Newsweek catches another Kerry (Bronze Star) story change
Captains Quarters relays how Newsweek caught Dale Sandusky, Kerry crewmate, changing the story and providing some rather compelling details to reaffirm Kerry's frauds in receipt of his Bronze Star.

Important to keep in mind it is the SwiftVets's contention that Kerry's intent that day was to game a third Purple Heart, to assure his quick passage home, and that the Bronze Star was merely icing on the cake, as well as assuring a Hat Trick if he were to be granted the Gold Medal in the form of the White House by fooling his way to be POTUS.

Also relevant is that what damage which was done to Kerry's boat was done prior to the Rassman incident and described in Kerry's own account in Brinkley's "Tour of Duty" - he combined reports of that (prior) damage along with the brazen exaggerations and falsehoods in his fraudulent reporting of the matter to assure the awards would be granted (and Rassman was previously experienced towards helping him completing) as he promptly finished up the paperwork and was actually granted leave and left Vietnam within 4 short days (on March 17, 1969) after the Rassman / Bronze Star incident (on March 13, 1969). Upon arriving home Brinkley wrote that Kerry was so heavily "bandaged" that "some of it was sticking out" enough for his then fiancee, Julia Thorne, to notice, when she met him at (where else?!?!) Kennedy airport in NY.

What really irked the SwiftVets about this incident was the outrage they felt when they read "Tour of Duty" and saw the movie made for John Kerry's presidential campaign because of the additional details they recalled about the incident:

From Unfit for Command, page 91:

When Chenoweth's boat left a second time to deliver the wounded PCF 3 crewmen to a Coast Guard cutter offshore, Kerry jumped into the boat, leaving the few remaining officers and men the job of saving PCF 3, which was then in terrible condition, sinking just outisde the river. Kerry's eagerness to secure his third and final Purple Heart evidently outweighed any feelings he may have had of loyalty, duty, or honor with regard to his fellow sailors. Thurlow and the brave sailors who saved PCF 3 and towed it out did not seek Purple Hearts for their "minor contusions." Indeed, several of the PCF 3 sailors did not seek or receive Purple Hearts. Chenoweth, Odell, and their boat-mates who fished out and saved the sailors of PCF 3 likewise had no thought of seeking medals but only of rescuing their comrades and saving PCF 3. Kerry, however, portrays himself towing the disabled PCF 3 to safety after saving it. Another lie: The damage control on PCF 3 was done by Thurlow. While Kerry's boat, PCF 94, participated in towing PCF-3, Kerry was no longer on it for most of the trip (he was safely on the Coast Guard cutter), and Thurlow and Chenoweth are certain that Kerry played no role in saving PCF 3 or its crew.

When Chenoweth and Thurlow (as well as several other Swiftees who were there on March 13, 1969) first saw the Kerry ads, they believed the event that Kerry had described in his campaign biography and that was portrayed in his campaign television ads (as well as in the medal citations) had to be different events involving different people. What they had experienced on March 13, 1969, was so unlike the incident Kerry described that they could not imagine that he was describing the same event. They were horrified when they finally realized Kerry had received medals for the incident they remembered.

In other words, rather than "No Man Left Behind" as Steven Spielberg helped portray for the DemoncRAT National Convention, it was Kerry leaving the vets behind AGAIN, after he'd first fled the scene, jumping off onto the Coast Guard cutter to be "treated" for his "wound" while leaving the men behind to finish tendering to the truly injured and sustain the fallen craft. Rather than "beyond the call of duty" Kerry's actions were truly beneath any basic level of human dignity.
- posted by SEO LinkTagstic @ 12:35 PM