"Lying Liars" - The Sampan Incident - Democratic Underground

Gardner lied repeatedly, constantly adjusting his story as the lies were exposed.

Gardner claims that the PFC-44 did not venture beyond the PBR base at Sa Dec that day. To support Gardners claim, O'Neill tells us that the commander of River Division 531 confirms that there were no PCFs in the area and that they would have been stopped had they appeared. But Kerry's journal entry clearly says that the PCF-44 was working together with two PBRs, and was not running around willy-nilly on its own. PCFs and PBRs working together was not unusual, and it is not difficult to imagine that a PBR patrol up the big river toward the Cambodian border would want a PCF along. The two PBR's could easilyhave led PCF-44 right up across the border.

Article 1-> http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,...,599034,00.html

Article 2-> http://www.mediamatters.org/items/200408240001

Gardner joined the PCF-44 under Kerry on Dec 6, 1968 and served with him until Jan 21, 1969. His assignment on PCF-44 based at Cat Lo and An Thoi coincided with Hoffmans new, more agressive rules of engagement for Sea Lords. Gardner's first tour and most of his second were spent based at Cam Ranh Bay.

Website 1-> http://www.swiftboats.net/

Now the sampan incident.

The passages from Tour of Duty that O'Neill cites in his book, in the opening segment, "John Kerry's Story", describe an incident recorded in Kerry's journal that involved PCF-24 and PCF-94 . Someone makes a mistake and PCF-94 kills a man and a child from the sampan before destroying it. Kerry became the officer in charge on PCF-94 on Jan.30, 1969.

In the next segment "the Boston Globe's Discovery", it assumed without any mention of the discrepancy, that the mission that involved PCF-21 and PCF-44 on Jan. 20, 1969 is the same as described by Brinkley in Tour of Duty. This is based on a suggestion by Micheal Kranish in the book John F. Kerry, The Complete Biograghy By The Boston Globe Reporters Who Knew Him Best. Now unlike Kranish, I do not believe that Brinkley is the one in error here. After all, it was Brinkley who did the interview with Kerry about this, not Kranish, and Brinkley had access to the journal entry when doing the interview.

Then there is "eyewitness Steve Gardner". This man has already been discussed and proven to be lying, but this time he outdone himself. Brinkley however, was able interview Gardner in early March 2004

Gardner's beef against Kerry came later in Brinkleys interview. Gardner claimed that Kerry once threatened to court martial him. The incident happen when Gardner, who told Brinkley he had "no trouble shooting gooks", saw a Viet Cong guerilla withan AK-47 in a boat and started firing. "I layed the hammer down on him", Gardner explains. "I just put a finger on a gun: boom, boom, boom, boom. He's done. He got flipped out of the boat, he went straight down. That's when Kerry came running out of the guntub screaming 'ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire.' Then he turned to me and said, 'I ought to have you court martialed for shooting.' I said, ...when somebody brings a gun on me I'm gonna shoot and I'll ask questions later cause I ain't goin home in a body bag.'"

When Gardner tells the same story in the book, the "Viet-Cong guerilla with a AK-47" turns into a father who may not been a threat , and a dead child suddenly appears. He also suddenly remembers where and when it happen.

As explained in his chapter notes, on 399, Kranish bases his conclusion on the fact that none of the PCF-94 crew remembers the incident. In this regard, it is worth noting that Kerry's whole point in the journal in his journal entry is that the night was pitch-black, their lights were not working properly, and the PCF-94 crew did not look at the body. Then somebody else said that we there was a body up front and we moved in closer to see the limbs of a small child limp in the stack of rice. had already coverd it, and when one of the men asked me if I wanted it uncovered and I said no, realizing that the face would stay with me the rest of my life and it was better not to know wether there was a smile or grimace or wether it was a girl or a boy.

Kranish also ignores the fact none of the PCF-44 crew remembers anything like the incident Gardner describes. Moreover, the PCF-44 crew was disbanded in the next day or two and the boat went for a overhaul. It's funny how Gardner doesn't seem to remember that this was his last mission in Vietnam.

Kranish uses Gardner's story and a after action "spot" report that describes an incident that took place during Sea Lords mission 252 on Jan. 20, 1969.

