Thurlow Soon To Be A Distant Memory: Military records counter a Kerry critic

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: umbrella39

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
comparing a war against people who killed over 3,000 of our citizens with a group of ppl that are making accusation against a presidental candidate is... well, mind boggling.

As much as I would like to see and end to dirty campaigning on both sides, and as much as I would like to see the country better, safer, richer, I cannot begin to compare the two.

🙂

There is no war going on against the people who killed over 3,000 of our citizens. Please let us know when that war begins because our occupation of Iraq certainly does not qualify. Thanks.

This is true, the real Country of origin of the Sand Thug that orchestrated the killing of 3,000 civillians on American soil hails from Saudi Arabia, we certainly were off by quite a bit in our attack.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: wiin

Their house of cards is collapsing!

It ain't so:

Yes, it is so and posting that liar Thurlow's message from the World Nut Daily sure isn't helping your case.

The man is a liar.

 

[KarenMarie]

Wow!! ...just wow!!

This is getting all funky here... personal attacks and being nasty are not a postive reflection on anyone... so let's just try to be adult instead of vicious.

Now...

I did not dismiss or apologize for anyone. Did Bush lie about the war... well, he was not being truthful. I know that. I think everyone was misled. Everyone. I do think, however, Bush was short sighted and acted hastily. He has gotten us bogged down into a war that is fvcking up our country, making us a target for every lunatic on the planet who ever disiked us. And the list of those who dislike us has grown. And I agree, Iraq qas not involved in 9/11. We should have finished in Afghanistan before going elsewhere, if going anywhere else at all. Saddam was not an immediate threat. We lost face, and too many lives. Bush bit off more than he could chew, and we are all paying the price for that. It was a major fvck up. And Bush destroyed our education. And immigration changes are disgusting. And he is pissing away money that we have no business doing.

Kerry denounced the ad the same day... he did, indeed. I already conceded that. However, his aides are still accusing Bush of using family ties to get out of combat. And he hired Zach Exley... which I think says a lot.

My not wanting to know... hahaha!! MoveOn.org gets as much creedence as SBVFT. They are both the same. They both have an agenda and are both looking to use smear tactics as a means to their own end. I choose NOT to make my decision on what EITHER of them have to say. If anyone else choses to do so.. that is up to them. I prefer to read the news.... read the respective candidates websites and listen to the candidates themselves.

Seems to me that being willing to listen to both sides is not good enough for some. Hating Bush is the only answer here, huh? And again, I am not a Bush fan, I am not a Kerry fan. I think this election will be about who will fvck up the country the least. I have seen what Bush can do, and another four years... I hope not... But kerry will have to come up with more that he has done so far. His political record is way off for me, but he seems to have swung over to the middle, so he says. I have not yet decided who I will vote for yet. But when I decide, it will be based on more than MoveOn.Org and SBVFT!!

As far as you saying I should STFU... hahaha!!! Pure class!

🙂

 

[fjord]

Wow--I thought Ohio was a lock for Bush.

If Ohio is in play--That has to be a telling sign that Bush is toast.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

This is true, the real Country of origin of the Sand Thug that orchestrated the killing of 3,000 civillians on American soil hails from Saudi Arabia, we certainly were off by quite a bit in our attack.

He was exciled from that country many decades previously

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

This is true, the real Country of origin of the Sand Thug that orchestrated the killing of 3,000 civillians on American soil hails from Saudi Arabia, we certainly were off by quite a bit in our attack.

He was exciled from that country many decades previously

So are you saying his new home was Iraq??? :shocked: 😕

That's a new excuse for invading IraQ

 

[Perknose]

LOL, KarenMarie, first of all, allow me to apololgize for mixing up your name. It was inadvertant -- one big Freudian slip on my part, I guess. Sorry. Now, on to the issues.

You say: I am not outraged, either. As far as mind boggling... We were attacked and 3,000 of our people were killed. Bush said "with us or against us". A group of ppl said that Kerry was lying. Kerry says to Bush "denounce them or it means you support them". I don't see how the two can be compared. A war against a group of people....

AGAIN, you leave out of the timeline the part where Bush attacks Iraq even though they had nothing to do with 9/11. Why do you continue to ignore this?

