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The Kerry campaign is planning to vigorously counter the charges and will accuse the veteran's groups of being well-financed by a top Bush donor from Texas, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
"They hired a goddamn private investigator to dig up trash!" charged a top Kerry adviser traveling with the senator late Tuesday. "This is pay for play, and the dirtiest of all dirty tricks ever played on a candidate for the presidency. How low can they go?"
Kerry supporters are comparing the effort by the veterans to the Arkansas State troopers tell-all against Bill Clinton.
UNFIT FOR COMMAND will not be released until August 15.
The names. The details. All on the record.
Beginning tomorrow, the DRUDGE REPORT will break the embargo.
Two of John Kerry's three Purple Heart decorations resulted from self-inflicted wounds, not suffered under enemy fire.
All three of Kerry's Purple Hearts were for minor injuries, not requiring a single hour of hospitalization.
A "fanny wound" was the highlight of Kerry's much touted "no man left behind" Bronze Star.
Kerry turned the tragic death of a father and small child in a Vietnamese fishing boat into an act of "heroism" by filing a false report on the incident.
Kerry entered an abandoned Vietnamese village and slaughtered the domestic animals owned by the civilians and burned down their homes with his Zippo lighter.
Kerry's reckless behavior convinced his colleagues that he had to go -- becoming the only Swift Boat veteran to serve only four months.
nycflasher said:Serving in Vietnam: could cost you your life
Serving in the National Guard during Vietnam: a "nice" alternative to combat
Doing everything you can to discredit your opponent's war record because it is the only way to get around the fact that he fought and you didn't:
Priceless.
American Express... use it when you go AWOL.
insein said:Who went AWOL? Im lost here.
nycflasher said:That was just a joke. I'm not implying that Bush went AWOL, just remembering the talk from a few months back when the media was reviewing his record.
Grant Hibbard, a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and Kerry's direct supervisor for three months in 1968 and 1969 when Kerry commanded a five-man, 50-foot swift boat, said he never approved of the Purple Heart award for the wound Kerry received Dec. 6, 1968.
"He informed me of a wound," Hibbard said. But Hibbard said the wound he saw on Kerry's arm was so minor, "I basically said forget it, or words like that."
Hibbard said that although as Kerry's superior he was the person who would initiate such an award, he only learned Kerry received the award sometime after he left Vietnam. The award for the December action was stamped approved Feb. 28, 1968, under the signature of Donald Still, chief staff officer for the U.S. Naval Support Systems in Saigon, who has since died.
Let's talk about the last time Kerry reported for duty.
He enlisted in the Navy with one thought in mind building a resume that would one day propel him to the presidency. He told college friends. He told his peers in Vietnam. He took a movie camera with him to record his acts of "heroism."
In a training mission, he misfired a rocket-propelled grenade, causing a small piece of shrapnel to ricochet and hit him in the arm. The injury was so minor, it required only a Band-Aid. He had the audacity to ask the doctor who treated him if he would be eligible for the Purple Heart. The doctor laughed and told him to go back to duty. He went to his commanding officer and requested a Purple Heart. His commander laughed and told him to report to duty.
But Kerry, whose family was close with the Kennedy family since he was a small child, wrote a letter to someone in Saigon and voila got his first Purple Heart.
Later, Kerry took his swiftboat down the river and spotted a sampan floating innocently in the water. For some reason Kerry thought he should blow it up. He fired on it and blew it up, all right. But it was carrying dangerous cargo rice. Some of the rice flew up and hit Kerry. Second Purple Heart.
He got a third one for another minor injury not associated with enemy fire another one that didn't cause him to miss even a day on active duty.
And Kerry knew he had his ticket home. Three Purple Hearts and you're out if you choose to leave. Those were the rules. And Kerry left Vietnam after four rather uneventful months.
Eyewitnesses and his fellow swiftboat officers say the act of "heroism" portrayed in his official documentary at the convention is a lie. He didn't pull that man out of the river under fire. There was no battle raging. A man fell out of the boat and Kerry reached over and pulled him in just like he pulled that hamster out of the water for his daughters.
But the real dishonor, the real fraud, the real disgrace of Kerry's service record came when he went home.
Kerry betrayed his comrades in arms even while the fighting continued in Vietnam, even while U.S. prisoners were languishing in torture camps.
He went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971 and lied. He spoke of U.S. war crimes that never happened. He spoke of U.S. soldiers as "monsters" who cut off ears and killed innocent women and children.
Meanwhile, men in the "Hanoi Hilton" and other camps were enduring unspeakable abuses some were being murdered in cold blood because they refused, even under duress, to say the things Kerry said so willingly in the comfort of the U.S. Senate.
Apparently, Kerry, with his moist finger in the wind, had decided by then that his best shot at political success and national recognition would come about by switching sides in the war and aiding the enemy.
Unfortunately he was right. He not only won a prominent spot of "honor" in Hanoi's war-crimes museum, he also eventually was able to persuade Massachusetts voters to send him to the U.S. Senate again and again just like they did with his disgraceful, fraudulent and dishonorable friend Teddy Kennedy.
I find it difficult to believe, however, that Kerry can fool enough Americans nationwide to make him the leader of the greatest country on earth and the one he has done so much to hurt.
If his Vietnam record is the centerpiece of his career, his life, his achievements and his character, this is truly a man corrupt to the core.
freeandfun1 said:Some Vietnam vets come out against Kerry
Pretty telling that his commander IS NOT the one that approved his purple heart.....
I don't know what is. Not a denial, just a diversion from the subject. These poor guys will have their lives and trash gone through.The Kerry campaign responded it has been 35 years since the medals were awarded and no one raised the issue before Kerry got involved in the race for the White House.
Kathianne said:If this isn't Clinton speak:
I don't know what is. Not a denial, just a diversion from the subject. These poor guys will have their lives and trash gone through.
Palestinian Jew said:Pure propaganda. It is in ample supply these days from both sides.
Another of their "charges" is that Kerry killed a 13 year old girl. Republicans have been outraged that some liberals have called Bush a liar, but now here are people calling Kerry a murderer that are getting support from the right!
freeandfun1 said:I haven't heard that one. Please provide a source.
insein said:Me neither and i would refute it myself if it was totoally unfounded. Stuff like that doesnt need to be in the elections if completely false. Just like all the BS thrown at Bush.
freeandfun1 said:hell, my reason for wanting a source is just that I don't believe PJ. He says, "now some [infer GOP] are saying he killed...." I want to know "who" is saying that.
Palestinian Jew said:One of those men that served with Kerry in Vietnam on the swiftboat, the same guy who was on the stage with Kerry in Boston, lives here in Fayetteville and is at the Democrat Headquarters regularly. I've talked to the guy and he says it is all untrue, so I'm a little more inclined to believe somebody that was there on the boat than someone else who has it out for Kerry.
freeandfun1 said:I haven't heard that one. Please provide a source.
acludem said:I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Matt Drudge cannot be trusted with the truth. He's nothing but a Republican gossip and propaganda henchman. He also reported that Kerry had an "intern problem." What happened to that one Matty old boy?
acludem
freeandfun1 said:ONe of those that served. 23 others that served with him say it is bunk. So do you believe one or 23?
