U.S.S. Gridley -- a new SwiftLiars scandal?

[Dogmudgeon]

A new bunch of SwiftLiars?

http://www.ussgridley.com

John Kerry was assigned to the U.S.S. Gridley (DLG-21/CG-21) in the late 1960s. It looks like a couple of old shipmates who are now Republicans have decided to pimp their own wartime experiences in the manner of the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush. Phil Carter seems to be the Big Cheese in this one.

Although only one page is dedicated to Kerry, most of the rest of the site is for guys who served on the Gridley during the same period as Kerry. I suppose Carter is casting around for other hard-right Bushites to go in on his little jihad.

Here's the Home Page:
http://home.nycap.rr.com/pwcarter/index.html

Here's a list of contributors:

Keith Ott $100
Cliff Tejada $100
Wayne Hoppke $100
Phil Carter $323
Tom Pendergast $ 25
Kevin Reilly $ 40
Rich Aamodt $ 25

Here's the poop:

GRIDLEY already has a bank account with $490 in it. We don't need much, any size donation would be appreciated. Send them to Phil Carter, 19. N. Helderberg Pky, Slingerlands, NY 12159 . There will be an accounting for the money posted on the site. Total expenses so far have been $323.00 to register the www.ussgridley.com name and that is up for renewal in the end of May each year.

...

We have set up an e-mail group where members can post messages that go to everyone in the group. It used to be called e-groups but now it has been purchased by Yahoo. Here is how it works - you go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ussgridley and click on the link to subscribe. Fill out all of the required information and follow the instructions. One of the moderators will approve your membership and then you will get confirmation of that. We are doing this to keep the list closed to those who were truly crew members.

There are times that I kind of wish the supporters of John Kerry could do something like this concerning George Bush, but there's one problem: George Bush never showed up for his final year of duty. You have to actually show up before anyone can trade on their military service for cheap political gain.

--bkl

[Feanorcurufinwe]

1. 'served with Kerry, saw courageous, respectful officer'

Courier and Press: Regristration required:
http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/letters_to_the_editors/article/0,1626,ECP_769_3119926,00.html


In Response: Area resident served with Kerry, saw courageous, respectful officer

By ANTHONY E. SCHMITT Special to the Courier & Press
August 19, 2004

I have never written to the Courier & Press before. Letters to the editor at times amuse me, sometimes anger me, but always, I put the newspaper down knowing that opinions can be freely expressed here. This time, I am compelled to write because I feel I have something to contribute. My feelings about presidential candidate John Kerry are drawn from my experiences and observations while serving in the U.S. Navy with him aboard the USS Gridley from June 1967 to June 1968. In June 1967, I was 18 years old and returning from my first West Pac deployment. That tour, along with the subsequent one with Kerry aboard, was spent on search-and-rescue duty, providing support to carriers and assistance to downed aviators and aircraft in distress.

Young and green as grass, Ensign Kerry joined the Gridley soon after we arrived in the ship's home port of Long Beach, Calif., just as I was departing for leave in Indiana. Returning to the ship 10 days later, I observed that Kerry had already made a favorable impression on my enlisted crewmates in the ship's office. In the year I served with Kerry aboard the USS Gridley, both in port and under way, and in hostile waters off the coast of Vietnam (for which we received combat pay), I observed this officer, always with a favorable impression. My recollections of Kerry are those of a serious yet friendly individual who, unlike many officers, did not look down upon a lowly enlisted man such as myself. Kerry was unassuming and respectful of everyone. In my duties both as a yeoman in the ship's office, and tracking surface and air targets in the Combat Information Center, I had many occasions to observe interactions between Kerry and others. He was honest and straightforward, a genuine person, unabsorbed in himself. I found Kerry to be quite charismatic, and he participated in activities with enlisted men, while other officers seldom did. He assumed a quiet junior officer role in the company of his senior officers, but appeared to garner great respect when he did speak. Kerry did not wear his religion on his sleeve, but as I recall, while under way, he was the only officer aboard who participated in the poorly attended nondenominational church services.

In my mind, John Kerry's military service is unquestionably honorable and beyond reproach. Many Vietnam veterans, myself included, have wrestled with our county's role in that war, the value of our individual service and the cost to our nation both in lives and treasure. My own impressions of that long-ago conflict continue to evolve, but I knew while in the service that our policies were not working. I chose to leave the United States and live in Australia after completing my military service. John Kerry came back home and enlisted in the fight to stop the war and the dying. At that time, he knew his involvement with a peace group was not the politically correct thing, but he did became involved anyway. Just as he could have stayed with the relatively safe white-water navy, John Kerry chose to volunteer to make a difference in the dangerous brown-water navy of the swift boats.