We are less safe than before, with no way to win, and no exit strategy for a war that has caused us to slight the REAL war on terror.

You say: Personally, I don't care if Bush denounces or doesn't. I dont know if SBVFT are lying or not. I don't care. This smear campaign, like all others from both Repubs and Dems have nothing to do with the issues of the country, and the changes that need to be made.

You're half right. The SBVFT Smear campaign has nothing to do wth the issues of the country. In 9/11, Michael Moore talks about the Bush family ties with the Saudis and the bin Laden's and the companies who right now are the biggest financial beneficiaries of this bloody, god forsaken war. THIS IS AN ISSUE!!

You say: The issue is not the war...

OMGWTFBBQ! Yes, it IS! We have wasted the lives of hundreds upon hundreds of young Americans and billions upon billions of our money, exacerbating an already sky high national debt only to make us less safer and less focused on the real war on terrorism.

You continue to ignore this.

Oh, and Moveon.org was formed long before Kerry was the presumptive nominee primarily to fight the man responsible for this dog of a war, George Bush. They oppose him on a broad range of political issues based on his performance as President, NOT just his war duty 30 years ago. You simply cannot compare them with the bought and sold SBVFT blowhards -- unless, of course, you are FAR less biased than you would ever like to admit.

 

[KarenMarie]

I said the issue is not the war... the original issue of the topic was not about the war. It was about Bush denouncing SBVFT. I was stating that the issue was not about the war, but the original topic. But the war keeps coming up, so I commented on it. My comment on the issue not being about the war was in response to the post on the last page.

A poster compared the SBVFT with the war. I said the issue is not the war. It was denouncing SBVFT. It was the thread topic. This medium is very limited and I was comparing the topic issue with a poster. I was not saying that the war did not matter, or is not an issue. My comment was, most likely by mistake, taken out of context there.

But the issue of war keeps coming up. If we are discussing whether the issue of the election is about the war... then yes, it certainly is!! Absolutely. And Bush fvcked us into a corner now. It is going to get a lot uglier before the final smoke clears. With him being commander in chief, it falls directly on his desk. Iraq was not an immediate threat. He opened a hotbed of death and destruction there. No question.

We were attacked, repeatedly thru the years, and no one did anything about it. Something has to be done. However, Bush went about it the wrong way. It is bad, and will get worse.

MoveOn.Org was indeed in place before Kerry was the official nominee. But months and months went by that Kerry said nothing. Not only from MoveOn.org, but from many sources. And the behaviour at the DNC was pretty tacky and Kerry not only did not denounce it, but said that reflected the value of the entire nation. That was not a good thing, I am sure you will agree.

Am I biased? Well, I tend to think I am not. I have voted the man, not the party my entire life. But I will not jump on a bandwagon and hate anyone just to tow the party line. I have questions/issues with BOTH sides.

Therefore, I will listen to both sides (not McCain/Feingold get-by group) and make a decision based on what I think will be best for the country. With these two candidates, it is proving pretty hard.

:beer:

 

[AndrewR]

Three out of five Swift Boat commanders that day say there was no hostile fire. One other commander was killed one month later. The last commander who claims there was hostile fire is Kerry. The one big supporting witness, the Green Beret, was blown into the water from an explosion.

So, all three Swift Boat skippers are lying, but Kerry is telling the truth? Just like he was in Cambodia, Christmas 1968? I hear medal citations every month that are complete bullsh!t. It's entirely plausible from my point of view that these could have been as well -- they aren't written by God.

 

[Painman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/politics/campaign/20swift.html

Register, or use bugmenot. 5 pages of Swift Boat Loser Smackdown.

After you're done reading, don't forget to link back to the Campaign 2004 main page and check out the spiffy pop-up chart they made to go along with the article.

Between this, the WaPo article, Kerry's volley and tonight's flesh-rending on MSNBC, I can't think of a better backdrop for the unveiling of these clowns' new, shiny ad. If Flightsuit Boy sticks with his refusal to repudiate these guys, they're his (additional) albatross. If he does condemn them, he's a flip-flopper.

