Kerry in Vietnam: Black Eye or Feather in his Cap?
Published August 10, 2004
It all goes back to Christmas of 1968.
In an interview with the Boston Herald in March of 1979, John Kerry said the following about his Christmas:
"I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."Note the use of the words "President Nixon". Nixon was not actually inaugurated until January of 1969, so he should have said "President Johnson". He didn't. Nor did he actually identify the President when he recounted this narrative to President Reagan in 1986 (picture taken from the Congressional Record).
The big issue here is not forgetting who was President, but rather that every other source or indication besides Kerry's retelling of this story indicates that he was not, in fact, in Cambodia...this never happened! I'll get to that in a minute. But the story keeps getting told. London's Daily Telegraph quotes an 1992 AP story on the incident that goes as follows:
"Navy Lt John Kerry knew he had no business steering his Mekong River patrol boat across the border into Cambodia, but orders were orders... By Christmas 1968, part of Kerry's patrol extended across the border of South Vietnam into Cambodia."And again, in a 2000 US News and World Report article:
Sen. John Kerry made his first forays into Cambodia during the Vietnam War as a Navy lieutenant on clandestine missions to deliver weapons to anticommunist forces. When he returned last week, the mission was official, but dicey nonetheless. At the request of the United Nations, Kerry is trying to broker a compromise on how to try leaders of the former Khmer Rouge regime, whose late 1970s reign of terror claimed the lives of some 1.7 million Cambodians.This is not an old war story that John Kerry shares for the sake of nostalgia, it is a narrative he has used over and over as an object lesson to influence American foreign policy; it is a story which is on the public record in at least four distinct places. It was clearly a life-changing, paradigm-shifting event. Surprisingly, however, there is no mention of it in Douglas Brinkley's Kerry War/Anti-Warography, Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War.
As a matter of fact, Brinkley's account, based on interviews with Kerry and excerpts from Kerry's own journal, call into doubt the veracity of Kerry's four-times-printed harrowing morality tale. If you go to Amazon, you can search inside the text to find the following account of the events surrounding Christmas of 1968 on page 209 and 210:
Christmas Eve, 1968 turned out to be memorable for the men of PFC-44, though not in the jingle-bells sense folks were enjoying back home. The only concession to the holiday was that morning's rare breakfast of scrambled eggs, after which the crew headed their Swift North up the Co Chien river to its junction with the My Tho only miles from the Cambodian border. Because they were only an hour from that neighbor country, Kerry began reading up on Cambodia's history in a book he had borrowed from the floating barracks in An Thoi.His illegal Christmas forays are never mentioned in this book, despite their importance to his life. It seems clear that Kerry either somehow forgot this incident, or Brinkley didn't find the incident fit to print. According to Tour of Duty, Kerry was about 55 miles from Cambodia at the closest point.
- Kerry in Vietnam: Black Eye or Feather in his Cap?
- Published: August 10, 2004
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- Section: Culture
- Writer: Jeremy Chrysler
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Comments on this articleComments
This is a strange phenomenon, as many of the Vets lining up against Kerry stand to lose a lot of credibility if they allege that he did not act bravely in Vietnam and that his Purple Heart awards were not so sincere.
For me, this is especially intriguing as I have given Kerry the benefit of the doubt for his service, in fact defending him against the inflammatory charges of being a war criminal. Clearly there are those out there who do believe Kerry fought bravely in Vietnam and are crying for his head.
Then again, I also know that Kerry couldn't separate himself from his "band of brothers" soon enough upon getting back from the war and his activities and Senate record since coming home from 'Nam should rightly outrage and offend Vietnam Veterans. I always doubted that all Vietnam Vets just love Kerry as much as Kerry supporters stipulate.
MEM: in fact defending him against the inflammatory charges of...
If that was a defense, please never ever step in to defend me.
What you did in that post was a back-handed smear.
Thanks for the link. I've been walking around in a daze for a week. :)
I read your article and I have something to ad to the Cambodia escapade. You are correct that Nixon was not President then, but it is also true that Nixon had not made the speech saying no Americans were in Cambodia until Nov. 1971.
I also take issue with the medals etc. but will address one small aspect here. Generally when someone relays a personal story the basics of the story remain unchangedm especially when it was an event that could have ended your life. In the case of Jim Rasmussen, that is not the case. These are quotes that I have uncovered using the limited resources I have.
Rassmann's river patrol of Swift boats had been blown out of the water in a barrage of fire from Viet Cong AK-47s and rocket launchers. He had come up for air, taking sniper fire from both banks, sure "my ticket was punched.''
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/08/MNGKO4RLT71.DTL
On March 13, 1969, Rassmann, a Green Beret, was traveling down the Bay Hap river in a boat behind Kerry's when both were ambushed by exploding land mines and enemy fire coming from the shore. Kerry was hit in the arm, while a mine blew Rassmann's boat out of the water. With enemy fire coming from both sides of the river and swift boats evacuating from the area, Kerry's crew chose to turn their boat toward the ambush to save Rassmann.
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0117d.html
Rassmann, a first lieutenant in the Army special forces, was eating a chocolate chip cookie on Kerry's patrol boat as it pulled back from a fire fight when a nearby boat hit a mine. During the ensuing combat, Kerry's boat was rocked by another explosion, which injured Kerry and tossed Rassmann into the water.
http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2004/07/22/76146.php
While returning from a SEA LORDS operation along the Bay Hap River, a mine detonated under another swift boat. Machine-gun fire erupted from both banks of the river, and a second explosion followed moments later. The second blast blew me off John's swift boat, PCF-94, throwing me into the river. Fearing that the other boats would run me over, I swam to the bottom of the river and stayed there as long as I could hold my breath.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005460
The group had already lost one soldier that day. As they sped down the river, one boat was blown out of the water, and then another. An explosion wounded Kerry in the arm and threw Rassmann into the river. Rassmann dove to the bottom to avoid being run over by the other boats. When he surfaced, he saw the convoy had gone ahead.
Viet Cong snipers fired at him, and Rassmann submerged over and over to avoid being hit. The bullets came from both banks, and Rassmann had nowhere to go. He began thinking his time had come, but the fifth time he came up, he saw the convoy had turned around. Kerry had ordered the boats back to pick up the man overboard.
http://www.htmlhelponline.com/kerry/news1.html
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The mainstream media is strongly anti-Bush and pro-Kerry. This blatant lie by Kerry will be brushed aside as "minor" and "unimportant." Those that continue to bring it up will be accused of using "smear tactics against a genuine war hero." Etc.
As I've said before, footage could come out tomorrow of Kerry butchering a pre-teen Vietnamese girl with a smile on his face, and the liberal press would immediately begin excusing it by talking of the "fog of war" and such. Sickening.