Navy Report Backs Kerry Role in Incident

[Beaverhausen]

Sorry if this was posted already. I can't keep up today!

Navy Report Backs Kerry Role in Incident

By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - A Navy report filed five days after a disputed incident in Vietnam supports John Kerry (news - web sites)'s version and contradicts critics who say the Democratic presidential nominee never came under enemy gunfire when he won two medals.


The Navy task force overseeing Kerry's swift boat squadron reported his group of boats being fired on during the March 13, 1969, incident. Some of Kerry's critics, including several men who were on other boats that day, say there was no enemy gunfire during the incident that won Kerry a Bronze Star and his third Purple Heart.

The March 18, 1969, weekly report from Task Force 115, which was located by The Associated Press during a search of Navy archives, is the latest document to surface that supports Kerry's description of the event. Crew members on Kerry's boat and a Special Forces soldier Kerry pulled from the water that day insist there was enemy fire, and they have appeared on behalf of the Kerry campaign.

The task force report twice mentions the incident and both times calls it "an enemy initiated firefight" that included automatic weapons fire and underwater mines used against a group of five boats that included Kerry's.

Task Force 115 was commanded at the time by retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the founder of the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has been running ads challenging Kerry's account of the episode.

A member of the group, Larry Thurlow, said he stood by his assertion that there was no enemy fire that day. Thurlow, the commander of another boat who also won a Bronze Star, said task force commanders probably relied on the initial report of the incident. Thurlow says Kerry wrote that report.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040825/ap_on_el_pr/kerry_vietnam_records&cid=694&ncid=1963&sid=96378798

[Gloria]

1. 1400+ votes, only a 2.89.....This should be blasted all around by

the campaign!