Kerry vs. Swift Boat Vets for Truth

[SFL Cat]

Maybe the truth lays somewhere in between the two accounts.

link: hxxp://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&u=/washpost/20040822/ts_washpost/a21239_2004aug21&printer=1

By Michael Dobbs, Washington Post Staff Writer

When John F. Kerry rescued Jim Rassmann from the Bay Hap River in the jungles of Vietnam in March 1969, neither man could possibly have imagined that the episode would become a much-disputed focus of an American presidential campaign 35 years later.

For Kerry, then a green and gangly Navy lieutenant junior grade and now the Democratic challenger to a wartime Republican president, that tale of heroism under fire has become integral to his campaign. A centerpiece of public rallies, videos and a new campaign advertisement, it has helped distinguish the candidate from his Democratic primary rivals and from President Bush (news - web sites), who spent the war at home as a member of the Texas Air National Guard.

For the Massachusetts senator's critics, who include three of the five Swift boat skippers who were present that day, the incident demonstrates why Kerry does not deserve to be commander in chief. They accuse him of cowardice, hogging the limelight and lying. Far from displaying coolness under fire, they say, Kerry was never fired upon and fled the scene at the moment of maximum danger.

Establishing the facts is complicated not merely by fading memories and sometimes ambiguous archival evidence, but also by the bitterly partisan nature of the presidential campaign.

An investigation by The Washington Post into what happened that day suggests that both sides have withheld information from the public record and provided an incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate, picture of what took place. But although Kerry's accusers have succeeded in raising doubts about his war record, they have failed to come up with sufficient evidence to prove him a liar.

Two best-selling books have formed the basis for public discussion of the events of March 13, 1969, as a result of which Kerry won a Bronze Star and his third Purple Heart. The fullest account of Kerry's experience in Vietnam is "Tour of Duty" by prominent presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. It was written with Kerry's cooperation and with exclusive access to his diaries and other writings about the Vietnam War. "Unfit for Command," by John E. O'Neill, who succeeded Kerry as commander of his Swift boat, and Jerome R. Corsi, lays out a detailed attack on Kerry's record.

The Post's research shows that both accounts contain significant flaws and factual errors. This reconstruction of the climactic day in Kerry's military career is based on more than two dozen interviews with former crewmates and officers who served with him, as well as research in the Naval Historical Center here, where the Swift boat records are preserved. Kerry himself was the only surviving skipper on the river that day who declined a request for an interview.

On the core issue of whether Kerry was wounded under enemy fire, thereby qualifying for a third Purple Heart, the Navy records clearly favor Kerry. Several documents, including the after-action report and the Bronze Star citation for a Swift boat skipper who has accused Kerry of lying, refer to "all units" coming under "automatic and small-weapons fire."

The eyewitness accounts, on the other hand, are conflicting. Kerry's former crew members support his version, as does Rassmann, the Special Forces officer rescued from the river. But many of the other skippers and enlisted men who were on the river that day dispute Kerry's account and have signed up with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a public advocacy group that has aired television advertisements accusing Kerry of lying about his wartime service.

From an outsider's perspective, the flotilla of five 50-foot Swift boats that followed the Bay Hap River that humid March day has spawned two competing bands of brothers. One is fiercely loyal to Kerry and frequently appears with him at campaign events. The other dislikes him intensely and is doing everything it can to block his election.

Many Swift boat veterans opposed to Kerry acknowledge that their disgust with him was fueled by his involvement in the antiwar movement. When they returned from Vietnam, they say, they were dogged by accusations of atrocities. While Kerry went on to make a prominent political career, they got jobs as teachers, accountants, surveyors and oil field workers. When he ran for president, partly on the strength of his war record, their resentment exploded.

At one level, an attempt to establish what happened during a Vietcong ambush on the Bay Hap River 35 years ago is a simple search for facts. At another, it is the story of the divisions that tore the United States, and its armed forces, into two opposing camps at the time of the Vietnam War -- tensions that have resurfaced with a vengeance during the current political campaign.

"The old wounds have been reopened, and they still bleed," said Larry Thurlow, one of Kerry's accusers, who was awarded a Bronze Star for heroism for going to the rescue of a boat that was rocked by a mine explosion that day. He says he got involved with the anti-Kerry campaign organized by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth because Kerry's distortion of the truth about the Vietnam War "makes me madder than hell."

"We decided we aren't going to take it anymore."

Boats Thrown Into Fight

When Kerry signed up to command a Swift boat in the summer of 1968, he was inspired by the example of his hero, John F. Kennedy, who had commanded the PT-109 patrol boat in the Pacific in World War II. But Kerry had little expectation of seeing serious action. At the time the Swift boats -- or PCFs (patrol craft fast), in Navy jargon -- were largely restricted to coastal patrols. "I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry wrote in a book of war reminiscences published in 1986.

The role of the Swift boats changed dramatically toward the end of 1968, when Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., commander of U.S. naval forces in South Vietnam, decided to use them to block Vietcong supply routes through the Mekong Delta. Hundreds of young men such as Kerry, with little combat experience, suddenly found themselves face to face with the enemy.