My observations of the man lead me to believe it was Kerry's sense of duty to his country and empathy for those he left behind in Vietnam that propelled him to join the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I don't know if that was the right thing to do at the time, or even now. However, I do know that I have a sense of guilt for doing nothing after my discharge from the military, while American soldiers continued to die in a war that I knew was going nowhere. It lasted another excruciatingly painful six years. In my mind, John Kerry had another kind of courage after his military discharge. He received no medals, only scorn, for attempting to do something about a war he knew to be wrong. Those who fought in that war have the right to judge him for that. After the war, I know I did nothing to stop it, and for that I am not proud. These are difficult times that require a leader with unique courage and the ability to bring the country, and the world, together for our very survival. At this time in our nation's history, I believe John Kerry possesses the very character, courage, and skills to do just that.

[girl gone mad]

2. $323 to register a website?

Yep, they must be Republicans.

[IndianaGreen]

3. These vets are taking issue with Kerry's official bio, Tour of Duty

specifically the account of his service aboard the Gridley. The Gridley sailors take issue with Tour of Duty as you can see from reading Phil Carter's account.

The Gridley's XO, Commander Kelly, echoes the views of many, many veterans that were offended by Kerry's words and antiwar activities after he got out of the Navy. This is a legitimate issue that has been festering for over 30-years, and that Kerry could have addressed when he spoke to the American Legion on Wednesday, but failed to do so.

Living With His Anti-war Past

A Commentary

By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

Every candidate for public office probably has some excess baggage to carry around that he’d rather not have. With Senator John Kerry, it’s undoubtedly his anti-Vietnam War activism that followed his heroic naval service in Vietnam.

http://home.nycap.rr.com/pwcarter/the%20kerry%20page.html

I was an E-5 radarman on the USS GRIDLEY and was onboard from 1965 until May of 1968. My principal role in 67 and 68 was to prepare intelligence information to brief the rescue helo pilots and the ship’s officers. I received a commendation from CINCPACFLT for this activity. I stood quite a few CIC watches with Ensign Kerry where we discussed many things, including the war. I was college educated, had traveled extensively in Europe before the Navy and spoke French, so there was some commonality despite my being enlisted. By that time, I was on my 3rd cruise and against the way the war was being waged. He was not, as I recall.

I am a registered independent and have no axe to grind with him. I gave him a reasonably large campaign contribution in the mid 1990’s and visited with him for about 30 minutes in an alcove outside the Senate chambers in 1996 when I was in DC on business.

Ensign Kerry was a fine young officer. He came aboard as a boot Ensign on June 8, 1967 and quickly impressed the senior officers in his chain of command. His fitness reports were outstanding. His privileged upbringing with experience in yachting and flying a private plane gave him a leg up on the other Ensigns.

When I read “Tour of Duty”, I became concerned because the material on Kerry’s time on GRIDLEY appeared in many instances to be exaggerations and in some cases figments of an overactive imagination.

http://home.nycap.rr.com/pwcarter/the%20kerry%20page.html

[A_Possum]

4. Listen, Kerry sank the USS Gridley

Not too many people know that but there are sailors who spent months on a raft in the Pacific, the only survivors besides Kerry, but until now they've never revealed that Kerry ate human flesh and then threw them off on a desert island with only a fishhook while he took kept the outboard and motored to An Thoi so he could get command of a Swift boat.

But thank god they cobbled together this raft out of coconuts and finally drifted ashore off the California coast just in time to catch Kerry's senate testimony. They were outraged that he called them sunburned, smelly yahoos he didn't want to share a life raft with, and they've never forgiven him after 35 years.

The story goes something like that. You'll be hearing it soon.

(Apologies to any real Gridley vets; this is what it's come to.)

On Edit: No, in fact having just read this picky, silly and distorted claim from this Phil Carter, that Kerry was making up stuff in his letters home--I make absolutely no apology to him. I think Carter's making up stuff. He appears to be unable to distinguish the author, David Brinkley's, words from Kerry's, and is all huffy cause Brinkley didn't give enough star time to the Gridley in the book.

The whole bunch of these smearvets just look more and more like jealous pr*cks who don't like it that some other guy got the limelight.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Kick time!

Time to kick this ragdoll of a thread to the top.

--bkl

[Frank Rose]

6. I did a newsmeat search for the donation to Kerry

for both Phil and Phillip Carter of NY, didn't show anything like that. Also he called a Boston Whaler a small whale boat, or something like that, not very Naval sounding IMO.