Interview with John O’Neill – Part II

Part I, Part II, Part III

David: Okay, two more little quick interjections.  Two issues:  (1) that we repeatedly hear that he had two tours of duty and (2) that he volunteered in the first place, and I believe both of those are a little overstated, if you could clarify.

John O’Neill: Why don’t we deal first with whether he volunteered.  The records show that he actually applied for a deferment.  He had gotten four student deferments in a row at Yale from the draft and he applied for a deferment to go study in Paris.  The Draft Board denied the deferment.  He was up near the top of the list.  He volunteered at that point in time in lieu of getting drafted.  So, it is true that he volunteered, but he volunteered right before he was going to get drafted, after applying for a deferment that got turned down from the draft.  He volunteered for the Navy and the Naval Reserve and that was fine, but later when he came back as an antiwar guy, he had to explain what he was doing in Vietnam.  So, he gave an interview to a publication called The Harvard Crimson.  In this interview, he explains that he volunteered for the Navy, that he didn’t want to get involved really in the Vietnam War, that he volunteered for Swift Boats because he understood they were out in the ocean, the Viet Cong after all didn’t have submarines or ships of any kind and that he could sort of see the war and report on it but not really be a part of it.  So, that is the story of how he got there. 

With respect to the Gridley, I think that is very, very important. One thing Kerry has done is lie over and over and claim he had two tours of duty in Vietnam.  He was on a large ship, the USS Gridley.  The Gridley was a big ship--patrol ship, actually a destroyer size ship off the – starting in California.  It spent five weeks out in the Gulf of Tonkin, well over a hundred miles from the shore of Vietnam.  Kerry claims to have made one short trip in to Danang, but the Gridley – his duty on the Gridley should be honored, but it wasn’t any kind of tour of duty in Vietnam as most of us would understand it.  It was a very short period of about five weeks when the Gridley happened to be located out in the Gulf of Tonkin.  It’s of note that the executive officer of the Gridley has condemned Kerry completely  -- has written an article condemning Kerry --and many of the sailors from the Gridley had indicated that Kerry likewise inflated his experiences on the Gridley.  That information came in after our book was published.  That is the only reason it was not included in the book. 

David: Were you finished with your explanation of the third Purple Heart yet?

John O’Neill: No.  I gave you the explanation of what Kerry said.  Kerry said there were five boats.  A mine went off, they all fled, Rassmann fell off, Kerry came back badly wounded and so on.  Here is what actually happened.  A mine went off – first of all, in the morning, before any of the incident occurred, Kerry threw a grenade into a sampan full of rice and he got a tiny amount of rice and shrapnel in his fanny.  How do I know this?  First of all, Thurlow heard the grenade and was aware of the incident.  He was ashore with Kerry that morning of March 13.  Second, I go to Kerry’s own book Tour of Duty, pages 313-317, where he relates from his journal “I got a small piece of grenade in my ass from the rice bin explosion” and then on page 317, the doctor removed the rice and shrapnel.  So, I know from Kerry’s own mouth that he did this.  Finally, I go to the Kranish book and in the Kranish book, I think it is page 105, but people could look, that at Michael Kranish’s autobiography of Kerry (John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best). Kranish quotes Rassmann as seeing the rice bin explosion where Kerry threw his grenade in and ended up with a small amount of rice in his fanny. 

The next thing I have are the records that prove that, in fact, it was rice and shrapnel removed from Kerry’s fanny and, finally, I have the physical impossibility of getting rice and shrapnel from a watermine explosion.  My understanding is that even the Kerry campaign admits now that the portion of the casualty report that says this shrapnel deal in his fanny was from a watermine is false.   This leaves the second possibility – this is the bleeding arm that Kerry claims to have had.  The problem with the bleeding arm is that all records from the incident show that Kerry had contusion minor, in other words a small bruise.  The suggested medical treatment was to put a cold cloth on it.  This could never have given rise to any kind of Purple Heart.  It was not the bleeding and wounded arm that Kerry and Rassmann described over and over again in these commercials.  I think the second major lie involved in the “no man left behind” story is what actually happened.  The story Kerry told of all of the boats fleeing and him coming back was very demeaning to the other sailors and to the other boats.  What really occurred is a tremendous watermine exploded under PCF3. It was a day nobody will ever forget.  That was a different boat than Kerry’s boat.  PCF3 commanded by Dick Pease was thrown in the air five to six feet—big Swift Boat thrown under a mine so huge it threw it into the air.  Two of the guys were thrown into the water, the officers were thrown into the ceiling.  One guy was trapped up in the gun tub under huge guns and the boat slowly began to drift, one engine running and the boat sinking out of control.  Every boat, I am proud to say, closed on PCF3 to save PCF3.  They all opened fire.  They didn’t know if there would be return fire.  I say every boat, I mean every boat except one.  One boat fled; that was John Kerry’s boat.  John Kerry, as he said, fled the scene.  That part is correct. As he said, Rassmann fell off his boat.  That part is correct too.  What isn’t correct is that everyone else stayed.  If they hadn’t stayed, the swimmers in the water and the guys in the 3 boat would be dead today.  There were great acts of heroism in saving the 3 boat by Jack Chenoweth, who picked the swimmers out of the water, and by Larry Thurlow, who finally jumped aboard the 3 boat, stopped the engines, went down into the engine hole in a boat that was sinking and began plugging it with his own hands.  After about 40 seconds, the PCFs stopped shooting because there was no return fire, and after about four or five minutes, Kerry returned to the scene when it was evident that there was no fire.  At about the same time, Chenoweth’s boat had finished picking up the swimmers, looked over and saw Rassmann in the river.  Since there had been no fire over there, they had no reason to look or expect that someone would be in the river.  They started for Rassmann.  At that point in time, Kerry arrived slightly before them, and Rassmann climbed on Kerry’s boat.  All Kerry did is return back to where everybody else had stayed all along.  That’s the second big lie – what actually happened. 