Taking a 50-foot aluminum boat up a river or canal was replete with danger, ranging from ambushes to booby traps to mines. Kerry and his comrades would experience all these risks on March 13, 1969. The purpose of the mission was twofold: to insert pro-government forces upriver in a group of Vietcong-controlled villages; and more generally to show the flag, keeping the waterways free for commerce.

In some ways, it was a day like any other. The previous day, Kerry had taken part in a Swift boat expedition that had come under fire, and several windows of Kerry's boat were blown out. A friend, Lt. j.g. William B. Rood, almost lost an eye in the ambush. [Now an editor with the Chicago Tribune, Rood yesterday broke three decades of public silence to support Kerry's version of how he won the Silver Star on Feb. 28. Rood has no firsthand knowledge of the Bronze Star incident.]

In other respects, March 13 would mark the culmination of Kerry's Vietnam War career. With three Purple Hearts, he became eligible for reassignment. Within three weeks, he was out of Vietnam and headed home after a truncated four-month combat tour.

As commander of PCF-94, Kerry was responsible for ferrying a group of Chinese Vietnamese mercenaries, known as Nung, eight miles up the Bay Hap River, and then five miles up the winding Dong Cung Canal to suspected Vietcong villages. His passengers included Rassmann, the Special Forces officer, who had run into Kerry at a party a couple of weeks before and remembered him as "a tall, skinny guy with this humongous jaw."

The expedition began to go wrong soon after they inserted the Nung troops into a deserted village off the Dong Cung Canal. As the mercenaries searched from house to house, Rassmann recalled, one reached for a cloth bag at the base of a coconut tree and was blown to pieces. It was a booby trap. Kerry, who arrived on the scene soon after, helped wrap the body in a poncho and drag it back to the boat, diving into a ditch when he thought he was under fire.

"I never want to see anything like it again," Kerry wrote later. "What was left was human, and yet it wasn't -- a person had been there only a few moments earlier and . . . now it was a horrible mass of torn flesh and broken bones."

In "Tour of Duty," these thoughts are attributed to a "diary" kept by Kerry. But the endnotes to Brinkley's book say that Kerry "did not keep diaries in these weeks in February and March 1969 when the fighting was most intense." In the acknowledgments to his book, Brinkley suggests that he took at least some of the passages from an unfinished book proposal Kerry prepared sometime after November 1971, more than two years after he had returned home from Vietnam.

In his book, Brinkley writes that a skipper who remains friendly to Kerry, Skip Barker, took part in the March 13 raid. But there is no documentary evidence of Barker's participation. Barker could not be reached for comment.

Brinkley, who is director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, did not reply to messages left with his office, publisher and cell phone. The Kerry campaign has refused to make available Kerry's journals and other writings to The Post, saying the senator remains bound by an exclusivity agreement with Brinkley. A Kerry spokesman, Michael Meehan, said he did not know when Kerry wrote down his reminiscences.

As they were heading back to the boat, Kerry and Rassmann decided to blow up a five-ton rice bin to deny food to the Vietcong. In an interview last week, Rassmann recalled that they climbed on top of the huge pile and dug a hole in the rice. On the count of three, they tossed their grenades into the hole and ran.

Evidently, Kerry did not run fast enough. "He got some frags and pieces of rice in his rear end," Rassmann said with a laugh. "It was more embarrassing than painful." At the time, the incident did not seem significant, and Kerry did not mention it to anyone when he got back on the boat. An unsigned "personnel casualty report," however, erroneously implies that Kerry suffered "shrapnel wounds in his left buttocks" later in the day, following the mine explosion incident, when he also received "contusions to his right forearm."

Anti-Kerry veterans have accused Kerry of conflating the two injuries to strengthen his case for a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Kerry's Bronze Star citation, however, refers only to his arm injury.

At 2:45 p.m., according to Navy records, Kerry was joined by four other Swift boats for the Bay Hap trip. Kerry led the way on the right-hand side of the river, in PCF-94, followed 15 yards behind by one of his best friends in Vietnam, Don Droz, in PCF-43. A procession of three boats on the left side of the river was led by Richard Pees on PCF-3, followed by Jack Chenoweth on PCF-23 and Thurlow on PCF-51.

Ahead of them was a fishing weir, a series of wooden posts across the river. That morning, the Swiftees had noticed Vietnamese children in sampans attaching nets to the posts and had thought little of it. To get through the weir, their boats had to pass to the left or to the right of the fishing nets.

Just as the Kerry and Pees boats reached the weir, there was a devastating explosion, lifting Pees's boat, PCF-3, three feet out of the water.

Witness Accounts Diverge
"My God, I've never seen anything like it," Chenoweth wrote in what he says is a diary recorded soon after the events. "There was a fantastic flash, a boom, then the 3 boat disappeared in a fountain of water and debris. I was only 30 yards behind." Assuming that they had run into a Vietcong ambush, Chenoweth wrote, "we unleashed everything into the banks."

A later intelligence report established that the mine was probably detonated by a Vietcong sympathizer in a foxhole who hit a plunger as the Swift boats passed through the fishing weir.

Aboard the 3 boat, Pees remembered in an interview being "thrown up in the air" into the windscreen of his pilothouse and landing "kind of dazed," his legs numb, lap covered with blood. When it was over, Pees and three members of his crew would be medevaced to a Coast Guard cutter offshore with serious head and back injuries.

