August 19, 2004

NEW RECORDS EMERGE. Sen. Kerry addresses the VFW. Quotable:
Kerry's speech in Cincinnati drew about 6,000 people, fewer than half the 15,000 attending the VFW's national convention. The audience offered polite applause. But many veterans did not clap at some standard stump-speech lines that usually draw applause, suggesting that numerous former warriors were skeptical if not hostile. At least two men heckled Kerry. One word explained the tough crowd: Vietnam. Kerry's public protests against the Vietnam War as a young veteran newly home from Southeast Asia were a sore point for many veterans. As a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Kerry, a highly decorated naval officer during the war, testified before Congress, repeating allegations by other soldiers of war crimes by U.S. servicemen.

"I can remember when we came back from service in what we all know was a controversial period of time," said Kerry, a longtime VFW member. "I didn't make it controversial; the war and the times were. And as too many of us know, it was a time when the war and the warriors became confused," he continued. "I say to you with my experience: Never again in America should the warriors ever be confused with the war, and our nation should always be prepared to stand and say thank you." Kerry campaign officials said they were pleasantly surprised by what they saw as a relatively warm response from an audience Democratic candidates sometimes have avoided.

Also Wednesday, the Kerry campaign disputed an allegation made by a group of veterans opposed to the senator's presidential candidacy that he never operated inside Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The Boston Globe reported that in a new book, "Unfit for Command," the veterans said "Kerry was never in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War," and he "would have been court-martialed had he gone there." But the Kerry campaign said the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, is wrong and that Kerry was inside Cambodia to drop off commandos on one mission and was at the border on other occasions.

Also, The Washington Post reported that military records for a member of the Swift boat group, Larry Thurlow, contradict his version of events when Kerry won a Bronze Star. Thurlow has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that his boat came under fire during a mission on March 13, 1969. Thurlow's records, portions of which were released Wednesday under the Freedom of Information Act, contain references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow also earned a Bronze Star that day.

UPDATE: The records story makes page one of the WaPo -- and the Kerry in Cambodia story? SPIKED.

KerrySpot is spot-on: "This front page post story about the Swift Boat Vets blows it, or at least the headline writer does. The Post declares, "Records Counter A Critic Of Kerry; Fellow Skipper's Citation Refers To Enemy Fire." But a central point of "Unfit for Command" is their contention that Kerry lied about what happened on his missions, thus putting false information into the military records. Citing records that the Swifties charge Kerry wrote himself does not prove that the Swifties are lying." UPDATE II: Patterico on the WaPo/records story. UPDATE III: Hugh Hewitt has analysis of the Chicago Tribune story here.

UPDATE IV: Here is the transcript of Kerry's VFW speech. Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack