Christmas in Cambodia

Well I'm sure Jr's memory is a little fuzzy about Alabama in 1972.

 

Cocaine's a hell of a drug.

 

Not really, like basso, I've uncovered the following map which pinpoints his exact location about where he was in Alabama when he was supposed to be on duty:

 

Absolutely none of this changes the fact that one of our Presidential nominees volunteered to go to Vietnam while another one used his Daddy's connections to not go to Vietnam.

 

True, so why lie about Cambodia?

 

I don't really know. To me, this is a complete non-issue. It proves absolutely nothing, other than the fact that he was over there and our President was not.

 

OK, I'll play.

Here's what we know...

As early as 1967, Americans were in Cambodia and some got there on boats via the Mekong River.

One of the stories criticizing Kerry says this...

There were also gunboats on the border to prevent any crossing. If Kerry tried to get through, he would have been arrested.

Yet we know that many Americans, both from the CIA and Special Ops, crossed into Cambodia without being arrested or shot. We also know that Swift Boats did go near the Cambodian border... Here's one story:

We were sent out with 2 other PCF's to pick up some Cambodian mercenaries that I understand the CIA was paying $80 a month to fight for us. I think if the VC had paid them $85 they would have fought for the VC but that’s another story. They were better soldiers than the ARVN (South Vietnamese Government troops) and besides that they were all we had. There were no military bases where we made these raids. It was just us and the VC and sometimes the NVA.

I'm not sure of the number of the 3rd boat that went along that day but I know the second one was PCF 38. We did not have the 94 boat this day because it was damaged in some earlier action and was in for repairs. Re-aluminizing is what we used to call it. We used PCF 5 that day. When we left An Thoi for our trip south the regular crew of the 5 boat told us that it was the luckiest boat in the division. It had never been hit with anything but small arms. That was to change too. We entered the Bai Hap River. It's on the southwestern tip of Vietnam and its entrance is on the north side of a large bay. The Cua Lon River enters from the south side of the bay. We stopped in a village along the way and picked up some mercenaries. On some occasions we would carry UDT teams or Navy Seals for special operations but on this day we had 2 Green Berets along. Another crusty old Sergeant who I understand was on his 5th tour in Nam was on board the 5 boat with us and a young Green Beret LT. Was on board one of the other boats. They had a good working relationship also. They both knew the LT. was in charge but when they went ashore and the LT. made a decision that the Sergeant thought was wrong based upon his 5 tours in Nam. The LT. listened. We dropped the troops and the Green Berets off at various points during the day and they hunted Charlie as we waited for them.

Nothing much happened so we proceeded farther up the Bai Hap. I did not know exactly where we were going and when the boat made a hard starboard turn and we started heading for the bank, I thought we were going ashore again. That was not to be. My heart sank as I viewed a canal that did not look large enough to get a boat into. I knew we could never turn around in there once we went in so it was going be a one way shot to the Cua Lon. Its was called the Cai Nap Canal I found out later and was to change my life forever. The north end of it must have been a creek and the mangroves brushed the boat as we wound our way through it at about 1-Knot. I could feel my heart pounding in my toes as I wondered what was around the next bend. It seemed like an eternity that we wound through that creek until it opened up into a straight man-made canal that seemed to go on as far as the eye could see. We proceeded up the canal at idle speed. PCF 5 was the middle boat in the line of three. At a distance I could see what looked like a small village on the left bank of the canal. As we got closer to the straw huts we could see some animals and some fresh cooking fires but not a human being in site. We knew Charlie was there and he knew we were there. The one thing I learned even way back in training is that you don’t sneak through the jungle with two General Motors 12V71 Diesel engines. Its sounded like a damn greyhound buss coming through there.

We got right next to the village and were going to proceed farther when all of a sudden an explosion went off on the starboard side close to the lead boat. There was a large open field on our starboard side with a tree line quite a ways back. The Viet Cong had shot a B-40 rocket and it slid in the mud and exploded on the bank just missing the boat. We turned the boats starboard and beached them and raked the area with all the firepower we had. Bogart was wounded in the melee but not seriously. He had taken a piece of shrapnel in the bicep of his arm. We think it was from one of the stupid Cambodians firing an M-79 round too close to the boat but we were never sure. We received no more enemy fire. We turned the 3 boats around and beached them on the other bank where the Village was. I say, "was" because when we left, the village was no longer there nor anything left alive in it. We wasted it and did not give a damn either.

http://www.mwweb.com/ndc/SwiftBoats/flagday.htm

We know tha the use of Swifts and PBR's were not mutually exclusive. In fact, they often operated together and were known as the "Brown Water Navy."