The third lie is whether or not there was fire.  This is the only one as far as I know that the Kerry camp still contends. The Kerry camp claims that when Rassmann was picked up there was still fire.  They rely on Kerry and at least one or more of his crew and they rely on Rassmann, the man in the water, and they rely on a citation of Lieutenant Larry Thurlow, which is his Bronze Star citation, which refers to fire.  I would like to address first that you need to understand what we rely on.  We now have the written statements at the time of the book of five and now ten of the sailors on the water that day.  We have the written statements of all four of the officers who survived from that day and of six other sailors  --  the only ones that can be located and they are clear that there was no fire beyond the original mine except for the fire put out by the PCFs for about 40 seconds and after that no fire at all and no fire by the time Kerry came back.  The second thing we have is the physical evidence that there was no damage or bullet holes in any of the PCFs.  The article in the New York Times which refers to three bullet holes in the Thurlow boat is extremely dishonest.  It is dishonest because we spoke to the reporter before the article came out.  The three bullet holes in the Thurlow boat in the gun top came the day before on March 12th.  How do we know that?  We know that first because Thurlow and the members of the boat say that.  Second, we know it because the gunner sitting in that turret was wounded the day before and there is a casualty report on him.  So, we know that those bullet holes occurred on March 12th not on March 13th.  With the exception of those three bullet holes, there is not a single bullet hole on any boat and there is not a single person wounded by a bullet.  These boats sat there for an hour and a half saving the 3 boat in a creek that was about 75 yards wide.   It is just inconceivable there could have been a high volume of firepower and nobody hit.  

Now, turning to what they have, with respect to Rassmann, Rassmann was in the water.  Rassmann’s account that all boats fled has been proven by everybody to be inaccurate.  Of course, Rassmann was looking at Kerry flee, and he was struggling for his life because he fell over with equipment on him and everything else.  It is very easy to see why Rassmann thought everybody fled.  Likewise, Rassmann was there when all the PCFs were firing into the bay, probably firing over his head.  It is easy to imagine why he thought those were Viet Cong and they were firing at him.  He says he dove down.  I have nothing but sympathy for Mr. Rassmann.  But the plain facts are that there wasn’t any enemy fire.

The other things that are very important on the Thurlow citation, it is very important to understand that Kerry generated a report, the after-action report, that day.  The Kerry camp has said they don’t know whether he generated it or not.  He is not sure whether it was his.  That is interesting because everybody else is sure it was his.  This is sort of like, well it’s from me but I didn’t sign it and, therefore, you can’t prove it is mine.  That is, by the way, the line of defense on a number of these incidents as we will go over.  It was from him and the other people were caught and if you read the report, it only makes sense that it was from him because it principally discusses his boat, PCF94.  That report says that there were three miles of fire, like the Battle of Gettysburg.  In other words it describes 5,000 meters of continuous fire.  That is literally like running down Cemetery and Seminary Ridge, except they are a little shorter and never getting a boat hit, never anything, in a 75 yard deal.  It is obviously a lie.

5,000 meters is 3.2 miles and Seminary Ridge is about 3 miles.  This is like Seminary and Cemetery Ridge except 75 yards because that is the width of the deal.  It says it is on both banks – heavy fire.  I can tell you there was never a force we ever encountered in Vietnam anything like that and in the little boats we sailed in, we couldn’t have taken a hundred yards of that.  We would have been out of the game in 200 yards maybe.  If it was a force of that size, everyone in the world would have known about it.  You are talking about what would have had to have been entire regiments of people.  At any rate, so the Kerry report concededly falls.  No one defends it.  Their only remaining defense is: you can’t prove it is Kerry’s because he didn’t sign it.  Yet, the recollection of the other people there is that it is his report -- that he is the guy that made the report, and I think anyone reading the report will see it deals almost exclusively with his own boat, PCF94. 

