Posted on 08/14/2004 7:26:54 AM PDT by mondoman
IIRC wasn't Alston out of action before Kerry took over the 94 boat?
Austin is not representative of the rest of Texas.
Alston would have been one of the few Blacks that Kerry might have met under casual circumstances at the time. Kerry might have developed the idea of using him politicly very early on. He visited the guys parents back in the world and invited him to his wedding. Events ran in other directions however. The anti-war movement took over from the civil rights movement and Kerry became prominent there. In Boston there was a tremendous backlash to bussing.
The two tours were the three months and three or so
weeks divided in two. That's seven and one-half weeks for
each tour, totaling two tours, don't you see?
Kerry spent 5 weeks on a Destroyer in the Tonkin Gulf and then 4 months in-country. Thats a total of 5 months and 2 weeks.
A "tour" in Vietnam was 12 months. We used to keep a back wards calendar to count down the days when our tour would be over. When you double-digits (99 days or less) you were getting "short".
Everyone knows that a "tour" was one-year. Kerry saying that he had "two tours" is another example of his lies. He didn't even have a half of a "tour".
Kerry is such a weasel, not to mention a traitor.
Alston was injured on PCF-94 in the same action as his skipper, Lt. Peck. (That was on either January 28th or 29th.) kerry replaced Peck as OIC due to Peck's injuries.
I haven't seen anything yet that conclusively proves that Alston didn't return to PCF-94 before kerry left it. As far as I'm concerned, the whole thing's still wide open to question at this point. There are a couple of threads running on this issue.
Undisclosed issue 1:
I read here several weeks ago that, upon being denied an extension of his student deferrment, he did enlist.
In the tin can Navy, we didn't call them "tours". Our deployments were called "cruises".
Generally speaking, a ship's size determined how long a cruise was. Guided missile destroyers (DDGs) were doing six-month cruises in 1972. Larger ships had longer cruises. kerry's DLG cruise was probably about 9 months total but he joined it part way through.
Real Vietnam servicemen or self-proclaimed Vietnam servicemen?
Sadly, there are a ton of fakes out there.
If Saturday Night Live goes wild and does a parody of "Christmas In Cambodia"...
I'll break some ribs with laughter...but won't notice due to the pleasure over the
exposure of Kerry The Poser.
only the editors know who they are,
but with decades of reading experience with the so-called "free press" in the united states,
you know there's usually some lie being touted as the truth.
He also apparently had time to return to the scene of some of these events a shoot his home movies in which he "play acted" out his combat scenes for posterity... One wonders which of the band of brothers used the camera to do this filming.... hint... hint
"The Kerry Campaign has corrected the Kerry "Christmas in Cambodia" story quite well. The official stance today is that Kerry was actually thinking it was Christmas, but really it was Chinese New Year. You see, the Kerrys always celebrated Chinese New Year at home, rather than Christmas. Yeah, that's the ticket!"
The Chinese New Years began on our time: 1/30/1968 and 2/17/1969. Quite a difference than Christmas by over a month in both those years.
Back then, Christmas Eve and January were totally interchangeable, as were Vietnam and Cambodia, and Johnson and Nixon.
They did run a story on the assassination meeting but dropped it thereafter. I contacted several newsrooms around the country a few months ago and got the Boston Globe, L.A. Times, and Washington Times to run with the story. It is time to revive it.
FBI Files Show Kerry Met With Communists More Than Once
I understand your point about Kerry's voting record. But, while that dog may hunt among those who have some political/historical savvy, an examination of flip-floppy voting records won't have much impact on an American public grown cynical about the convictions/motivations of politicians. That issue would be seen as business as usual, you could say.
OTOH, Kerry's decision to make his "heroism," and therefore, his character, a main campaign plank has left him wide open to sensationalist investigations revealing his duplicity, particularly in light of the Swift Boat Vets book. Unfortunately, lies and scandal get more traction in our society than do policy discussions, however important the latter may be to predicting a candidate's worthiness for office.
Vietnam Yesterday & Today: Chronology of U.S. Vietnam Relations
Some highlights:
1960 The National Liberation Front (NLF)--called the Viet Cong--is founded in South Vietnam.February, 1961 The U.S. military buildup in Vietnam begins with combat advisors. President John F. Kennedy declares that they will respond if fired upon.
November 1, 1963 South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated. (21 days before the assassination of President Kennedy)
August 2 and 4, 1964 The Gulf of Tonkin Incident. North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the U.S. destroyer Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. A second attack allegedly occurs on August 4.
August 5, 1964 President Lyndon Johnson asks Congress for a resolution against North Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Congress debates.
March 8-9, 1965 The first American combat troops arrive in Vietnam.
April 6-8, 1965 President Johnson authorizes the use of U.S. ground combat troops for offensive operations. The next day he offers North Vietnam aid in exchange for peace. North Vietnam rejects the offer.
April 17, 1965 Students for a Democratic Society sponsor the first major anti-war rally in Washington, D.C.
April 30, 1970 The armies of the U.S. and South Vietnam invade Cambodia to roust North Vietnamese troops. The invasion sparks campus protests.
February 12-27, 1973 POWs begin to come home as part of Operation Homecoming
April 1, 1973 Hanoi releases last 591 acknowledged American POWs.
September 16, 1974 President Gerald Ford offers clemency to draft evaders and military deserters.
September 13, 1993 President Clinton eases economic sanctions against Vietnam to allow American firms to bid on development projects financed by international banks, another step toward normalization.
May 23, 1995 Senators John Kerry (D, Mass) and John McCain (R,-Ariz.), both Vietnam veterans, urge Clinton to normalize relations.
March 10, 1998 President Clinton waives the The Jackson-Vanik Amendment for Vietnam, allowing American investors in Vietnam to compete more effectively in Vietnam and to receive financial help from U.S. government agencies such as the Export-Import Bank.
November 10, 2003 U.S. S ecretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with Vietnam's Defense Minister Pham Van Tra. This was the first time a senior Vietnamese military official has visited Washington.
Kerry only joined the Navy AFTER the draft board denied his request to study in FRANCE for a year. This info was in the 1970 Harvard Crimson article.
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