"When the mine went off, we were still going full speed," recalled Michael Medeiros, one of Kerry's crew members. Kerry's boat raced off down the river, away from the ambush zone.

It is at this point that the eyewitness accounts begin to diverge sharply. Everybody agrees that a mine exploded under the 3 boat. There is no argument that Rassmann fell into the river and that Kerry fished him out. Nor is there any dispute that Kerry was hurt in the arm, although the anti-Kerry camp claims he exaggerated the nature of his injury. Much else is hotly contested.

When the first explosion occurred, Rassmann was seated next to the pilothouse on the starboard, or right, side of Kerry's boat, munching a chocolate chip cookie that he recalls having "ripped off from someone's Care package." He saw the 3 boat lift out of the water. Almost simultaneously, Kerry's forward gunner, Tommy Belodeau, began screaming for a replacement for his machine gun, which had jammed. Rassmann grabbed an M-16 and worked his way sideways along the deck, which was only seven inches wide in places.

At this point, Kerry crew members say their boat was hit by a second explosion. Although Kerry's injury report speaks of a mine that "detonated close aboard PCF-94," helmsman Del Sandusky believes it was more likely a rocket or rocket-propelled grenade, as a mine would have inflicted more damage. Whatever it was, the explosion rammed Kerry into the wall of his pilothouse, injuring his right forearm.

The second explosion "blew me right off the boat," Rassmann recalled. Frightened that he might be struck by the propellers of one of the boats, he dived to the bottom of the river, where he dumped his weapons and rucksack. When he surfaced, he said, bullets were "snapping overhead," as well as hitting the water around him.

At first, nobody noticed what had happened to Rassmann. But then Medeiros, who was standing at the stern, saw him bobbing up and down in the water and shouted, "Man overboard." Around this time, crew members said, Kerry decided to go back to help the crippled 3 boat. It is unclear how far down the river Kerry's boat was when he turned around. It could have been anywhere from a few hundred yards to a mile.

O'Neill claims that Kerry "fled the scene" despite the absence of hostile fire. Kerry, in a purported journal entry cited in Brinkley's "Tour of Duty," maintains that he wanted to get his troops ashore "on the outskirts of the ambush."

The Kerry/Rassmann version of what happened next has been retold many times, in TV advertisements and campaign appearances: Rassmann struggling to climb up a scramble net, Kerry leaning over the bow of the boat and pulling him up with his injured arm. As Kerry later recalled, in notes cited by Brinkley, "Somehow we got him on board and I didn't get the bullet in the head that I expected, and we managed to move down near the 3 boat that was still crawling a snail-like zig-zag through the river."

Rassmann remembers several boats coming back up the river toward him. But Chenoweth believes that the rescue must have taken place fairly close to the other boats, which had been drifting slowly downriver. In his diary, he said, he wrote that "we spotted a man overboard, started to pick him up, but 94 [Kerry's boat] got there first."

While Kerry was rescuing Rassmann, the other Swift boats had gone to the assistance of Pees and the 3 boat. Thurlow, in particular, distinguished himself by leaping onto the 3 boat and administering first aid, according to his Bronze Star citation. At one point, he, too, was knocked overboard when the boat hit a sandbar, but he was rescued by crewmates.

The Kerry and anti-Kerry camps differ sharply on whether the flotilla came under enemy fire after the explosion that crippled the 3 boat. Everybody aboard Kerry's boat, including Rassmann, says there was fire from both riverbanks, and the official after-action report speaks of all boats receiving "heavy a/w [automatic weapons] and s/a [small arms] from both banks." The Bronze Star citations for Kerry and Thurlow also speak of prolonged enemy fire.

A report on "battle damage" to Thurlow's boat mentions "three 30 cal bullet holes about super structure." According to Thurlow, at least one of the bullet holes was the result of action the previous day, when he ran into another Vietcong ambush.

Thurlow, Chenoweth, Pees and several of their crew members who belong to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say neither they nor Kerry came under fire. "If there was fire, I would have made some notation in my journal," Chenoweth said. "But it didn't happen that way. There wasn't any fire." Although he read his diary entry to a reporter over the phone, he declined to supply a copy.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Rassmann said, "are not just questioning Kerry's account, they are questioning my account. I take that very personally. No one can tell me that we were not under fire. I saw it, I heard the splashes, and I was scared to death. For them to come back 35 years after the fact to tarnish not only Kerry's record, but my veracity, is unconscionable."

Until now, eyewitness evidence supporting Kerry's version had come only from his own crewmen. But yesterday, The Post independently contacted a participant who has not spoken out so far in favor of either camp who remembers coming under enemy fire. "There was a lot of firing going on, and it came from both sides of the river," said Wayne D. Langhofer, who manned a machine gun aboard PCF-43, the boat that was directly behind Kerry's.

Langhofer said he distinctly remembered the "clack, clack, clack" of enemy AK-47s, as well as muzzle flashes from the riverbanks. Langhofer, who now works at a Kansas gunpowder plant, said he was approached several months ago by leaders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but declined their requests to speak out against Kerry.

Who Initialed Navy Report?
Much of the debate over who is telling the truth boils down to whether the two-page after-action report and other Navy records are accurate or whether they have been embellished by Kerry or someone else. In "Unfit for Command," O'Neill describes the after-action report as "Kerry's report." He contends that language in Thurlow's Bronze Star citation referring to "enemy bullets flying about him" must also have come from "Kerry's after-action report."