Alright, now, with respect to the fact that fire is mentioned in the Thurlow citation, how can that be if there was no fire?  This was used to try to impute the honor of Larry Thurlow, who by the way was the most highly decorated guy ever to be on Swift Boats and is generally regarded as the most courageous and who never put himself in for a medal and who didn’t see the citation for three months after he got home from Vietnam and who had many, many other medals beside this Bronze Star and who got the Bronze Star not for being under fire but for crawling into that engine hole to save the boat. 

Why does it have fire in it?  The first thing to understand is that Thurlow didn’t write his own citation.  It was written about a hundred miles north on the Island of Phu Quoc by people whose only source of information was Kerry’s after-action report that showed three miles of fire.  The citation was written and delivered after Thurlow had left.  There was no indication that Thurlow played any role at all in that report or even saw it or did anything but get it after he came back from Vietnam.  The claim is, well why didn’t he correct it or something at the time?  The short answer is that Thurlow could have cared less.  Thurlow wouldn’t have made any difference.  Thurlow knew he was getting an award, not for anything related to fire but for crawling into the engine hole and jumping onto the boat.  Thurlow had jumped onto the boat, fell off, was almost grounded by the props, climbed back on, jumped a second time on the 3 boat, finally brought the engine to a halt, and climbed in the engine room.  When the boat was sinking, he’s the guy that stopped it from sinking and saved the guys trapped on the boat.  He deserved a lot.  He deserved anything the country could do for him and certainly deserved a lot more than the Washington Post gave him two days ago.  So that is the story.  Kerry lied about the Purple Heart.  Kerry lied at the Democratic Convention when he said it was no man left behind—it was actually one guy left.  Finally, on the issue of fire, there is vastly more evidence that there was no fire than that there was.

David: Now, could we proceed to the accounts of the Bronze and Silver Stars?

John O’Neill:  The next one would be the Silver Star, David. With respect to John Kerry’s Silver Star, we accepted the statement of facts contained in the Kranish account.   We also accepted the statement of facts contained in the Douglas Brinkley Tour of Duty account.  In essence, what occurred is Kerry made an arrangement in advance with a crewman, Medeiros, and others and possibly the other two boats to turn in if they were fired at and simply beach the boats.  They were fired at and another boat with Doug Reese and troops aboard turned into a large ambush.  Kerry remained out in the river while this occurred.  The troops routed a large number of Viet Cong.  While Kerry was milling about, a kid, teenager, described sometimes in a loincloth and sometimes in pajamas, stood up and fired a rocket at Kerry’s boat.  Kerry turned towards the lone kid.  He was shot in the legs with a machinegun by the front gunner.  He then tried to escape.  Kerry’s boat beached.  Kerry and a crewman and possibly followed by troops pursued the kid and shot him in the back.  We have taken the position that that was not a war crime, although people have claimed that it was.  We have taken that position because there was no indication the kid surrendered.   He was actually trying to run away.  We have also taken the position that this involves some degree of courage by Kerry.  Our problem comes with the Silver Star.  Shooting a wounded fleeing foe in the back is not Silver Star material. 

We would have no problem with him getting a lesser decoration.  For example, the army lieutenant who led the troops on board got a much lower medal, the army accommodation medal.  He actually did engage a large number of Viet Cong troops.  The report going to the superior officers misstated what Kerry actually did.  He represented himself to have routed an entire bunker full of Viet Congand it was on this basis that they awarded the Silver Star and reflected it in the citation.  For example, the end of the citation says that he faced numerically superior enemy and intense fire and charged into them.  One kid standing there in a loincloth is not a numerically superior enemy to a Swift Boat with 50 caliber machine guns, a crew of six and troops on board.  So, our position is that he overstated what he did.  He, therefore, got an award that he normally would not have been entitled to, although it would be reasonable to give me a lesser award.  All normal documentation is missing.  Two sworn statements required with every Silver Star are not there.  The review process that normally occurs did not occur and Kerry has lived off the Silver Star for the last 35 years.  It is not an accomplishment. Shooting a kid in the back is not an accomplishment that should occupy anybody’s life or be their principal achievement.

David: Do you think the record deficiency is a result of the fact that records don’t exist or have been withheld by Kerry?

John O’Neill: Here, I am not sure.  I think it is more likely that they either don’t exist or something else.  It is kind of speculation because he refuses to execute Standard Form 180. 

