduced without permission.
>
> Sources:
> Brinkley, Douglas.   Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War.
> New York: HarperCollins, 2004.   ISBN 0-06-056523-3.
> Klein, Joe.   "The Long War of John Kerry."
> The New Yorker.   2 December 2002.
> Kranish, Michael.   "John F. Kerry: Candidate in the Making ? Part 2:
> Heroism, and Growing Concern About War."
> The Boston Globe.   16 June 2003.

just post a link , numbnuts bASS.