Kerry 'Unfit to be Commander-in-Chief', Say Former Military Colleagues

CNSNEWS.com ^ | 5/03/04 | Marc Morano

[hoosiermama]

I guess my point was...even if the major media does ignore it there are other ways to get the news out to the people it will influence.....The late night comics alone should have a hey-day with it.....

[texasbluebell]

Isn't this happening too soon?

Shouldn't it be happening much closer to the elections, and after the convention?

There's too much time now, and you-know-who is going to step in.

[twigs]

I think that John Edwards is more likely to replace Kerry if the powers that be think he needs to be replaced. He has a better chance of beating Pres. Bush than Kerry and Bill Clinton told him to stay in Washington. I personally believe that he might select Hillary as his VP (I don't think JKerry will) and then he will not live out his turn in the WH if he is elected.

[kayak]

Ping

[normy]

I can't see Hillary as the nominee. Maybe Wes Clark with a Hillary VP. I doubt Bush can be beaten by anyone, but the VP on the losing ticket can easily become the leader of the party in '08.

[RVN Airplane Driver]

If you love life...association with the Clintons is not a good move...judging from the Clinton association track record at...http://members.tripod.com/%7Ecbn2/dlink.html

[ladtx]

I see the DUmmies finally have this posted, only 4 hours behind FR, but that's par I guess for them. They've really got their panties in a wad over there. That site is better than reading the Sunday funnies.

[CedarDave]

LOL, just heard on Fox & Friends that Kerry is starting a blitz of commercials touting his military record.

He wants it both ways ... He can tout his military record, but we can't criticize his actions there or following his return.

[hoosiermama]

Which just prove that Kerry is too dumb to recognize a hot potato when he holds one.

[Grampa Dave]

+

+

=EARLY OUT AND PATHWAY TO BE A US SENATOR!

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander-in-chief." They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday.

"What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com .

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Historic press conference: Tuesday - Washington, DC.   (^:

 

DC Freepers, please note the free press outlets in attendance. Thank you!

 

[lysie]

Thanks for the ping, kind lady.

[bushfamfan]

It's got to make O'Neill sick to see Kerry running on Vietnam. Obviously O'Neill isn't going to let him get away with it because they see him for what he is. Funny how Kerry is attempting to use Vietnam when he slandered those fighting and dying there and undermined it. And him getting out after a mere 4 months due to his getting 3 Purple Hearts and yet acting as if he is the ultimate war hero. He makes me sick and it's very telling that Kerry has NOTHING to run on and thinks 4 months in Vietnam is his path to victory. He is a fraud.

[MeekOneGOP]

"What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com . The event, which is expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said.

___________________________________________________

Kerry 02-03-2004:
"For the second time this week a New England Patriot Won!"

Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry
(Click here or on the pic)

John Kerry's History Page
(Click here)

Hanoi Jane: Yesterday's Fiery Communist Revolutionary
She's today's very rich capitalist
(See post #157)

[ladtx]

Now the DU is taking to locking all the posts about this story saying that CNS is not a credible news source. Sounds like O'Neill has hit a nerve over there and causing mass hysteria. They can't even discuss it.

[Nataku X]

BUMP!!!!

[shhrubbery!]

Will C-span cover it?

C-Span covers a lot of events at the National Press Club, but I can't figure out their schedule for tomorrow. Here's the C-span schedule for Tuesday, May 4, but there's nothing there (as of this posting).

[Polybius]

I have re-posted this summary of Kerry's Vietnam choices I wrote on previous threads. However, I believe it merits re-posting from time to time in order to educate any journalists who may be lurking on FreeRepublic.

*******************************

What bothered me about this article saying Kerry "only served" four months on a tour is that he had a cushy job on the big ship and opted to volunteer for his second tour of duty on a swift boat. In other words he took himself off the easy duty and into the harder combat seeing duty. That has to count for something.

That is what Kerry and the Democrats want us to believe and that is the version they are putting out. However, that version is pure Bravo Sierra and is not supported by the facts or by Kerry's own statements.

It would indeed be extremely admirable if Kerry had knowingly taken "himself off the easy duty and into the harder combat seeing duty".

However, Kerry never volunteered for combat or any duty he dreamed would get him into combat.

Kerry was the First Division Officer when he served on the USS Gridley.

John F. Kerry, the junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts is positioning himself for a run at the Presidency in 2004. Ensign (and later LTJG Kerry) reported aboard GRIDLEY straight out of the Fleet Training Center, San Diego on 8 June 1967. This boot Ensign headed up First Division and is shown here with Calvert BM1 and BMCS Enochs. His biographical materials never mention this period even though he was aboard GRIDLEY much longer than he was in Vietnam. Between having these two old salts reporting to him and Captain Slifer after him all the time, Ensign Kerry was a busy young man.

