Daily Kos

A Little Help Please?

Mon Aug 23, 2004 at 03:47:06 PM PDT

Need a little help here.  

Apparently WorldNutDaily.net is publishing an article by Art Moore(?)claiming to quote from Douglas Brinkley's bio of Kerry.  In it, he claims that Kerry asserts he had not been under enemy fire during the period he got the first purple heart.

Here's the relevant quote:

But Douglas Brinkley's "Tour of Duty," for which Kerry supplied his journals and letters, indicates that as Kerry set out on a subsequent mission, he had not yet been under enemy fire.

While the date of the four-day excursion on PCF-44 [Patrol Craft Fast] is not specified, Brinkley notes it commenced when Kerry "had just turned 25, on Dec. 11, 1968," which was nine days after the incident in which he claimed he had been wounded by enemy fire.

Brinkley recounts the outset of that mid-December journey, which included a crew of radarman James Wasser, engineman William Zaladonis, gunner's mate Stephen Gardner and boatswain's mates Drew Whitlow and Stephen Hatch:

"They pulled away from the pier at Cat Lo with spirits high, feeling satisfied with the way things were going for them. They had no lust for battle, but they also were were not afraid. Kerry wrote in his notebook, 'A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky.'"

The diary entry apparently confirms assertions made by Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, a group of more than 250 vets opposing his presidential candidacy who served in the Naval operation that patrolled the rivers and canals of the Mekong Delta area controlled by North Vietnam.

I'm assuming this is out of context or some such flourish.  Can anyone help me with this?

Tags: (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

View Comments | 1 comment