O'Neill has said that the initials "KJW" on the bottom of the report "identified" it as having been written by Kerry. It is unclear why this should be so, as Kerry's initials are JFK. A review of other Swift boat after-action reports at the Naval Historical Center here reveals several that include the initials "KJW" but describe incidents at which Kerry was not present.

Other Swift boat veterans, including Thurlow and Chenoweth, have said they believe that Kerry wrote the March 13 report. "I didn't like to write reports," said Thurlow, who was the senior officer in the five-boat flotilla. "John would write the thing up in longhand, and it would then be typed up and sent up the line."

Even if Kerry did write the March 13 after-action report, it seems unlikely that he would have been the source of the information about "enemy bullets" flying around Thurlow. The official witness to those events, according to Thurlow's medal recommendation form, was his own leading petty officer, Robert Lambert, who himself won a Bronze Star for "courage under fire" in going to Thurlow's rescue after he fell into the river. Lambert, who lives in California, declined to comment.

In a telephone interview, the head of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann, who commanded all Swift boats in Vietnam, said he believed that Kerry wrote the March 13 after-action report on the basis of numerical identifiers at the top of the form. He later acknowledged that the numbers referred to the Swift boat unit, and not to Kerry personally. "It's not cast-iron," he said.

Some of the mystery surrounding exactly what happened on the Bay Hap River in March 1969 could be resolved by the full release of all relevant records and personal diaries. Much information is available from the Web sites of the Kerry campaign and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and the Navy archives. But both the Kerry and anti-Kerry camps continue to deny or ignore requests for other relevant documents, including Kerry's personal reminiscences (shared only with biographer Brinkley), the boat log of PCF-94 compiled by Medeiros (shared only with Brinkley) and the Chenoweth diary.

Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least a hundred pages.

Some Felt Betrayed
Kerry's reunion with Rassmann in January this year, nearly 35 years after he pulled the former Green Beret from the river, was a defining moment of his presidential campaign. Many political observers believed that the images of the two men embracing helped Kerry win the Iowa Democratic caucuses. The "No Man Left Behind" theme has become a recurring image of pro-Kerry advertising.

But many of the men Kerry served with in Vietnam feel betrayed and left behind by him. Soon after Kerry returned to the United States, he began organizing antiwar rallies. Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971, he appeared to endorse accusations that U.S. troops in Vietnam had committed war crimes "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

The anti-Kerry veterans began mobilizing earlier this year, following publication of the Brinkley biography and the nationwide publicity given to Kerry's emotional reunion with Rassmann. Many of the veterans were contacted personally by Hoffmann, a gung-ho naval officer compared unflatteringly in "Tour of Duty" to the out-of-control lieutenant colonel in the movie "Apocalypse Now" who talked about how he loved "the smell of napalm in the morning."

Hoffmann, who was already angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities on his return from Vietnam, said in an interview that he was "appalled" to find out from reading "Tour of Duty" that Kerry was "considered to be a Navy hero." "I thought there was a tremendous amount of gross exaggeration in the book and, in some places, downright lies. So I started contacting some of my former shipmates," he said.

One of the men Hoffmann contacted was O'Neill, a longtime Kerry critic who debated Kerry on television in 1971. O'Neill put Hoffmann in touch with some wealthy Republican Party contributors. One of O'Neill's contacts was Texas millionaire Bob Perry, who has contributed $200,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Perry has also contributed to the Bush campaign.

"I'd met him three or four times and represented people he knew," said O'Neill, who has practiced law in Houston for nearly 30 years.

In addition to helping to organize the anti-Kerry campaign, O'Neill wrote his own book about the senator's wartime record, which soared to the top of the Amazon.com best-seller list before its publication earlier this month.

With the exception of a sailor named Stephen Gardner, who served with Kerry in late 1968 on PCF-44, Kerry's own crew members have remained loyal to him. "If it wasn't for some of his decisions, we would probably be some of the names in that wall," said Gene Thorson, the engineman on PCF-94, referring to the Vietnam War Memorial. "I respect him very much."

Others who served on boats that operated alongside Kerry on that fateful day in March 1969 say they cannot stand the man who is now challenging George W. Bush for the presidency.

"I think that Kerry's behavior was abominable," said Pees, the commander of the boat that hit the mine. "His actions after the war were particularly disgusting. He distorted the truth when he talked about atrocities. We went out of our way to protect civilians. To suggest otherwise is a grotesque lie. As far as I am concerned, he did not speak the truth about how we conducted operations in Vietnam."

"A lot of people just can't forgive and forget," countered Kerry crew member Medeiros. "He was a great commander. I would have no trouble following him anywhere."

Staff writer Linton Weeks contributed to this report.

[Blackadar]

So let's see...

The facts that aren't in dispute are:

- Someone died
- Everybody agrees that a mine exploded under the 3 boat.
- There is no argument that Rassmann fell into the river and that Kerry fished him out. - - Nor is there any dispute that Kerry was hurt in the arm
- Others were also awarded medals that day

Here's the question I want answered. If nobody was severely wounded, why did Thurlow jump have to jump onto Kerry's boat? Why didn't he renounce in his Bronze Star if there was no enemy fire?

