Nightline went to Vietnam - asked locals about Kerry on the river

[donsu]

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Vote2004/story?id=166434&page=1

'Nightline' Speaks to Witnesses of Disputed Firefights

(since this is a 4 page article I posted more then 4 parag. OK?)

-snip-

Nightline traveled to Vietnam and found a number of witnesses who have never been heard from before, and who have no particular ax to grind for or against Kerry. Only one of them, in fact, even knew who Kerry is. The witnesses, all Vietnamese, are still living in the same villages where the fighting took place more than 35 years ago. A Nightline producer visited them and recorded their accounts of that day. The accounts were subsequently translated by a team of ABC News translators.

-snip-

According to Vo, there were at least 20 Viet Cong soldiers at Nha Vi there that day. "There were 12 soldiers from the provincial level and eight from the district level," he said.

His wife, Vo Thi Vi, 54, said Feb. 28, 1969, is a day that the villagers of Nha Vi hamlet will never forget. "Everything was destroyed," she said. "There's no houses left. They leveled everything. There was no leaves left. The fighting was very fierce."

-snip-

Was the man killed by Kerry or by fire from the Swift boat? It was the heat of battle, Tam said, and he doesn't know exactly how the man with the rocket launcher died. But he knows the man's name — Ba Thanh. He was one of the 12 reinforcements sent to the village by provincial headquarters, and after he died, the firefight continued, according to Tam.

"When the firing started, Ba Thanh was killed," Tam said. "And I led Ba Thanh's comrades, the whole unit, to fight back. And we ran around the back and fought the Americans from behind. We worked with the city soldiers to fire on the American boats."

-snip-

Back in Tran Thoi, villager Nguyen Van Khoai said that about six months ago he was visited by an American who described himself as a Swift boat veteran and told him another American from the Swift boats was running for president of the United States. Nguyen said the man was accompanied by a cameraman.

-snip-
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[wishlist]

1. Ongoing discussions already here on LBN and GD

Please see the discussion on LBN or this other discussion already on GD

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2492476

[bunkerbuster1]

2. So, to sum:

the "Swift boat veterens for truth" are, in fact a bunch of evil FUCKING LIARS who MADE SHIT UP.

There, that wasn't so hard, was it, so-called liberal media?

Thanks for clearing that up; better late than never.