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From Senator John Kerry's Official Senate Website: As a Vietnam veteran, I have experienced firsthand the horrors of war. I served two tours of duty, commanding a swift boat in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta as a member of the U.S. Navy. I have witnessed the sacrifices our men and women have made and the courage they have displayed in faithfully serving our country. Every day I carry with me lessons from being in combat that help me to recognize the needs of our nation’s veterans and the problems they confront. I only hope that my devotion to the veterans of this...

"In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy."

The most striking image from John Kerry's campaign for the presidency is him offering a beguiling, if rather hesitant, military salute to the Democratic convention, accompanied by the message that he was "reporting for duty". This reference to his record as a decorated war hero was a signal that he would exploit what was thought to be his strongest card in a contest with George W Bush, whose own youth was noted for a notoriously unheroic evasion of active duty in Vietnam. Perhaps carried away by this favoured theme of personal bravery, Mr Kerry has offered up anecdotes from his...

The biographer of John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, said yesterday there was no basis for one of the senator's favourite Vietnam War anecdotes - that he spent Christmas 1968 in Cambodia, a neutral nation which US leaders vowed was off limits for American forces. "On Christmas Eve he was near Cambodia; he was around 50 miles from the Cambodian border. There's no indictment of Kerry to be made, but he was mistaken about Christmas in Cambodia," said Douglas Brinkley, who has unique access to the candidate's wartime journals. But Mr Brinkley rejected accusations that the senator had never been...

On Wednesday, the Kerry campaign acknowledged that John Kerry probably was not in Cambodia on Christmas 1968, contrary to the senator's decades-old assertion. Speaking on Fox News' "Fox and Friends," Kerry campaign aide Jeh Johnson said, "John Kerry has said on the record that he had a mistaken recollection earlier. He talked about a combat situation on Christmas Eve 1968 which at one point he said occurred in Cambodia. He has since corrected the record to say it was some place on a river near Cambodia and he is certain that at some point subsequent to that he was in...

August 13, 2004 -- What I want to know is why Bush's stint in the National Guard merited intense scrutiny from the mainstream media four years ago and again during this election cycle, but the many confusing issues regarding Kerry's Vietnam experience are completely ignored ("Kerry's Attempt To Squelch Vets," Editorial, Aug. 10)? This is a serious character issue that needs to be explored. John NerzAndover, Mass. Kerry spent his convention wrapping himself in his war record.[snip] Now we have a new book that seriously challenges the truthfulness of how Kerry has depicted his time in the military. The public...

'I also went into Cambodia' I served as Officer-in-Charge of a Swift Boat (PCF-71) in Vietnam and my tour overlapped with that of John Kerry. With regard to your editorial ("Kerry's 'Christmas in Cambodia'," Tuesday), I can tell you that my crew and I also went into Cambodia (without orders). As units assigned to Coastal Division 11, we patrolled the Ha Tien River and an adjacent canal that ran along the Vietnam-Cambodian border and, on occasion, crossed into Cambodia. Mr. Kerry was assigned to Coastal Division 11 in December 1968, and, while I don't recall who was where on Christmas...

Kerry's confusion over Cambodia By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 13/08/2004) The biographer of John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, said yesterday there was no basis for one of the senator's favourite Vietnam War anecdotes - that he spent Christmas 1968 in Cambodia, a neutral nation which US leaders vowed was off limits for American forces. John Kerry catches a baseball at Long Beach Airport "On Christmas Eve he was near Cambodia; he was around 50 miles from the Cambodian border. There's no indictment of Kerry to be made, but he was mistaken about Christmas in Cambodia," said Douglas Brinkley,...

President Bush is no fan of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. "I haven't seen the ad, but what I do condemn is these regulated, soft-money expenditures," he said last night on CNN's "Larry King Live." He hailed Kerry's stint in Vietnam and said nothing about the Massachusetts Democrat's admission on "Meet the Press" in 1971 that he had committed "atrocities" there. "He views it as honorable service, and so do I," the president said. He said the question was who could lead the country in time of war. "I think it's me. Because I understand the stakes." Alluding to Iraq,...

...I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia ...