What is "First Division"?

First Division is one of the "Deck Divisions" on a ship. In Navy slang, the "Deck Apes". They swab the decks. They chip paint. They paint the areas they finished chipping. After that, they swab, they chip and they paint some more. The bottom of the class at Navy Boot Camp ends up in a Deck Division.

In the Ward Room, the First Division Officer is the lowest guy in the ship's officers pecking order. When the XO or the CO need an S.L.J.O. (Shitty Little Jobs Officer), the First Division Officer is the guy that gets the job.

Kerry was in charge of the least skilled sailors in the lowest prestige division on his ship and, apparently, his C.O., Captain Slifer, was not making life very pleasant for our Boston Blue Blood who was more used to sailing on John F. Kennedy's yacht.

What to do?

Swift boats!

At the time, swift boats merely patrolled the coastline or ferried sailors between ships.

Most importantly, a lowly Lt.(j.g.) was the Officer in Charge (OIC).

Instead of being the SLJO on the USS Gridley, in charge of Deck Ape Division, with Captain Slifer making his life miserable, Kerry pictured himself as the OIC of his own boat, roaring up and down the South China Sea out of the war and with no Captain Slifer anywhere in sight.

But, don't take my word for it.

Let's hear it from John F. Kerry himself:

Boston Globe, 6/16/2003: ........"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."......... But two weeks after he arrived in Vietnam, the swift boat mission changed -- and Kerry went from having one of the safest assignments in the escalating conflict to one of the most dangerous.

Two weeks after Kerry assumed command of his swift boat, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt put into effect his idea of getting those swift boats out of glorified water skiing duty........

Picture of yours truly "RD2 Joe Muharsky" water skiing behind PCF 94 March 1969. Pictured is signed by Senator John Kerry who was a LTJG in Coastal Division 11.

.......into the shooting war in the rivers of the Mekong Delta.

Oooooops.

As Robert Burns once wrote, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

Kerry signed up for being OIC of his own water skiing boat and here he was in the middle of a friggin war!!

What does Kerry do now after he has gone from glorified water skier straight into deep kim-chee?

Well, Kerry then proceeds to rack up three Purple Hearts for "injuries" that kept him off duty for a grand total of.....drum roll, please..... two days of duty by his own admission and zero days according to his swift boat squadron C.O.

Kerry then sea-lawyered himself out of combat after only four months and requested a transfer as an "Admiral's aide", preferably in "Boston, New York or Washington".

Boston Globe, 6/16/2003: ......... He requested and was granted a transfer out of Vietnam six months before his combat tour was slated to end on the grounds that he had earned three Purple Hearts. None of his wounds was disabling; he said one cost him two days of service and the other two did not lead to any absence. .........The bottom line is that Kerry could have remained but he chose to seek an early transfer.

When the Boston Globe asked Kerry to give permission for the release of his Navy medical records so that the Boston Globe could document what sort of injuries earned Kerry three Purple Hearts and a ticket out of combat after 4 months.........Kerry refused.

Every decision and/or request John F. Kerry ever made; from First Division Officer to swift boat OIC; from swift boat OIC to early termination of his combat tour; from early termination of his combat tour to Admiral's aide; from Admiral's aide to early discharge from active duty; from early discharge from active duty to politically-popular-in-Massachusets American-G.I.'s-are-war-criminals anti-war protestor.....

Every decision and/or request John F. Kerry ever made in his Navy career was made to further the comfort, safety and political ambitions of John F. Kerry.

[Cicero]

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The Washington Times, The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal will probably go with this. Fox News will probably go with it. Maybe the Daily Telegraph and The Sun will go with it in the U.K. And it will appear in obscure sources like the Straits Times.

The major media will bury it. At most they will run one article below the fold, questioning the credibility of Kerry's critics or blaming it on Karl Rove.

The internet doesn't yet match the reach of the mainstream media. Maybe 10 million people see our side of the case, and 100 million see theirs. BUT. The one thing the internet can do that the mainstream press can't deal with is to keep them from burying a story. If the story is good enough, it will get out. Monica got out. They managed to spin the story, but they couldn't bury it.

If you take this story and combine it with those Winter Soldier pictures of Kerry, I think the two together will kill him. He can't even deny it without offending his peacenik base. This will do him heavy damage.

As events have shown so far in the campaign, the only counter the press will have is simply to tell more sleazy lies about George Bush, hoping to make him look as bad as Kerry. Not easy to do. Their own credibility is suffering badly. Most people think that news reporters are even lower than lawyers.