Doc.1-> http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/kerry_m...spot_report.pdf

As O'Neill points out, the incident is also mentioned in the weekly reported by Captain Hoffman.

*Jan 20 <1969>: PCFs 21 and 44...engaged the enemy wit a resultant GDA of one VC KIA(BC), four VC KIA(EST) and two VC CIA"

These reports line up with one another. The only real similarity between the details of the incidents described in John Kerry's journal and the Navy reports for Jan. 20, 1969 in the capture of a woman with a small child. Surely there were many women with children in sampans in the Mekong Delta? These were different missions at different times on different boats with crews.

There was nothing wrong with Kranish reporting Gardners story about the mission on Jan. 20, 1969. But the terrible mistake is to suggest that the incident in Kerry's journal is the same mission. O'Neill draws a host of conclusions from this about Kerry "filing an after action report in which a dead child simply disappeared and was replaced by and was replaced by fleeing squad of Viet Cong." It is possible that the "one enemy KIA" in the report is the boy Gardner mentions, since his would have been the only body counted <"BC">. But there is NOTHING else in the report to support the rest of Gardner's story. Nor does it sound like the story in Kerry's journal. The sampan was not "small" it is a 30ft boat. It was loaded with a large amount of material, some of which was captured, some of which was destroyed. It was 30 yards away when PCF-44 shot at it.

Moreover, it is not likely that Kerry wrote the report, since he had barely two month of PCF service at the time. The unknown officer in charge of PCF-21 was likely more senior than Kerry. According to the precedures outlined for Sea Lords missions by the base commander at An Thoi, Adrian Lonsdale, the senior PCF officer in the two-boat task unit, identified as "CTU 115.4.4" in the headers, would be responsible for the report.

Nonetheless O'Neill continues on using his friend William Franke.

who says he is haunted by "the vivid memory of the small bloody sampan."

Article 2-> http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/05/14/gannon/

O'Neill then turns to Thomas Wright, who gives himself away right from the start by repeating the idea that:

*"John Kerry thought that 'free fire' meant 'kill anyone you see'..."

Wright takes this idea and runs with it. This is also the same trick Franke uses in his quotation at the start of the chapter. It is a transparent attemt to take Kerry's 1971 position that a "free-fire zone" is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and pretend that the loosest possible interpretation was how Kerry understood the rules of engagement when he was in Vietnam in 1969. There is no evidence for this. Indeed, there is abundant evidence to the contrary. The claim insults the intelligence of veterans and it is a lie.

Moreover, there is good reason to question Wright's claim that:

*"I had some very serious problems with Kerry one day and I told the DivCom that I did not want Kerry in my group anymore."

Thomas W. Wright III was in charge of PCF-44 at An Thoi after Jan. 1969.

website 1-> http://www.swiftboats.net/

A quick glance at the "chronology of highlights" in the Coastal Division 11 command history shows that PCF-44 went on missions with PCF-94 on Feb. 20, 25, March 18, 20. The last is less than a week before Kerry departed An Thoi and his crew disband.

Doc.2 -> http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/..._chronology.pdf

*Note*..Kerry's journal clearly shows he went on missions after March 17

Doc.3 -> http://www.homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/ker...pot_reports.pdf

O'Neill's page entitled "Animal Slaughter" is based on statements by George M.Bates. Bates plays the same game as Wright and Franke in claiming Kerry was a "coward" and a "man without a conscience." Interestingly a member of Bates' crew, Gary D. Hoover, has came forward on the non partisan site.

Website 2 -> http://swiftboats.org/Guestbook/index.php?entry=49

Hoover wrote: "....reading the book out on Kerry unfit for command, I was the guy shooting the animals. In our minds we were to destroy everything from their food to sinking their sampns..."

Hoover served under Bates on PCF-90, , but they appear to have been based at Qui Nhon , so it is not clear that Bates "participated in numerous missions with Kerry" as O'Neill claims. < pg 62 book> More likely it was just a few missions in January 1969 before he was sent to Qui Nhon. Regardless, what is most notable about Hoover's recollection is that he supports what Kerry's statements about how the crews understood what they are doing on these kinds of raids. Hoover expose's Bates hypocrisy in this respect, not to mention that of Franke and Wright.