John O’Neill: I think there are two other instances that I should discuss. The other two things that I think are very important and there is a great deal more in the book, but the other two in the first half of the book relating to his Vietnam service are very important are the two that are contained in the section entitled “War Crimes”.  In January of 1969, Kerry’s boat shot up a sampan that had a mother, father and baby and child on it.   They killed the father and the child.  The mother and baby were saved.  Kerry has had various and differing accounts of this.  On one occasion, he says that heordered the gunner to fire warning shots and the gunner, instead, opened up.  I believe that account is false because you would never fire warning shots with heavy caliber weapons.  The gunner has the most sensible account and indicates generally that because Kerry was not manning the radar and gave no warning, the sampan came very close to the boat and they were left with a quick life and death decision that they had to make in Kerry’s absence.  There would have clearly been an inquiry if people found out about this particular event, but most important is the report that Kerry himself authored and sent to superior authorities that went all the way up the change of command. 

Keep in mind that in Tour of Duty and in all accounts, Kerry has always admitted that there were four people, husband, wife, baby, mother.  Instead of reporting that and reporting the dead child, whose face he said would be with him forever, in his report prepared that night, Kerry described for his superiors a tremendous success.  The dead child is gone from the report.  In place of the dead child are five VC who were trying to flee from the boat who were shot and killed.  A whole VC squad that never existed in the real world.  The child who did exist--he is omitted from the report.  The mother and baby become VC captured in action. --And the 1000 lbs. of rice that was actually on the sampan now becomes 5,000 lbs. of rice.  Impossible for a small sampan.  That report goes back to headquarters.  People are thrilled with the victory.  It goes all the way up the chain of command.  It is listed as one of the great accomplishments of our squadron and he receives a congratulatory message by people who have absolutely no idea of the scam he has pulled off.  His only defense so far that I have heard is that since he didn’t sign the report, he can’t identify it as to whether it is his report.  The report is in Navy Archives.  It is from his boat.  It’s from the night in question.  It’s clearly an authentic report.  It was first located by the Boston Globe.   He has refused to answer all questions on that report.  We are all very much ashamed of what he did.  This is not something that occurred commonly.  But it is difficult if Kerry turned a terrible human tragedy into a big victory. 

The second big thing, I think, in the War Crimes section is an event that Kerry engaged in that actually relates to me.  In 1971, when I debated Kerry on the Dick Cavett Show, I knew that I would be able to prove that our unit had never committed any war crimes because I just knew it was prohibited.  That’s just not what people did.  That’s why I was anxious to debate him.  In the course of the debate, he makes a reference to well you surely burned hooches, didn’t you?  I thought he was crazy.  I didn’t know what he was talking about and I said certainly not.  He later went on to say that he hadn’t committed any atrocities.  In reality, in February of 1969, accompanied by a second boat, Kerry went by a small village with four or five hooches in it.  Captain George Bates, United States Navy Retired, describes this looking like a small village in Ohio.  There were no Viet Cong signs.  The people, of course, had fled, but there was absolutely no indication that this was anything but just a group of subsistence farmers barely making their way in the world.  Contrary to all directives, Kerry turned into the middle of the village, beached his boat, and slaughtered all the animals, dogs, cats, chickens and pigs with heavy machineguns while Bates protested.  He then ran around with a zippo lighter simply lighting the hooches on fire.  I have checked the reports and there is no report he made that would accurately describe the incident, so I think he concealed it from the people on top of him.  He clearly violated the applicable standards.  Captain George Bates, who is one of several sources for this, describes this as a moment that he has never forgotten his whole life and he describes Kerry as a man totally without a conscience.  When Kerry came back to the United States and portrayed himself as a war protestor, Bates was simply floored by the total hypocrisy of the man.

David: Was he doing this in a tone of sadism or mania?  Was he showing off? I can’t even imagine anybody thinking that would impress anybody.  I mean, it is a despicable act.  How could anybody . . .

John O’Neill: They describe it as like a preppy gone wild.  Like a guy just in love with his own power.  They say that he would fire all the time when there was no reason; he was just out of control.  I mean, just totally out of control.  Tom Wright, who operated with him, who is also retired Navy captain would no longer operate with him after a short period and protested him being there and operating with him because he would just begin firing inexplicably. 

David: He’s the one that asked him to leave after the third Purple Heart?

John O’Neill: Yeah.  Now I think one last thing in the war crimes chapter that is important.  In Kerry’s accounts in various places including his own journal, he says he protested that the Navy was too rough or the Navy was doing things the wrong way and he has long protested at identified meetings that he claimed to have engaged in.  I have interviewed all the people at those meetings.

David: And?

John O’Neill: Never happened.  He never said a word.  What he does is create sort of an imaginary persona of a protestor over in Vietnam.

David: Right.

John O’Neill: In truth, when he dealt with his superior officers, he was always subservient. His protests began only when he came back to the United States.

David: Thank you.  May I go on to these miscellaneous questions real quick?

John O’Neill: Sure

Return to Part I | Continue to Part III