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Did Kerry write own report of disputed clash?
A faded 35-year-old operations order recovered from the Naval Historical Center in Washington bears directly on the ongoing dispute between Sen. John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth about who wrote the key after-action report that ended Kerry's service in Vietnam. The report appears in the official Navy records and is posted on Kerry's presidential campaign Web site.The report details Kerry's participation in a naval operation on the Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969, in such glowing terms that he was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for pulling Special Forces officer James Rassmann out of the water while under heavy enemy fire. This third Purple Heart allowed Kerry to cut short his Vietnam tour after only four months. The report in question described a mission of five swift boats ambushed by a mine explosion that seriously damaged one boat while the swift boats received heavy fire from both banks. The fire continued for three miles, the report said. Roy Hoffman, the admiral who commanded the swift boats in Vietnam, finds that detail alone absurd. Hoffman, a member of the anti-Kerry swift boat veterans group, says: "There was never an incident under my command in all of Vietnam where my boats were engaged by continuous fire from both banks of a half mile in length, much less three." "It is miraculous all right because it never happened," recalls Larry Thurlow, a Kerry critic who commanded the mission. Rest at link. Posted by: ed 2004-10-02 |
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