There are many more sources that document American activity in Cambodia before, during, and after Kerry's tour. There are many sources that document Swift Boats near the border. There are no documents available that show boats crossing into Cambodia. When the policy of the United States was not to even though we did, it is not surprising that the documentary trail is sparse.

So, what of Kerry?

In addition to his 3 Purple Hearts, Silver Star, and Bronze Star, he has a number of other medals, including the Navy Unit Commendation Ribbon. Why did Kerry get it? For participating in the Rach Gia interdiction, river patrols aimed at stopping Viet Cong infiltration from Cambodia.

Looking at Kerry's military records on his site, he also had a Top Secret clearance. I don't how often those were issued, but it would make sense that someone operating around Cambodia would have one.

Regarding the Nixon thing, I see no contradiction. Kerry is quoted as saying, "The absurdity of almost killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real." There's no time line in the Nixon statement. He's not claiming he was listening to Nixon at that very moment. After Nixon took office, he upped the ante on actions in Cambodia yet Nixon himself continued to deny there was anything going on. Sounds to me like Kerry knew something was going on and was upset that his government wasn't owning up to the fact. I'll admit he may have also let his later memories color his emotional recollections... placing what he was going through in early 1969 into late 1968... but that is hardly a sin and certainly not specific to Kerry.

Much is made of the fact that "All the living commanders in Kerry’s chain of command . . . deny that Kerry was ever ordered to Cambodia. They indicate that Kerry would have been seriously disciplined or court-martialed had he gone there." Yet as noted, sending people into Cambodia was not the official policy of the US but did indeed happen.

Here's what Kerry wrote in his journal on Christmas Day... "Merry Christmas from the most inland Market Time unit"... meaning he was close to the border. He follows with, "You hope that they'll court marshal you or something because that would make sense". Sounds to me like Kerry knew what was going on regarding the border.

On the Christmas Eve/Christmas timeline, it's worth remembering that "Christmas" can mean a larger time then just that day, as in "I'm going home for Christmas" is usually understood to mean you will be home for more then just Christmas Day. Here's Kerry's journal from that time...

http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/journal_day2.shtml

He's out on patrol... "A shower is two days behind you and two days hence..." Which leads one to believe that the journal entry wasn't written all at once on Christmas Eve as has been implied. There are several references to Cambodia, but we can't be sure which way the boat is travelling and where it goes, save perhaps for the cryptic lines about court martials.

Further, that he spent Christmas Eve in Sa-Dec is based on a misreading of his journal. Here's what it say in total...

You head back towards Sa Dec to make your report while transiting the night darkness is broken by tracers flying up out of a Vietnamese outpost that is celebrating Christmas. The bullets pass dangerously near your boat and you think of the stupidity of the whole thing and the ridiculous waste of being shot at by your own allies and so angry you jump on the radio and ask who the hell is shooting at you and inform your seniors that they had better squared away before you return fire. Apologies are quick to (unable to read) but they mean nothing amidst all the chaos and waste.

It's cool now and the evening has closed around you to become full night. The night for once is comforting and you take a coke and some peanut butter and jelly and go up on the roof of the cabin whit your tape recorder and sit for a while, quietly, watching flares float silently through the sky and flashes announce disquieting intent somewhere in the distance. You call down to one of your men and ask him to draft a message to the Admiral in Command of all Naval Forces in Vietnam and also to the Commander of Market Time. IT says "Merry Christmas from the most inland Market Time unit." You hope that they'll court marshal you or something because that would make sense. But the night soothes everything and the people and things that are close to you dart through the mind and bring the only warmth and peace that there is. Visions of sugar plums really do dance through your head and you think of stockings and snow and roast chestnuts and fires with birch logs and all that is good and warm and real. It's Christmas Eve.

In other words, he's heading back to Sa-Dec... he's not there yet as the Swifties claim... In reality, far from being ordered secretly to Cambodia, Kerry spent a pleasant night at Sa Dec with "visions of sugar plums" dancing in his head.