Yesir, I predict a 15 point bounce for him coming out of the imminent RNC convention. :laugh:

 

[conjur]

Long article...here's the first portion:

After weeks of taking fire over veterans' accusations that he had lied about his Vietnam service record to win medals and build a political career, Senator John Kerry shot back yesterday, calling those statements categorically false and branding the people behind them tools of the Bush campaign.

His decision to take on the group directly was a measure of how the group that calls itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has catapulted itself to the forefront of the presidential campaign. It has advanced its cause in a book, in a television advertisement and on cable news and talk radio shows, all in an attempt to discredit Mr. Kerry's war record, a pillar of his campaign.

How the group came into existence is a story of how veterans with longstanding anger about Mr. Kerry's antiwar statements in the early 1970's allied themselves with Texas Republicans.

Mr. Kerry called them "a front for the Bush campaign" - a charge the campaign denied.

A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove.

Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.

The strategy the veterans devised would ultimately paint John Kerry the war hero as John Kerry the "baby killer" and the fabricator of the events that resulted in his war medals. But on close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements.

Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.

In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr. Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley, provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."

In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."

George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was "an act of courage." At that same event, Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement about the "bravado and courage of the young officers that ran the Swift boats."

"Senator Kerry was no exception," Mr. Lonsdale told the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown Navy Yard. "He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."

Those comments echoed the official record. In an evaluation of Mr. Kerry in 1969, Mr. Elliott, who was one of his commanders, ranked him as "not exceeded" in 11 categories, including moral courage, judgment and decisiveness, and "one of the top few" - the second-highest distinction - in the remaining five. In written comments, he called Mr. Kerry "unsurpassed," "beyond reproach" and "the acknowledged leader in his peer group."

The Admiral Calls

It all began last winter, as Mr. Kerry was wrapping up the Democratic nomination. Mr. Lonsdale received a call at his Massachusetts home from his old commander in Vietnam, Mr. Hoffmann, asking if he had seen the new biography of the man who would be president.

Mr. Hoffmann had commanded the Swift boats during the war from a base in Cam Ranh Bay and advocated a search-and-destroy campaign against the Vietcong - the kind of tactic Mr. Kerry criticized when he was a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971. Shortly after leaving the Navy in 1978, he was issued a letter of censure for exercising undue influence on cases in the military justice system.

Continued

Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad

Graphic: Connections and Contradictions

 

[smashp]

ummmmm, ummmm, ummmm, But Kerry Eats Kittens......


the article in the times today shows the lack of truth involved in this Group. the are political Hacks.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne

Originally posted by: Genx87
I havent seen the ads or listened to Thurlow. But the author of the book made it very clear they were under attack at one point but when Kerry picked up the Green Beret there was no hostile fire going on.

So this is more dancing around the issue imo.

so basically your opinion is worthless then?
This whole switfboat lie is falling apart day by day. First one of the guys retracts one of his statements, now we find out that Thurlow was clearly lying. What more do you Republicans want before you'll accept that they are flat out lying about Kerry?

So why didn't Thurlow turn down his medal???

 

[Riprorin]

Yesterday, a member of O'Neill's group responded to a Washington Post article that questioned the veteran's veracity.

The paper reported that newly obtained military records of Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy swiftboat alongside Kerry, contradict Thurlow's claim that Kerry was not under enemy fire when he pulled Rassman out of the Bay Hap River after the mine explosion.

Thurlow insists military records cited in the story are based on a fraudulent after-action report by Kerry himself.

Link

 

[conjur]

You're quoting from the World Net Daily? When a *real* paper picks up your lies, Rip, then I might consider it.

 

[villager]

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit

Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne

Originally posted by: Genx87
I havent seen the ads or listened to Thurlow. But the author of the book made it very clear they were under attack at one point but when Kerry picked up the Green Beret there was no hostile fire going on.

So this is more dancing around the issue imo.

so basically your opinion is worthless then?
This whole switfboat lie is falling apart day by day. First one of the guys retracts one of his statements, now we find out that Thurlow was clearly lying. What more do you Republicans want before you'll accept that they are flat out lying about Kerry?

So why didn't Thurlow turn down his medal???

Here is link for video of the interview. Sounds like someone is yelling in the background of Thurlows answers.

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: kage69
I love how they refuse to admit Bush was AWOL simply because the word itself wasn't used. Doesn't matter that he was gone for five months and not a single person can remember seeing him at the base.

