Historian Burkett: Kerry Must Disclose Full Record
Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Monday, April 26, 2004
A leading historian of the Vietnam War doubts the Kerry campaign's denials that it is withholding parts of the senator's military records.
Since Kerry's presidential campaign made the belated decision to go public with the former Navy lieutenant's records on its Web site, questions about his file and what he is actually releasing have deepened.
As the Boston Globe reported last week, one former military commander said Kerry had posted his, not Kerry's, after-action report.
"All of Sen. Kerrys U.S. Navy military records will be posted on his Web site," spokesman Michael Meehan has promised.
More than 120 pages from Kerrys naval service records were posted on the candidates official Web site by Wednesday. Shortly afterward, the number of pages shot past 200 as the campaign added after-action combat reports (spot reports), the command history of Coastal Division 11 1969, and the Presidential Unit Citation for Task Force 115.
Though the release of such records might appear like full disclosure, the release has been clouded by claims that some of those newly released after-action combat reports might not be germane to Kerrys own combat history.
On the campaign's site, Kerry was described as the skipper of Navy boat No. 94 during actions in late January 1969.
But Edward Peck, who was the skipper of the 94 before Kerry took over, told the Globe that after-action combat reports posted by the campaign for January 1969 involve combat when he, not Kerry, was the skipper. Those are definitely mine, Peck said. There is no doubt about it.
The reports at issue include references to an ambush of Patrol Craft Fast 94, or PCF 94.
In a posted summary of what happened on Jan. 26, 1969, the campaign said:
Kerry served on boat No. 94 alongside another boat, No. 66. PCFs 94 and 66 escorted troops up the Ong Doc River early in the morning when they were ambushed by gun and rocket fire from approximately 40 men on both sides of the river. Two B-40 rounds hit close to Kerrys boat, while PCF 66 received 2 B-40 rocket hits. Three men on PCF66 were wounded. A junk containing South Vietnamese troops was also sunk, killing 11 South Vietnamese troops. Intelligence reports after the mission indicated that the Viet Cong troops may have planned the ambush in advance.
However, Peck said that he was the skipper of the 94 boat then, and that Kerry was definitely not even on board.
In another summary of combat action, the campaign summarizes action that took place on Jan. 29, 1969:
While Kerrys boat and another [PCF 72] were probing a canal along the river, Kerrys boat came under heavy fire and was hit by a B-40 rocket in the cabin area. One member of Kerrys crew Forward Gunner David Alston suffered shrapnel wounds in his head. His injuries were not considered serious and he was sent to the 29th Evac Hospital at Binh Thuy.
But Peck said he was the skipper on this day too, recalling it well since he was severely wounded in the action.
Furthermore, the Navy combat report posted by Kerry's campaign states that Peck and Alston were injured in the same event. But there is no mention of Kerry in that report.
Burkett: How Kerry Can Give Full Disclosure
Closely following all these developments is B.G. Burkett, the co-author of Stolen Valor, a highly acclaimed book on the Vietnam War.
Burkett, who has advised the FBI and sometimes the media on cases involving fraudulent military records, said that what inflamed him about the Kerry case was that the American public was being spoon-fed the record.
Kerry is not being forthright, complained Burkett, who wants to see the unabridged, uncensored version of the record.
He is demanding that the candidate bite the bullet and sign off on a Standard Form (SF) 180, giving the media the power to examine and cull the full record, not just bits and pieces selected by the Kerry camp.
This is the only way the public and press can be assured they have and may review Kerrys full military record, Burkett says.
Meanwhile, Burkett is digging below the surface of the official paperwork revealed and yet unrevealed hoping that the relatively small Vietnam Swift Boat community will come forth and reveal a more realistic picture of Kerrys truncated tour in Vietnam.
That tour was cut short by Kerry invoking an informal regulation that permitted thrice-wounded Navy personnel to leave the combat zone early.
Retired Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard, his commanding officer at the time, now says the wound for which Kerry was awarded his first Purple Heart "resembled a scrape from a fingernail."
Burkett, who has been receiving intelligence from the field, wonders why one particular fellow Kerry vet, who parked his boat next to Kerrys for a good portion of the famous tour, didnt know that Kerry was ever wounded.
Burkett finds that factoid amazing, citing that the sailor recounted that the first time he was ever aware of wounds suffered by Kerry was when he was told that the apparently hale and hearty young officer was departing station for being wounded three times.
Although Burkett told NewsMax that he had personally spoken to the serviceman in question, he declined to identify him because of the sailors request for anonymity.
Hes not going to come forward, Burkett explained. He had a good relationship with Kerry in those days and wants to leave it at that.
Burkett found it curious that the sailor could not recall a single anti-war remark by Kerry during their association in-country.
The crusading author and investigator would also like to find just one person who was a reliable on-the-scene witness to what happened when Kerry jumped ashore from his boat to confront a hostile in the jungle.
For that action Kerry was awarded the Silver Star. Included in the citation: With utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his own boat only ten feet from the VC rocket position, and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy.
About Those 'Atrocities'
But facts can be elusive after so many years, admitted Burkett, who realistically believes that Kerrys Achilles' heel in all the recent brouhaha might not come from nitpicking the facts but from a hue and cry from the Swift Boat community still reeling over charges that Kerry levied on Capitol Hill in 1971 that he and the Swift-Boaters, as well as many others in-theater, were chronically guilty of war crimes.
Burkett pointed to a simmering rebuke to Kerry now festering in the Swift Boat clan.
According to the author, a letter is being prepared by a group of Kerry former comrades-in-arms charging the candidate with lying about the scurrilous charges of war crimes for political gain.
The movement, ironically, is being spearheaded, Burkett said, by none other than fellow vet John ONeil, who once debated Kerry on the issue decades ago on the old Dick Cavett show.
ONeil, an attorney in Houston, is preparing a stinging letter to Kerry signed by as many former Swift boat personnel as possible and released to the public.
Debunking Kerry is not a new chore for Burkett.
His book Stolen Valor challenges Kerrys facts and figures that were touted in the old Winter Soldiers campaign, which featured ostensible combat vets grieving at the horrors of what the U.S. perpetrated in Vietnam.
Burkett took special notice of Kerry's claim that the core of the war protesters contained 150 honorably discharged vets of the conflict. His own painstaking research indicates that scores of the membership did not, in fact, serve. In some cases, there was no record of some individuals having ever matriculated in the U.S. armed forces.
Like so many vets, says Burkett, he is affronted by Kerrys about-face first being shamed of his Vietnam service, but now touting it at every opportunity.
