John Kerry gives TomInTib a run for his money

[Chris_]

Or "How I Spent My Christmas In Cambodia", Part IV

The Classic:


The Classic, Redux:

remember spending Christmas Day of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese Allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real.

On The Record:

Kerry, who served in Vietnam on a gunboat in the Mekong Delta from 1968 to 1969, said he was involved in a "black mission" near Cambodia. "On Christmas Eve of 1968, I was on a gunboat in a firefight that wasn't supposed to be taking place," Kerry recalled. "I thought, if I'm killed here, what will my family be told?"

With Friends Like These...

"On Christmas Eve he was near Cambodia; he was around 50 miles from the Cambodian border. There's no indictment of Kerry to be made, but he was mistaken about Christmas in Cambodia," said Douglas Brinkley, who has unique access to the candidate's wartime journals. . . .

He said: "Kerry went into Cambodian waters three or four times in January and February 1969 on clandestine missions. He had a run dropping off US Navy Seals, Green Berets and CIA guys." The missions were not armed attacks on Cambodia, said Mr Brinkley, who did not include the clandestine missions in his wartime biography of Mr Kerry, Tour of Duty.

InstaPundit

I love re-living old memories.  Gives me a warm feeling.

[Peter3_1]

Not to mention LBJ was still pres in 12/68.   

[Tess Anderson]

Oh yeah, when we "swiftboated" John Kerry - I remember this. I also remember concluding that he was an hour's drive from the Cambodian border instead of going with his "Winter Soildier" testimony that he had been actually in...well, Cambodia.

I know war stories have a way of being over-exaggerated in time, but these two ought and out lie.

[Bluesuiter-Retired]

Yeah, winter soldier.

Where is the coverage about the winter soldier folks plotting to assassinate 8 senators for their vote on the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which resulted in our massive presence in Vietnam?

Anyone else notice the turnaround in demonrat tactics.

Remember how they were pushing Kerry's war-time record as compared to Bush's air national guard service?  They are now denegrating McCain's service and promoting obama's 'we must surrender' agenda.

Anyone knowing their way around the F-102 which Bush flew knows that if that flying brick lost its engine, the first course of action was to EJECT, because that flying brick will fall out of the sky instead of glide.  It takes a hell of a lot more guts to fly that flying brick than it does to skipper a patrol boat.  How many patrol boats did we lose?  How many brownwater sailors did we lose?

[Peter3_1]

Plus they had bad hydralics. I mentioned elsewhere that one evening I watched an F-102 fly by just over the treetops cockpit lights on, and I could see the pilot working on something in there. Very low, very slow. It was out of the Weat Hampton Air Base.

Next day I heard that the pilot had died, he waited, doing what he could, until the jet was almost over the Ocean and punched out, the 'chute opened, but when he hit the South Bay, he could not get free of the 'chute and drowned. Yes, the F-102 was a pretty delta wing to see in the air, but had a very bad reputation concerning reliability.

[DumbAss Tanker]

The Century-series jets were all insanely dangerous by modern standards, and the 102 and 106 were no exceptions.  It was a different time, less risk-adverse and with a much greater national sense of the need to take those risks.

[Rebel]