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

So let's see...

The facts that aren't in dispute are:

- Someone died
- Everybody agrees that a mine exploded under the 3 boat.
- There is no argument that Rassmann fell into the river and that Kerry fished him out. - - Nor is there any dispute that Kerry was hurt in the arm
- Others were also awarded medals that day

Here's the question I want answered. If nobody was severely wounded, why did Thurlow jump have to jump onto Kerry's boat? Why didn't he renounce in his Bronze Star if there was no enemy fire?

No, the most important question is. . . why does any of this matter to begin with?

He's a war hero and by most accounts a brave soldier. There isn't any need to question how he got his medals or what he did with them after he left. If all we had to go on with Kerry's past was his war history, it would be one thing, but he's been a US senator for awhile now.

We have plenty of information on his record there. People should be making their opinions to vote for or against Kerry based on that record and no matter what their decision is, should always honor the fact that Kerry is a war vet who went to war for this country.

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by TroyF

No, the most important question is. . . why does any of this matter to begin with?

He's a war hero and by most accounts a brave soldier. There isn't any need to question how he got his medals or what he did with them after he left. If all we had to go on with Kerry's past was his war history, it would be one thing, but he's been a US senator for awhile now.

We have plenty of information on his record there. People should be making their opinions to vote for or against Kerry based on that record and no matter what their decision is, should always honor the fact that Kerry is a war vet who went to war for this country.

Fair enough. We disagree on much, but I'll...

*shakes Troy's hand over this one*

[Blackadar]

Hey, where'd my ring go?






TROY!!!!!



j/k

[Vegas Vic]

Just released -- Here is a compelling account of the events from William B. Rood, a swift boat commander whose boat was actually with Kerry's on that fateful day:

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.

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.



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 advisor, 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.

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.

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. The name of the river where the main action occurred is wrong, a reminder that such documents were often done in haste, 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 backyard.

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.

[Solecismic]

So, from what I gather Kerry served with honor, and may not have deserved all of his purple hearts. He royally pissed off a lot of veterans when he returned.

I neither see why Kerry feels the need to mention his service 100 times a day, nor do I see the case for defending the recent anti-Kerry ads.

Both sides should agree to condemn all 527-group ads. Bush has agreed to do so if Kerry joins him. Kerry won't. Point Bush.

Bush says his people have nothing to do with the swift-boat ads, but it's clear some of them do. Point Kerry.

Michael Moore. Point Bush.

Karl Rove. Point Kerry.



I'm still undecided.

[GrantDawg]

I'm with TroyF 100%. His voting record is much more an issue, and Kerry's trumpting his war record/people attacking Kerry's war record doesn't really matter to me. It is taking the focus away from the real issues (things like "what is the canidates position on colossal squid?").

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

Fair enough. We disagree on much, but I'll...

*shakes Troy's hand over this one*

You can think what you want of my beliefs Blackadar, but I assure you they are well thought out and that I've read as much as anyone you'll find on the subjects on which I have opinions.

I haven't ever blindly supported either party without putting thought into my beliefs and I never will.

Oh. . . here is your ring back.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Both sides should agree to condemn all 527-group ads.

Sidebar, but ... Why?

People/groups of people shouldn't have the right to be involved in
political advocacy unless they're directly connected to a specific party/candidate/campaign?

[Dutch]

Because then you have "groups" like Hollywood (Fahrenheit 911) and the mass media (All But Fox) that spends hundreds of millions of dollars on one candidate over the other. Those happen to the two groups that are supposed to give us all the information so we can make an informed decision but instead push their politics on the masses.

Swift Boat Ad's pale in comparison to the Democratic 3rd party juggernaut, yet look which is getting blasted in the news?

[Tekneek]

Originally Posted by TroyF

No, the most important question is. . . why does any of this matter to begin with?

That is the question I ask myself. I ruled out both Kerry and Bush long before I ever reached the point of considering their military records.

[Dutch]

The campaign only has like 70 days left, and their is this big black void from 3 months of Kerry's life in Vietnam until 2004. That whole area has only been covered by the Bush admin with the Flip-Flop message.

I'm guessing there are many undecides out their waiting to figure out what Kerry's all about. So far, if it doesn't involve Vietnam or anti-Bush, there hasn't been any meat yet. I think that strategy will bite Kerry in the ass in the end.

[JPhillips]

I really wish the press would push the Whitehouse on Bush's newfound love of campaign finance reform. At one point he said all unregulated soft-money speech should be banned. Does he really believe this or did he just speak out of his ass? It seems that advocating the abolition of all non-regulated political speech is something that should get some coverage.

[Arles]

I think what bothers a lot of people is all this time and money went into trying to "fix" campaigns. McCain, Feingold and others said their bill will close these campaign loopholes and make candidates less beholden to special interests. While nice in theory, this was never going to work. But, what makes it more frustrating is the gaping hole left open for these 527s. Both sides have been using them, but I think it's safe to say the "swift boat vets" won't ever begin to scratch the surface of what Moveon.org has raised and spent.

So, not only was it a bad idea to begin with, but it was done poorly. It's like saying a team in the NFL that only scores 10 points a game with Champ Bailey and Ty Law at corner only need two new corners to win the Super Bowl (flawed premise). But then that team goes out and spends its remaining cap room on Otis Smith and Tyrone Williams as those two corners, thus making it not only a flawed premise but a poor execution of a flawed premise.

