[lit-ideas] Re: Equal Time
- From: Eternitytime1@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 10:09:36 EDT
Hi,
Here are some thoughts--will try to take them a bit at a time. (You do
state your views well, I will say)
Regarding Kerry and his service record: I do recall that he did mention
that he did realize when he was there what was happening--and that was the
main
reason he returned home: to do something about it. Even my sibling who
attended the Naval Academy has grudingly admitted that he deserved his
medals...
Bush was rabidly FOR the war--even though he did not want to go and did NOT
go. Absolutely...and that is far far different than someone who went and
then saw a lack of support and has a view of more 'cutting our losses and
getting out of there' sort of style
(why he went in the first place, I do not know--unless it was that he was
'patriotic' and thought he should do his duty and then face-to-face with
reality
with soldiers getting no support and/or not enough to get 'the job' done,
etc. so that he thought we ought to cut our losses and get out of there [there
is a sort of wisdom in being able to recognize when one is lost...and I say
this as one who will beat her head against a wall 32 times before realizing
that the door will not open and I had better either find the trap one or a
window or some other way out. The average person will do it for 18 times
before
getting a clue. Maybe Clinton only took 0 times, Kerry took 14 times [he
was still ahead of the average] and Bush took 97 times and still is thinking
that we ought to be over in Vietnam...)
But, Bush believed in the Vietnam war. Very much so. He just didn't want
to fight in it.
I did not, for various reasons, like Clinton, but I will state what is true
and fair about him. And with all the reasons why I did/do not like the man,
he is miles ahead of someone like Bush.
In terms of doing what is 'bad' for veterans--I do believe that he DID try
to do what he could for the Vietnam veterans. After posting this Chicago
Tribune article, I will post a bit of information on the organization for them
(the only Congressionally sanctioned one for Vietnam vets) that he co-created.
I hope you don't mind that I will be addressing several other of the six
points. <sigh>
I'm afraid I plan to do so...so humour me, if you will...
Also concerned,
Marlena in Missouri
In a message dated 10/5/2004 12:49:10 PM Central Daylight Time, pas@xxxxxxxx
writes:
Firstly,
John Kerry touts his "hero" status from Vietnam constantly. He went to
Vietnam, took orders, shot innocent people, fought in a stupid war and got
decorated for it. Soon after he got home, he started protesting the war. He
protested a war which made him a hero.
_http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-040821rood,1,2328121.story_
(http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-040821rood,1,2328121.story)
Feb. 28, 1969: ON THE DONG CUNG RIVER
`This is what I saw that day'
By William B. Rood
Chicago Tribune
August 22, 2004
There were three swift boats on the river that day in Vietnam more than 35
years ago--three officers and 15 crew members. Only two of those officers
remain to talk about what happened on February 28, 1969.
One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a Silver
Star for what happened on that date. I am the other.
For years, no one asked about those events. But now they are the focus of
skirmishing in a presidential election with a group of swift boat veterans and
others contending that Kerry didn't deserve the Silver Star for what he did
on that day, or the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts he was awarded for
other actions.
Many of us wanted to put it all behind us--the rivers, the ambushes, the
killing. Ever since that time, I have refused all requests for interviews
about
Kerry's service--even those from reporters at the Chicago Tribune, where I
work.
But Kerry's critics, armed with stories I know to be untrue, have charged
that the accounts of what happened were overblown. The critics have taken
pains
to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did,
but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten
harder
and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to
be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there.
Even though Kerry's own crew members have backed him, the attacks have
continued, and in recent days Kerry has called me and others who were with him
in
those days, asking that we go public with our accounts.
I can't pretend those calls had no effect on me, but that is not why I am
writing this. What matters most to me is that this is hurting crewmen who are
not public figures and who deserved to be honored for what they did. My intent
is to tell the story here and to never again talk publicly about it.
I was part of the operation that led to Kerry's Silver Star. I have no
firsthand knowledge of the events that resulted in his winning the Purple
Hearts
or the Bronze Star.
But on Feb. 28, 1969, I was officer in charge of PCF-23, one of three swift
boats--including Kerry's PCF-94 and Lt. j.g. Donald Droz's PCF-43--that
carried Vietnamese regional and Popular Force troops and a Navy demolition
team up
the Dong Cung, a narrow tributary of the Bay Hap River, to conduct a sweep
in the area.
The approach of the noisy 50-foot aluminum boats, each driven by two huge
12-cylinder diesels and loaded down with six crew members, troops and gear,
was
no secret.
Ambushes were a virtual certainty, and that day was no exception.
Instructions from Kerry
The difference was that Kerry, who had tactical command of that particular
operation, had talked to Droz and me beforehand about not responding the way
the boats usually did to an ambush.
We agreed that if we were not crippled by the initial volley and had a clear
fix on the location of the ambush, we would turn directly into it, focusing
the boats' twin .50-caliber machine guns on the attackers and beaching the
boats. We told our crews about the plan.
The Viet Cong in the area had come to expect that the heavily loaded boats
would lumber on past an ambush, firing at the entrenched attackers, beaching
upstream and putting troops ashore to sweep back down on the ambush site.
Often, they were long gone by the time the troops got there.
The first time we took fire--the usual rockets and automatic weapons--Kerry
ordered a "turn 90" and the three boats roared in on the ambush. It worked.
We routed the ambush, killing three of the attackers. The troops, led by an
Army adviser, jumped off the boats and began a sweep, which killed another
half
dozen VC, wounded or captured others and found weapons, blast masks and
other supplies used to stage ambushes.
