Thomas Lipscomb On Kerry's Bronze Star

Thomas Lipscomb argues that John Kerry wrote the after-action report that has become the offical record of the incident during which Kerry won his controversial Bronze Star. And we care because:

...if "the official Navy record" now turns out to have been written by Kerry himself, the principal beneficiary of its glowing references to his performance, the swift boat critics' charges look far more consequential.

After all, the report completely leaves out how Kerry's own boat, PCF-94, ran down river leaving James Rassmann overboard and the other three boats to deal with the ambush and the sinking PCF-3. All of the living boat commanders on that mission are in firm agreement on that action by Kerry and agree that the report is a fraudulent misrepresentation of an action they remember well.

The Kerry campaign didn't return calls for this article. But members of Kerry's crew have said Kerry is telling the truth. And Rassmann said he has vivid memories of enemies firing at him from both banks.

The after-action report is at Kerry's website (start on p. 2 of the .pdf). Here is Kerry's Bronze Star citation.

The Washington Post did an extensive review of this incident on Aug. 22, but I believe they overlooked the Belodeau Eulogy, where Kerry described the incident himself.

Giving a bit of heft to Mr. Lipscomb's investigation is this, from the WaPo:

On the core issue of whether Kerry was wounded under enemy fire, thereby qualifying for a third Purple Heart, the Navy records clearly favor Kerry. Several documents, including the after-action report and the Bronze Star citation for a Swift boat skipper who has accused Kerry of lying, refer to "all units" coming under "automatic and small-weapons fire."

Well, if the after-action report, which was the basis for the Bronze Star citations, was written by Kerry, where are we in relation to Square One?

Beldar has been covering this Bronze Star story closely. Here is one of his posts on the Belodeau Eulogy.

Comments

[TM]

A question someone will eventually ask Lipscomb - Lipscomb provides a long explanation of the coding system for communications, and tells us that kerry's the one.

But just below the code for Kerry is the code for Thurlow (I think) preceded by a "(u)" - (I would type it out, but the .pdf is freezing).

So, why doesn't this mean that Thurlow wrote this? I understand that he was not on the cutter from which the message was sent, and that he denies writing it, but still...

[rbh]

In the article, Lipscomb writes:

If the report had been submitted by the mission commander, in this case Thurlow, according to the operations order, it would have begun with a "C" for commander of the Task Element, and the sender would have been "CTE 194.5.4.4."

[Cecil Turner]

John O'Neill gave a recent interview that makes many of the same points:

Now what’s the evidence there was no fire? First of all, the report for that day, the After Action Report, was written by John Kerry as the officer in tactical command. He’s refused to state whether he wrote it or not but every other officer at the scene has said he wrote it. In addition it relates primarily to the operation of his own boat. So we know it’s his report. It says there was 3.2 miles, 5,000 meters of fire from both banks. This is like going through Seminary and Cemetery Ridge at a distance of 75 yards. It’s a complete total fabrication, a lie to the Navy that served as the basis of everybody’s citation that day.

As O'Neill points out, much of the report concerns PCF 94's point of view (though I think he's wrong about the OTC, which would appear to be Thurlow). One thing that seems suggestive, the "fire continued for about 5000 meters" implies running a gauntlet . . . and by all reports the only boat that was speeding was Kerry's.

[Thomas Drew]

Please, folks: let's assume for the sake of argument that all Mr. Kerry's medals are well earned. So what. (1) That was over thirty years ago, and anyway (2) how unseemly it is to be bragging about them, now or ever. Real heroes usually talk a different way. The man's got no class--or rather, he has only class, in a different, insidious sense, going for him. But more important, he's got nothing important to say about the present and the near future. Thanks be to God, it looks like he's going down to defeat.