Does any of this prove Kerry was in Cambodia? No. But it is certainly plausible. It's also plausible Kerry mixed up some times later on in his career. What is certain is that the Swift Boat liars have distorted the record, played on uncertainties, and probably deliberately misrepresented the Christmas timeline. The contention that Kerry made all this up is weak. All in all, I'll take Kerry's version.

 

Another thing that's certain is that our current President was nowhere near Vietnam or Cambodia that Christmas.

 

Because one Presidential candidate telling the truth is enough to base your vote on.

 

Hey basso, where was our current President while Kerry was in Vietnam?

 

Well then, that leaves GW Bush and Dick Cheney out of it.

I've posted the Dick Cheney lie. I don't remember who it was that posted the one Bush told about Chalabi here.

IFKerry was lying it is an old one, and Bush has shown us that we should all forgive and ignore youthful discretions.

 

"I stopped drinking on my 40th birthday"

 

wrong. He hasn't been caught lying about it. He's been accused of lying about it.

Being caught lying is what happened to Dick Cheney when he claimed he never said it had been pretty well confirmed that Atta met with Iraq intel in agents in the Czech republic, only to have the footage of him claiming that exact thing played afterwards. That is being caught in a lie.

Being caught in a lie is what happened GW claimed that he didn't have much contact with Chalabi, only to have quotes where he said that he listened to Chalabi, and others appear, as well as events where GW Bush was and Chalabi was the guest of honor.

Being caught in a lie is when GW claimed that Iraq is six months away from a nuke based on a report, only to have the agency who supposedly made the report admit that no such report ever existed. Then GW attempted to site another report which also didn't exist, and finally a third report which hadn't been released at the time Bush made the initial claim. That is being caught in a lie.

Having a group of bitter vets, none of whom were on Kerry's boat, and many of whom, have changed their stories now saying that he is lying about something that is at least plausible isn't being caught in a lie.

 

ouch.

 

Does this sound familiar?
_____________________

George Bush Parachutes Again to Exorcise Demons of Past Betrayal

By Ted Sampley
March/April/May 1997

Former President George Bush, who bailed out of a crippled Navy Avenger bomber 53 years ago, jumped again in March of this year. His World War II jump is historic. It made Bush the only president to ever bail out of an airplane and the only president whose crew mates were sent careening into the ocean because their pilot had abandoned the aircraft.

Accompanied by eight Golden Knights from the Army Precision Parachuting Team and a civilian from the U.S. Parachute Association, Bush's second jump was less eventful and historic. After leaping from a civilian twin-engine airplane at 12,500 feet with two jump masters holding onto his harness, Bush fell until he deployed his parachute at 4,500 feet.

A half a dozen people--including his wife Barbara--rushed to help cushion his landing. Medical emergency personnel were also standing by on the ground. Bush landed about 40 yards from his target at the Army's Yuma Proving Ground, the sprawling base where the Golden Knights train eight weeks a year.

When the 72-year-old former chief executive was asked how he felt, he gave a thumbs up. "It was wonderful. I'm a new man--and I go home exhilarated," he said. "There's a lot of things about my previous incarnation that I do not miss, but I do miss the military," Bush later told base employees.

Prior to the jump, Jim McGrath, Bush's assistant, had said "The reasons behind this [the jump] are strictly personal, . . . It has to do with World War II."

Those cryptic remarks give rise to speculation that Bush may have been, as The London Times put it, "Trying to exorcise demons from his earlier jump, the circumstances of which flared up into controversy during Bush's presidential campaign.

In a 1987 account of the World War II incident, which differed from his earlier versions, Bush told about the incident on television. He claimed that during a bombing run against a Japanese radio installation on ChiChi Island, his plane was hit and engulfed in flames and that he ordered his crew to bail out. He said one did, but his parachute failed. Bush claimed the other crewman did not answer the intercom, so he assumed that the crewman was critically wounded or dead.

Bush, who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for action prior to the crash, said that even though the plane was in flames, he managed to fly it on to the target and drop his bombs before he bailed out. Bush admitted, however, that in his rush to get out of the Avenger, he pulled the parachute rip cord too quickly and was gashed on his forehead when he hit the tail of the plane.

Bush's Betrayal

Chester Mierzejewski, an old war buddy of Bush, who said he was angered by the "false assertions" made by candidate Bush when describing the incident, gave a different account.

After 44 years of silence, Mierzejewski, who also was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, told the New York Post that Bush had abandoned his crew to death when there was another choice.