[Buccaneer]

How come no one mentioned this today? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5797164/

Besides, what is the govt doing controlling Free Speech? Isn't that, like, against the 1st Amendment to the Constitution? I have no problems with the Swift Boats ads, just like I have no problems with MoveOn.org. Anyone can and should exercise their views about candidates without the govt saying what they can or cannot say.

[SirFozzie]

Arles: I don't think the Democrats really LIKE the 527's.. but with Bush getting an extra what, 6 weeks of living off donations before going on public funding.. it would be dumb of them not to try to equalize it..

[Arles]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Arles: I don't think the Democrats really LIKE the 527's.. but with Bush getting an extra what, 6 weeks of living off donations before going on public funding.. it would be dumb of them not to try to equalize it..

Then they shouldn't bitch about the Swift Boat vets. The vets have no more ties to the Bush administration than moveon.org does to Kerry and the DNC.

As they say, what's good for the goose....

[Dutch]

You gotta hand it to Bush, he's put up with a lot of shit for 4 years and hasn't bitched once. Kerry curls up into the fetal position over one stinkin' campaign ad.

What a wimp, it almost makes it believable that he did rig those purple hearts just to get out of combat and get home to call the guys still fighting "baby kilelrs".

[Flasch186]

um, diff. b/w moveon and swift.....Bush campaign volunteer in ad......makes me wonder who was behind the cameras.

[johneh]

I think this whole issue is a waste of everyone's time. Kerry served - regardless of what he did/didn't do he served. Bush was in the Ntl Guard - regardless what he did/didn't do ...

I my feeling is - THIS WAS 30 YEARS AGO - I want to know what each of them plans to do for us between 2005-2009 !

I think this whole issue is a waste of time and is taking focus away from what is important - the REAL ISSUES ! ! ! ! ! !

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

um, diff. b/w moveon and swift.....Bush campaign volunteer in ad......makes me wonder who was behind the cameras.

Are you telling me that no one at MoveOn is actively campaigning for Kerry?

[Flasch186]

dunno, dont care...if they are at least theyre a lil smarter about it.....I agree w/ johneh...this is a non-issue to me, thats why comparatively im a bit less vocal then the important threads, IMO

[SFL Cat]

Originally Posted by johneh

I think this whole issue is a waste of everyone's time. Kerry served - regardless of what he did/didn't do he served. Bush was in the Ntl Guard - regardless what he did/didn't do ...

I my feeling is - THIS WAS 30 YEARS AGO - I want to know what each of them plans to do for us between 2005-2009 !

I think this whole issue is a waste of time and is taking focus away from what is important - the REAL ISSUES ! ! ! ! ! !

Well, then Kerry shouldn't have made his Vietnam service his central theme at the Donkey Convention. He pissed off a lot of vets with what he said after he came home, basically calling them dupes and war criminals (and implicating himself in the process). Now 30 years later, he tried to recast himself as a war hero. Did he think the fellow vets he dissed back in 71 would run to him with open arms crying out, "all is forgiven?" Bush has been getting slammed from all directions for over a year now. I didn't hear anyone from the Bush side demand Kerry condemn the partisanship of Michael Moore's "documentary," and I didn't hear anyone from the Bush side cry foul when Moore parked his sizable ass in a VIP seat at the Donkey Convention. I haven't heard anybody in the media (other than Fox) talk about the $20-$30 million George Soros has contributed to the Democratic 527s with the stated purpose to oust Bush, but the Texas businessman who contributed $200K to the Swift Boat Vets for Truth is the second coming of Satan himself.

I thought "Freedom of Speech" was sacrosanct to the libbies, especially those who were on the frontline of protesting the War in Vietnam (John Kerry being one), but after the Swifties release one TV ad, the Kerry campaign flips out and his lawyers are doing their best to try to shut them down -- trying to force bookstores not to carry Unfit for Command and threatening to sue TV stations that air the ad. I think this response will blow up in Kerry's face. One friend of mine, who is an Independent inclined to vote for Kerry, responded to the Kerry team's reaction with, "What a pussy." Kerry is self-destructing at the moment, IMO.

Of course, I've felt all along that the Clinton faction still in control of the Democratic machine, is probably doing all it can to covertly cause a drag on the Kerry campain and is probably gleefully rubbing its collective hands together as Kerry makes his mistakes. After all I don't think Hillary wants to wait for up to four terms (two max for Kerry and two max for Edwards) to run for President.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by SFL Cat

Well, then Kerry shouldn't have made his Vietnam service his central theme at the Donkey Convention. He pissed off a lot of vets with what he said after he came home, basically calling them dupes and war criminals (and implicating himself in the process). Now 30 years later, he tried to recast himself as a war hero. Did he think the fellow vets he dissed back in 71 would run to him with open arms crying out, "all is forgiven?" Bush has been getting slammed from all directions for over a year now. I didn't hear anyone from the Bush side demand Kerry condemn the partisanship of Michael Moore's "documentary," and I didn't hear anyone from the Bush side cry foul when Moore parked his sizable ass in a VIP seat at the Donkey Convention. I haven't heard anybody in the media (other than Fox) talk about the $20-$30 million George Soros has contributed to the Democratic 527s with the stated purpose to oust Bush, but the Texas businessman who contributed $200K to the Swift Boat Vets for Truth is the second coming of Satan himself.