Meanwhile, Kerry ordered our boat to head upstream with his, leaving Droz's
boat at the first site.
It happened again, another ambush. And again, Kerry ordered the turn
maneuver, and again it worked. As we headed for the riverbank, I remember
seeing a
loaded B-40 launcher pointed at the boats. It wasn't fired as two men jumped
up from their spider holes.
We called Droz's boat up to assist us, and Kerry, followed by one member of
his crew, jumped ashore and chased a VC behind a hooch--a thatched hut--maybe
15 yards inland from the ambush site. Some who were there that day recall
the man being wounded as he ran. Neither I nor Jerry Leeds, our boat's leading
petty officer with whom I've checked my recollection of all these events,
recalls that, which is no surprise. Recollections of those who go through
experiences like that frequently differ.
With our troops involved in the sweep of the first ambush site, Richard
Lamberson, a member of my crew, and I also went ashore to search the area. I
was
checking out the inside of the hooch when I heard gunfire nearby.
Not long after that, Kerry returned, reporting that he had killed the man he
chased behind the hooch. He also had picked up a loaded B-40 rocket
launcher, which we took back to our base in An Thoi after the operation.
John O'Neill, author of a highly critical account of Kerry's Vietnam
service, describes the man Kerry chased as a "teenager" in a "loincloth." I
have no
idea how old the gunner Kerry chased that day was, but both Leeds and I
recall that he was a grown man, dressed in the kind of garb the VC usually
wore.
The man Kerry chased was not the "lone" attacker at that site, as O'Neill
suggests. There were others who fled. There was also firing from the tree line
well behind the spider holes and at one point, from the opposite riverbank as
well. It was not the work of just one attacker.
Our initial reports of the day's action caused an immediate response from
our task force headquarters in Cam Ranh Bay.
Congratulatory message
Known over radio circuits by the call sign "Latch," then-Capt. and now
retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the task force commander, fired off a message
congratulating the three swift boats, saying at one point that the tactic of
charging the ambushes was a "shining example of completely overwhelming the
enemy" and that it "may be the most efficacious method of dealing with small
numbers of ambushers."
Hoffmann has become a leading critic of Kerry's and now says that what the
boats did on that day demonstrated Kerry's inclination to be impulsive to a
fault.
Our decision to use that tactic under the right circumstances was not
impulsive but was the result of discussions well beforehand and a mutual
agreement
of all three boat officers.
It was also well within the aggressive tradition that was embraced by the
late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, then commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam. Months
before that day in February, a fellow boat officer, Michael Bernique, was
summoned to Saigon to explain to top Navy commanders why he had made an
unauthorized run up the Giang Thanh River, which runs along the
Vietnam-Cambodia
border. Bernique, who speaks French fluently, had been told by a source in Ha
Tien
at the mouth of the river that a VC tax collector was operating upstream.
Ignoring the prohibition against it, Bernique and his crew went upstream and
routed the VC, pursuing and killing several.
Instead of facing disciplinary action as he had expected, Bernique was given
the Silver Star, and Zumwalt ordered other swifts, which had largely
patrolled coastal waters, into the rivers.
The decision sent a clear message, underscored repeatedly by Hoffmann's
congratulatory messages, that aggressive patrolling was expected and that
well-timed, if unconventional, tactics like Bernique's were encouraged.
What we did on Feb. 28, 1969, was well in line with the tone set by our top
commanders.
Zumwalt made that clear when he flew down to our base at An Thoi off the
southern tip of Vietnam to pin the Silver Star on Kerry and assorted Bronze
Stars and commendation medals on the rest of us.
Error in citation
My Bronze Star citation, signed by Zumwalt, praised the charge tactic we
used that day, saying the VC were "caught completely off guard."
There's at least one mistake in that citation. It incorrectly identifies the
river where the main action occurred, a reminder that such documents were
often done in haste and sometimes authored for their signers by staffers. It's
a cautionary note for those trying to piece it all together. There's no final
authority on something that happened so long ago--not the documents and not
even the strained recollections of those of us who were there.
But I know that what some people are saying now is wrong. While they mean to
hurt Kerry, what they're saying impugns others who are not in the public eye.
Men like Larry Lee, who was on our bow with an M-60 machine gun as we
charged the riverbank, Kenneth Martin, who was in the .50-caliber gun tub atop
our
boat, and Benjamin Cueva, our engineman, who was at our aft gun mount
suppressing the fire from the opposite bank.
Wayne Langhoffer and the other crewmen on Droz's boat went through even
worse on April 12, 1969, when they saw Droz killed in a brutal ambush that
left
PCF-43 an abandoned pile of wreckage on the banks of the Duong Keo River. That
was just a few months after the birth of his only child, Tracy.
The survivors of all these events are scattered across the country now.
Jerry Leeds lives in a tiny Kansas town where he built and sold a successful
printing business. He owns a beautiful home with a lawn that sweeps to the
edge of a small lake, which he also owns. Every year, flights of purple
martins return to the stately birdhouses on the tall poles in his back yard.
Cueva, recently retired, has raised three daughters and is beloved by his
neighbors for all the years he spent keeping their cars running. Lee is a
senior computer programmer in Kentucky, and Lamberson finished a second
military
career in the Army.
With the debate over that long-ago day in February, they're all living that
war another time.
Copyright © 2004, _Chicago Tribune_ (http://www.chicagotribune.com/)
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