faithinkarma
<font color="green">I'm not a good swimmer, but I
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2003
- Messages
- 9,056
and here is the actual number of SBVs that were there to witness the day in question:
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/editorial/9476299.htm
ANTI-KERRY VETS WEREN'T THERE THAT DAY
BY WILLIAM B. ROOD
Chicago Tribune
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 Feb. 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.
Many of us wanted to put it all behind us -- the rivers, the ambushes, the killing. But it's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts by Kerry critics that we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there.
What really happened
I was part of the operation that led to Kerry's Silver Star. 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.
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 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. 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.
The man Kerry chased was not the "lone" attacker at that site, as suggested by John O'Neill, co-author of a highly critical account of Kerry's Vietnam service. 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.
Operation praised
Our initial reports of the day's action caused an immediate response from our task force headquarters in Cam Ranh Bay.
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 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.
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/editorial/9476299.htm
ANTI-KERRY VETS WEREN'T THERE THAT DAY
BY WILLIAM B. ROOD
Chicago Tribune
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 Feb. 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.
Many of us wanted to put it all behind us -- the rivers, the ambushes, the killing. But it's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts by Kerry critics that we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there.
What really happened
I was part of the operation that led to Kerry's Silver Star. 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.
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 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. 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.
The man Kerry chased was not the "lone" attacker at that site, as suggested by John O'Neill, co-author of a highly critical account of Kerry's Vietnam service. 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.
Operation praised
Our initial reports of the day's action caused an immediate response from our task force headquarters in Cam Ranh Bay.
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 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.