I thought "Freedom of Speech" was sacrosanct to the libbies, especially those who were on the frontline of protesting the War in Vietnam (John Kerry being one), but after the Swifties release one TV ad, the Kerry campaign flips out and his lawyers are doing their best to try to shut them down -- trying to force bookstores not to carry Unfit for Command and threatening to sue TV stations that air the ad. I think this response will blow up in Kerry's face. One friend of mine, who is an Independent inclined to vote for Kerry, responded to the Kerry team's reaction with, "What a pussy." Kerry is self-destructing at the moment, IMO.

Of course, I've felt all along that the Clinton faction still in control of the Democratic machine, is probably doing all it can to covertly cause a drag on the Kerry campain and is probably gleefully rubbing its collective hands together as Kerry makes his mistakes. After all I don't think Hillary wants to wait for up to four terms (two max for Kerry and two max for Edwards) to run for President.

Im sure some vets think he was a hero for speaking up when he returned home, just a guess there?

Freedom of speech for sure, the 527's im ok with, as long as theyre legitimately not a part of either campaign, thats all.

Ill bet anyone viewing an implosion with Kerry right now probably leans right.

I think the comment McCain made about Bush's tactics equal it out.

Either way, ill vote on the issues that matter to me.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

Either way, ill vote on the issues that matter to me.

Don't BS us, "anti-Bush" is the only issue you have been frothing at the mouth about.

[Flasch186]

I am anti Bush, cuz why? I made it plainly clear that I feel that he has personally lied to me and if the next guyy does the same ill vote him out too. Ive made that clear, to me, Bush is a liar, and I have tons of stuff to make that feeling cementious.

have i not said that that is the most important thing to me, above all?

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

I am anti Bush, cuz why? I made it plainly clear that I feel that he has personally lied to me and if the next guyy does the same ill vote him out too. Ive made that clear, to me, Bush is a liar, and I have tons of stuff to make that feeling cementious.

Lol. Do I assume then you didn't vote for Clinton in 96 and Gore in 00? Then join me in voting for the Libertarian or Constitutional Party candidate. Those haven't lied to you yet, have they?

[Flasch186]

I voted for Nader in 2000, regrettably. I honestlly thought Gore would walk with it and my vote didnt matter. Clinton i voted for proudly.


EDIT: i will vote for the most viable way to get the liar out of office.

[Arles]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

um, diff. b/w moveon and swift.....Bush campaign volunteer in ad......makes me wonder who was behind the cameras.

But Gore and numerous ties to the DNC and moveon.org don't count?

Come on, if the last pres candidate for the republicans was sitting front and center on the swift boat, you don't think the Times and Washington Post would be making a big deal? Yet nary a word about Gore raising millions for moveon.org.

[Flasch186]

I have no problem with that then, it was within the rules. I really dont care much about it now. Im fine with it, Im hoping people will see through the BS.

[SFL Cat]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

I voted for Nader in 2000, regrettably. I honestlly thought Gore would walk with it and my vote didnt matter. Clinton i voted for proudly.


EDIT: i will vote for the most viable way to get the liar out of office.

OIC, Clinton was YOUR kind of liar, but Bush isn't. Makes sense to me.

[Flasch186]

Ill take a lie that any mistaken male might find themselves in and it was a personal issue. Ill take that any day over what I get now. So in answer to your question: a sound resolute, ABSOLUTELY


So funny the right judges someone for adultry, yet the good book says not to judge....but whent he shoe fits....whatever. Bush is full of it and for some reason some people buy it all.

At least i can admit when he does something right, like the recent terror warnings in NY. he handled that right IMO....name me something Clinton did you agreed with, quick!?

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

I voted for Nader in 2000, regrettably. I honestlly thought Gore would walk with it and my vote didnt matter. Clinton i voted for proudly.


EDIT: i will vote for the most viable way to get the liar out of office.

Ok, I understand now. No. Principles. Just. Hatred.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Ok, I understand now. No. Principles. Just. Hatred.

Strong principles, a Longing for change. But its so easy to paint it the way that polarizes the most...just like the admin. wants

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

Ill take a lie that any mistaken male might find themselves in and it was a personal issue. Ill take that any day over what I get now. So in answer to your question: a sound resolute, ABSOLUTELY


So funny the right judges someone for adultry, yet the good book says not to judge....but whent he shoe fits....whatever. Bush is full of it and for some reason some people buy it all.

At least i can admit when he does something right, like the recent terror warnings in NY. he handled that right IMO....name me something Clinton did you agreed with, quick!?

I have been falling into temptation. I have been clicking on View Post even though Flasch186 is on my ignore list. No more. He babbles like a baby.

[Flasch186]

easiest way to duck that head right into the sand....I can honestly say I have no one on my ignore list....that's a huge difference i think....resounds so clearly.

BTW, good answer to the Clinton question...ill give you another one, you can mimic our president: "Name us something youve made a mistake on."

"Well....Im sure there is something......im just not finding it...."

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

Strong principles, a Longing for change. But its so easy to paint it the way that polarizes the most...just like the admin. wants

Nothing wrong with polarization in a democracy-based republic. But I would definitely choose the current type of polarization than the ones Gore and Nader envisioned.