He said he was approximately 100 feet in front of Bush's plane as the turret gunner for Squadron Commander Douglas Melvin's plane, "so close he could see in the cockpit" of Bush's bomber. Mierzejewski's close wartime buddy was one of the two crew members in Bush's plane.

According to Mierzejewski, the squadron was in a tight-formation bombing raid against a Japanese radio installation on an island reported to be heavily fortified. He saw "a puff of smoke" come from Bush's plane which quickly disappeared and was certain only one man parachuted from the plane and that it was Bush, the pilot.

Mierzejewski said the Avenger torpedo bomber was engineered so that it could successfully crash land on water and that Bush doomed his own crew by bailing out and leaving the bomber out of control.

Other World War II veterans also expressed concern about Bush parachuting out of the aircraft. "He had a moral obligation to put that plane in the water in an emergency landing," Robert Flood, a former B-17 bombardier told the press. "He violated the primary rule for a captain of a multi-crew aircraft: The pilot never leaves the airplane with anybody in it."

Pete Brandon, a Marine Corps Avenger pilot, who also served in the South Pacific, said an Avenger pilot had two choices: Set the plane down in the water or hold it steady until the two crewmen could prepare to jump.

"In an Avenger, only the pilot wore a parachute," Brandon said. "The two crewmen wore harnesses. If the order came to bail out, they had to take chest parachutes from a shelf and strap them on - and bail out. The Avenger was very unstable. The pilot had to be at the controls the whole time or it would go right over on its back."

Steve Hart, then Vice President Press Secretary, described Mierzejewski's account as absurd. Hart said, "The Vice President has told us time and time again what happened that day. To suggest that the account is inaccurate is absurd."

What is absurd is the conflicting or missing reports of exactly what happened to Bush's two crew members. According to the Post, the intelligence report on the loss of Bush's plane in September, 1944 notes that it had become "standard doctrine" for VT 51, Bush's bomber squadron, "to make bombing runs on targets near water so as to retire over the water. This puts pilot and crew in position for water rescue in event of forced landing . . . "

The same document reports, without attribution, that "smoke and flame" engulfed Bush's engine, and that "Bush and one other person were seen to bail out. The chute of the other person who bailed out did not open."

The report was signed by Melvin and an intelligence officer, Lt. Martin E. Kilpatrick. Contrary to normal military procedure, the report was not dated and Navy archives were unable to supply a subsequently completed report.

Gunner Lawrence Mueller, who lives in Milwaukee, flew on the ChiChi Jima mission. When asked who had the best view, he replied unhesitatingly: "The turret gunner in Melvin's plane."

Mueller's recollections, jogged by a log book that he kept, support Mierzejewski's account. And it was noted that Bush's plane was the only one from the squadron that did not return. Mueller told the Post, "No parachute was sighted except Bush's when the plane went down." He also said no one mentioned a fire engulfing Bush's plane or he would have noted it in the log book.

The Finback, the sub which picked up Bush from his raft in the water, made no report of a fire on Bush's plane, but did comment on his crew: "Bush stated that he failed to see his crew's parachutes and believed they had jumped when the plane was still over ChiChi Jima, or they had gone down with the plane."

About six hours later, the Finback picked up another pilot, James W. Beckman, from the USS Enterprise, who stated that it was known that only one man had parachuted from Bush's plane. "This decided us to discontinue any further search of that area . . ."

Although the heart of Bush's story about the incident remains the same, Mierzejewski is adamant Bush's account is not the truth and blames Bush for the abandonment and deaths of both men.

"I think he could have saved those lives, if they were alive. I don't know that they were, but at least they had a chance if he had attempted a water landing," Mierzejewski said.

http://www.usvetdsp.com/story46.htm
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The Clinton campaign was aware of this story during the 1992 elections, yet I'm betting it's the first many of you have heard of it. Even though Bush used the film of his rescue at the convention and played up his service... made it an issue... you heard no whispering campaigns about this from Dems. You were subject to no "independent" groups making the attack on Bush with the implicit go-ahead from Democrats. Certainly playing down Bush's service could have helped Clinton's standing, but it didn't happen.

By the way, Sampley's a wierd guy... here's what he's been up to recently...

http://www.independentsforkerry.org/uploads/media/vvajk.html

 

Where exactly is the confirmation?