Tom Maguire at the excellent blog Just One Minute points out this AP story from twelve years ago explaining Kerry's Cambodia experience. See if you can point out the inconsistencies in Kerry's story back in 1992:

Navy Lt. John Kerry knew he had no business steering his Mekong River patrol boat across the border into Cambodia, but orders were orders. A quarter-century later, Sen. John Kerry says newly declassified documents have convinced him fellow servicemen captured on such trips were left behind at war's end. ...

But for Kerry, who spent six violent months commanding a patrol boat on the Mekong River, there's always been a ring of truth to allegations of abandoned Americans. By Christmas 1968, part of Kerry's patrol extended across the border of South Vietnam into Cambodia.

"We were told, `Just go up there and do your patrol. Everybody was over there (in Cambodia). Nobody thought twice about it," Kerry said. One of the missions, which Kerry, at the time, was ordered not to discuss, involved taking CIA operatives into Cambodia to search for enemy enclaves.

"I can remember wondering, `If you're going to go, what happens to you,"' Kerry said.

Here are the inconsistencies I see:

1. Kerry served four months, not six, in country.
2. Christmas in Cambodia switched to Winter in Cambodia after eight years in the Senate.
3. "Everybody was over there," except for half of John Kerry's crew, who insist they never went into Cambodia. Perhaps only half of the boat ever crossed into Cambodian waters, or the trio waterskied behind on a really long tow rope.

As Maguire says, "Kerry has no after-action reports, no witnesses, a story by Brinkley that puts him too far from the border, and a less-than-full crew supporting him - not good. Unless everyone is lying except John!"

There's only one way to settle this factually -- John Kerry should do what he and his party chairman insisted of George Bush earlier this year, and release his complete military records. If he does that, we can review the records and find out exactly what kind of officer John Kerry was. As long as he threatens lawsuits and has his minions planning character assassinations on other decorated Viet Nam veterans, then we can safely assume that the 200+ men in the Swiftvets are telling the truth about Kerry.

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry is

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Christmas In Cambodia, Part III: Time Flies:

» Kerry and the Vets from The Key Monk
. . . Kerry has covered-up, backtracked and revised history -- an unholy trinity of obfuscation. Luckily for him, the mainstream media does not seem to care. [Read More]

Tracked on August 14, 2004 1:40 PM