Damn. I did it again.

[Flasch186]

what was the one they envisioned? How could it be any more divisive then the one we have today where a General goes to over 20 churches and says the war on terror is a war in which our god is stronger than theirs, and our god is bigger, then try to sell the world its not a war on islam. Well done on the polarization note.

[SFL Cat]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

Ill take a lie that any mistaken male might find themselves in and it was a personal issue. Ill take that any day over what I get now. So in answer to your question: a sound resolute, ABSOLUTELY


So funny the right judges someone for adultry, yet the good book says not to judge....but whent he shoe fits....whatever. Bush is full of it and for some reason some people buy it all.

At least i can admit when he does something right, like the recent terror warnings in NY. he handled that right IMO....name me something Clinton did you agreed with, quick!?

I was happy to see Clinton sign on to the Republican Welfare Reform Bill. I was also happy when Hill and Bill botched their government Healthcare Takeover...er Reform and cost the Dems control of Congress for the first time in over 40 years. I was watching ABC news during that election and the terrified expressions of disbelief on Sam Donaldson's and Cokie Roberts' faces as they watched the GOP sweep to victory was priceless!!!

I'll give Clinton credit, I didn't expect him to make it to a second term -- but he rebounded from his early disasters nicely. Of course, having to run against a cupcake like Bob Dole helped tremendously, IMO.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

easiest way to duck that head right into the sand....I can honestly say I have no one on my ignore list....that's a huge difference i think....resounds so clearly.

BTW, good answer to the Clinton question...ill give you another one, you can mimic our president: "Name us something youve made a mistake on."

"Well....Im sure there is something......im just not finding it...."

Not sticking my head in the sand, you just don't know how to debate like an adult. I may be a curmudgeon but at least I have experienced more years of political and historical realities.

[Flasch186]

What rule have i broken, i dont curse, i dont get personal, I am not hypocritical and I respond promptly...what more do you want outside sometimes my failure to paragraph well or use proper punctuation. Or should I just agree with everything you say, is that what youre looking for?

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by SFL Cat

I was also happy when Hill and Bill botched their government Healthcare Takeover...er Reform and cost the Dems control of Congress for the first time in over 40 years.

what we have now is soo much better, non existent discounts and more people without health insurance then ever since the inception of Medicare....yup, rich get rich poor get stepped on again.


BTW, I do all this debating while playing FOF in the background....in case Jim's reading....

[cuervo72]

Bucc, I'm being convinced that Flasch's main purpose on these forums is to bash Bush and to bait anyone he can into descending into these "discussions" (I don't know, maybe this is one of the provisions of getting a SAG card). Well, that and to use hideous grammar and punctuation.

Anyhow, I've had enough of reading this. Just another of the mounting reasons why I visit this board less and less over time.

[Flasch186]

you know what, im tired too....Im over it...its pointless the nonempathetic wont change and they will always be suckered in by greed and the sales pitch from the right....im through debating about this stuff.....it goes nowhere, i wont change and neither will you...hopefully the world will be a better place come nov.

cuervo feel free to come back....im tired of this mess...it used ot be fun, but while i hate Bush i feel that the right hates everyone under a certain tax bracket and not a certain color.....im thorugh.....everyone knows how i feel and when we do have to be judged, ill feel good about how i helped my fellow man.

[SFL Cat]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

yup, rich get rich poor get stepped on again.

You socialists need dump that expression and come up with something new and catchy -- that Democratic mantra was old and tired when Bush I was running.

On a side note, I would have thought that after eight years of Clinton and prosperity, poverty would have been eliminated before Bush II even got into office.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

it used ot be fun, but while i hate Bush i feel that the right hates everyone under a certain tax bracket and not a certain color.....im thorugh.....

See, it's shit like that that's completely unnecessary. Where does that come from? Certainly no one on this board.

You should be through... and ashamed of yourself.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

you know what, im tired too....Im over it...its pointless the nonempathetic wont change and they will always be suckered in by greed and the sales pitch from the right....im through debating about this stuff.....it goes nowhere, i wont change and neither will you...hopefully the world will be a better place come nov.

cuervo feel free to come back....im tired of this mess...it used ot be fun, but while i hate Bush i feel that the right hates everyone under a certain tax bracket and not a certain color.....im thorugh.....everyone knows how i feel and when we do have to be judged, ill feel good about how i helped my fellow man.

The second you start using paragraphs....

It just kills me that people honestly believe this kind of thing of those on the other side of the issue. It is not that they have a different idea of how to solve the same problems, it is they "hate" or "suckered in by the sales pitch." I'm not just picking on you on this because I see the same extremes on the right. No one can come to a different conclusion than mine unless they are brain-washed or evil.

[Ksyrup]

Exactly. We don't believe in solving problems the way you do, so we obviously hate poor people and minorities. That's insulting, but more than that, it's pathetic if you really believe that.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

See, it's shit like that that's completely unnecessary. Where does that come from? Certainly no one on this board.

You should be through... and ashamed of yourself.

read the ownership thread, thats where the color comes from and the tax bracket stuff is obvious...



HOWEVER I DO apologize, Im just frustrated. I apologize, I love the FOFC, im sure that that is obvious.