Kerry Changing Christmas Eve in Cambodia Story,

saying it was January when he was ordered there. I guess he is one of those people who is good at remembering details but bad with dates, even though the memory was "seared" in him. :wink:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39966

Kerry damage control on Cambodia story
Senator's supporters now saying trip in January 1969, not Christmas 1968

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Posted: August 13, 2004
3:00 p.m. Eastern



© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

John Kerry continues to play damage control on his decades-long contention he was on a secret mission in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968, as word comes the author of a positive account of his Vietnam duty is preparing a column to explain the candidate's suspect story.

According to the Drudge Report, historian Doug Brinkley, author of "Tour of Duty," is writing a piece for the New Yorker saying it was actually January 1969 when Kerry was sent into Cambodia, not December 1968.

Kerry spent four months in Vietnam as skipper of a SWIFT Boat before returning to the U.S. and becoming a vocal leader of the anti-war movement.


As WorldNetDaily reported, the authors of the best-selling book "Unfit for Command," which refutes many of Kerry's war stories, claim that despite the senator's 1986 speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate mentioning spending Christmas Eve in Cambodia, the candidate was never in Vietnam's neighboring country. Rather, they say he was over 50 miles from the Cambodian border at Sa Dec.


"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting in a gunboat in Cambodia," said Kerry on the Senate floor. "I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States tell the American people I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have the memory which is seared – seared – in me. … "


Other references to the Cambodia trip appeared in the Boston Herald in 1979, a 1992 Associated Press story and a 2003 piece in the Washington Post.

Several analysts have pointed out inconsistencies in Kerry's accounts, one being the fact that he references President Nixon in the Senate floor speech even though Nixon wasn't sworn into office until January 1969.

After repeated attempts by this and other media outlets to seek a response from the Kerry campaign, the national director of Veterans for Kerry, John Hurley, told Fox News this week Kerry simply got the date of the Cambodia trip wrong.

"I think the date is what's inaccurate, that it was just not Christmas Eve Day," he told the new channel.

Another defense claims Kerry was near the border at Christmastime but not actually in Cambodia.

Columnist Norman Tucker writes about the January adjustment of the story:


In an attempt at damage control of Kerry's "seared in me" memory, the revelation has just now been made that he had misspoken and that it is now "seared" in him that he was really in Cambodia not on Christmas of 1968 but in January 1969. His four-month "tour of duty" does not leave much of a time frame for adjustment.
The problem for Kerry is that President Nixon did not even begin to bomb Cambodia until March of 1969 and did not send in troops there until April of 1970. It is hard to imagine just how Kerry got "ordered" there over two years before that date.

Kerry left Vietnam in March 1969 after receiving his third Purple Heart.

Retired Foreign Service Officer Andrew Antippas wrote today in a Washington Times op-ed piece:

"I served as a Foreign Service officer in the American embassy in Saigon from March 1968 to February 1970 and subsequently at the American embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from 1970 to 1972. My job in the political section of our embassy in Saigon was to be the 'Cambodia Man.' My principal tasks were to follow border incidents involving U.S. forces along the Cambodian border."

Antippas adds, "As U.S. forces in 1966 and 1967 progressively pushed the Vietnamese ... U.S. commanders sought permission for 'hot pursuit' operations against Communist forces attacking from Cambodian territory. This always was denied, much to the military's frustration." He notes that "concerning the assertion that Mr. Kerry was shot at by the Khmer Rouge during his Christmas 1968 visit to Cambodia, it should be noted that the Khmer Rouge didn't take the field until the Easter Offensive of 1972."

Concludes Antippas: "The bottom line of all this is that ... between 1961 and 1975, there was ongoing attention and scrutiny paid to the border because of the political sensitivities over the neutrality of the Cambodians. While things may have happened that no one ever found out about in Saigon, the Cambodians yelled bloody murder to the world press and the ICC whenever they found Americans trespassing."

 

WOW, he told a story where recalled it to be a week or two earlier than it actually happened. That was like 35 years ago.

 

Another case where the point has gone over your head, Smax. Go watch some more SNL videos.

 

seared he says...seared. heh

 

You don't confuse Christmas Eve with just any other day. Even over there, Christmas was a big deal to the troops and you celebrated it if you could. No, he didn't confuse the dates. He embellished the story for his own gain like he always does.

Another point. The administration did disavow any presence in Cambodia, but there were strategic reasons for doing so. As an officer, Kerry should have just done his damn duty and quit whining about being there and having the President say he wasn't. It tells a lot about his character. It's all about Kerry.

 

ding ding ding. poor SF has to spell it out to smallcox.

 

I work with a guy who's a Captain (that's one grade below Admiral for the uninitiated) in the USNR SeaBees who was actually stationed in Cambodia in the early 70's (he was one of about 100 U.S. personnel authorized to be there), and he tells me that there's no way Kerry could have been there in either '68 OR '69. He's a pretty solid guy, and he's in the know, so I'll take his word for it.

 

I don't know if he embellished or not. But I can't remember where I was for Christmas Eve 5 years ago. I might have read wrong, but if he was near the border on the Eve and then was in Cambodia in January I can believe he misspoke. I don't know for sure though. But once again both of these guys have embellished before, thats politics. I'm paying attention to the issues and that should be the focus of their campaigns. Nothing wrong with mentioning their services to country, but they need to focus on the issues b/c that is what will win the election.

 

What a load of crap. If you were a soldier fighting a war in a far off country 5 years ago you would remember where the f*ck you were on Christmas Eve. I was in NKP, Thailand on Christmas Eve 1968 and remember it like it was yesterday. And I'm a guy who can walk into a dark room with a lightbulb in my hand and forget what I went in there for.

 

i dont like kerry, and i even tire of this stuff.

this guy favors raising the minimum wage, is that that alone enough to prove he doesnt know what he is doing? i mean isnt his health care plan enough to make us not vote for him without dredging up this crap from years ago that is so hard to figure out what is true?

i dunno about that crap. but i do know that tort reform is better than government managed health care. and i know that a proactive unilateral stance on terrorism is good, and that whining about getting european "allies" on board is very very bad.