Major General George S. Patton, the son and namesake of the World War II armored commander was a veteran of combat in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. He was wounded in one of his three Vietnam tours and was awarded a Purple Heart. He was twice awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest decoration for bravery in combat. General Patton charged that he had experienced proof in the field that John F. Kerry's anti-war actions had given aid and comfort to the enemy, just as had those of Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda. Mr. Kerry, said George Patton, probably...

I thought it might be useful to get some basics down from Brinkley's book; the people, the boats, the timelines. This time I was able to get a non-large print version of Tour of Duty, so I will be able to highlight the pages where the information is located. I'm starting with Chapter 10, since that concerns the events of Christmas Eve, 1968) Kerry's boat at Christmas 1968 was the PCF-44 (Page 209). Men on board the PCF-44 are as follows: Drew Whitlow (209), James Wasser, Radarman (213) also second in command (228); Stephen Hatch, Bosun's Mate (214), Stephen Gardner,...

Fox news just reported there are questions now about where Rassmann actually was. He said he was on Kerry's boat when it got ambushed, but Kerry's web site says Rassmann was on the boat behind his. Just more questions about kerry's seemingly faulty memory.

[snip]Well, as it turns out, Kerry wasn't in Cambodia (at least not then), and the president wasn't lying (at least not then)/ Depending on whom you believe, Kerry was in a boat either five miles away or 50. In Douglas Brinkley's biography, "Tour of Duty," based in part on Kerry's diary, Kerry was at Sa Dec, 58 miles from Cambodia. A few days ago, Kerry campaign adviser Jeh Johnson tried to clarify for Fox News, "... I believe he (Kerry) has corrected the record to say it was some place near Cambodia. He is not certain whether it was in...

Kerry's Cambodian links questioned Did he see action there? Candidate's staff, critics disagree By SCOTT CANON The Kansas City Star Kerry John Kerry's “reporting for duty” salute at the Democratic National Convention last month emphasized the key biographical boast of his campaign — decorated combat service in Vietnam. Now his repeated claim that he also weathered combat upriver in Cambodia has drawn harsh skepticism — driven by anti-Kerry veterans who star in a political commercial and book financed by Texas Republicans. Roy Hoffmann, a retired admiral who was a Navy captain in command of Kerry's unit at the time, said...

I began this as a reply to JohnHuang2, and it morphed into something more appropriate as a start to a thread. Please help to flesh this out with more facts pointing to inconsistencies in the Kerry claims. Official John Kerry Time-Line from the JohnKerry.com site: November 17, 1968 Upon completion of his training, Kerry reports for duty to Coastal Squadron 1, Coastal Division 14, Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam. December 1968 through January 1969 Kerry commands PCF-44 December 2, 1968 Kerry experiences first intense combat; receives first combat related injury.(Was this the "band-aid" wound?) December 6, 1968 Kerry moved to...

According to Newsweek's assistant managing editor Evan Thomas, "There's one other base here, the media. Let's talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win and I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards . . . as being young and dynamic and optimistic and there's going to be this glow about them . . ." (Inside Washington television show, July 10). Thomas' prediction is amply supported by the (non)coverage which the Denver dailies, like most of the rest of the media, have given to this week's meltdown of the Kerry campaign. As reported...

'My truth is that I am a gay American,'' announced Gov. James McGreevey to the people of New Jersey last Thursday. That's such an exquisitely contemporary formulation: ''my'' truth. Once upon a time, there was only ''the'' truth. Now everyone gets his own -- or, as the governor put it, ''One has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world.'' For Jim McGreevey, his truth is that he's a gay American; for others in the Garden State, the truth about McGreevey is that he's a corrupt sexual harasser who put his...

<p>Friday, August 13, 2004 - WHAT if the single pivotal event of one's life the moment that altered one's entire course, illuminating the path ahead, providing that critical psychological turning point turned out to have been an invention of one's very own?</p>

snipMedeiros is on active duty in the U.S. Army as a staff sergeant -- he's helping to train National Guard units on their way to Iraq at Ft. Bliss, Texas -- and cannot directly endorse any candidates. But he and his crew mates showed up on stage with Kerry last month at the Democratic Convention in Boston.snipKerry's boat happened to hit the shore right in front of an enemy soldier holding a grenade launcher. The soldier started running, maybe to get enough distance to be able to fire his weapon at the boat, Medeiros said. Kerry's forward gunner managed to...