That's like getting into a car wreck, and then later denying it ever happened because there was no accident report filed. Too funny. Yeah, it's a real stretch to think that an influential father, who already arranged pretty much everything for his numbnuts son, couldn't get a military record altered. If getting your son shoved to top of the pilot list for the National Guard is no big deal, then having someone omit a single word from a record doesn't sound like a big deal.

Actually he was not AWOL because he was missing for more then a month. If you are not present for duty for less then or equal to a month you are AWOL but anything over a month is desertion. So yes he was not AWOL but instead desereted his unit because he was missing from his unit for more then a month.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Drift3r

Originally posted by: kage69
I love how they refuse to admit Bush was AWOL simply because the word itself wasn't used. Doesn't matter that he was gone for five months and not a single person can remember seeing him at the base.

That's like getting into a car wreck, and then later denying it ever happened because there was no accident report filed. Too funny. Yeah, it's a real stretch to think that an influential father, who already arranged pretty much everything for his numbnuts son, couldn't get a military record altered. If getting your son shoved to top of the pilot list for the National Guard is no big deal, then having someone omit a single word from a record doesn't sound like a big deal.

Actually he was not AWOL because he was missing for more then a month. If you are not present for duty for less then or equal to a month you are AWOL but anything over a month is desertion. So yes he was not AWOL but instead desereted his unit because he was missing from his unit for more then a month.

Well that and there is no such thing as AWOL in the guard. All required training was completed and an honorable discharge was received. All of this is validated by the release of all military records.

 

[Hossenfeffer]

Ugh, somebody make this whole thing go away.

I grew up with my sister and each of us have vastly different accountings of events we were both present at, and that's only been in the last 20-25 years.

 

[ciba]

I have actually read this entire thread now. I see nothing that shows Thurlow lied. At worst, he accepted a medal in which the citation was not an accurate portrayal of events.

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Drift3r

Originally posted by: kage69
I love how they refuse to admit Bush was AWOL simply because the word itself wasn't used. Doesn't matter that he was gone for five months and not a single person can remember seeing him at the base.

That's like getting into a car wreck, and then later denying it ever happened because there was no accident report filed. Too funny. Yeah, it's a real stretch to think that an influential father, who already arranged pretty much everything for his numbnuts son, couldn't get a military record altered. If getting your son shoved to top of the pilot list for the National Guard is no big deal, then having someone omit a single word from a record doesn't sound like a big deal.

Actually he was not AWOL because he was missing for more then a month. If you are not present for duty for less then or equal to a month you are AWOL but anything over a month is desertion. So yes he was not AWOL but instead desereted his unit because he was missing from his unit for more then a month.

Well that and there is no such thing as AWOL in the guard. All required training was completed and an honorable discharge was received. All of this is validated by the release of all military records.

So why hasn't he released his records ? Including the records that show that he was on duty during the months in question ?? Why haven't people come foward to vouch for him and say "Yes I served with Bush during that time period in question." ??

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Drift3r

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Drift3r

Originally posted by: kage69
I love how they refuse to admit Bush was AWOL simply because the word itself wasn't used. Doesn't matter that he was gone for five months and not a single person can remember seeing him at the base.

That's like getting into a car wreck, and then later denying it ever happened because there was no accident report filed. Too funny. Yeah, it's a real stretch to think that an influential father, who already arranged pretty much everything for his numbnuts son, couldn't get a military record altered. If getting your son shoved to top of the pilot list for the National Guard is no big deal, then having someone omit a single word from a record doesn't sound like a big deal.

Actually he was not AWOL because he was missing for more then a month. If you are not present for duty for less then or equal to a month you are AWOL but anything over a month is desertion. So yes he was not AWOL but instead desereted his unit because he was missing from his unit for more then a month.

Well that and there is no such thing as AWOL in the guard. All required training was completed and an honorable discharge was received. All of this is validated by the release of all military records.

So why hasn't he released his records ? Including the records that show that he was on duty during the months in question ?? Why haven't people come foward to vouch for him and say "Yes I served with Bush during that time period in question." ??

Because he was helping run a senate campaign at the time. He was neither awol or missing.
Oh his records also say he requested vietnam duty, but his unit was not sent.