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What
follows is an article written for a San Diego paper by Captain J. F.
Kelly, who as Commander Kelly was XO of GRIDLEY in the period of
1967 and 1968 when Kerry was aboard.
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.
John Kerry
and I were shipmates in the guided missile cruiser USS Gridley
(CG-21) in 1967 and 1968. He served as First Lieutenant, the officer
in charge of the deck division, and I was Executive Officer, or second
in command. I remember him as a serious and intelligent young ensign,
seemingly mature beyond his years. The skipper and I were mightily
impressed with him in spite of his inexperience. He had excellent verbal
skills and great poise so we assigned him a collateral duty as Public
Affairs Officer. Because of these duties and his basic responsibilities
for seamanship evolutions and the overall external appearance of the
ship, I had close, daily contact with him. To put it another way, I
would be all over his case, if the ship wasn’t shipshape. Turns out he
didn’t need too much supervision in that regard. He was a fine division
officer and his men obviously respected him.
We deployed
from San Diego to the Vietnam theatre in early 1968 after only a
six-month turnaround and spent most of a four month deployment on rescue
station in the Gulf of Tonkin, standing by to pick up downed aviators.
It was a fairly grueling tour of duty. Our helicopter was shot up trying
to rescue a downed pilot and the door gunner was killed. The crew
performed well and John Kerry’s performance in all aspects of his duty
was outstanding. Drafting his fitness reports was an exercise in the use
of superlatives. In fact, of the thirty or so officers, I counted him in
the top half dozen, no mean feat for an ensign.
I tried to
interest him in a naval career. Silly me! It was obvious he had bigger
fish to fry. I drafted the favorable endorsement on his request for
Swift Boat duty on the rivers of Vietnam, were he distinguished himself
in combat. Before he left, he gave me his bridge coat and several other
uniform items, saying that he wouldn’t be needing them in the “brown
water” navy.
Aside from
a Christmas card and an aborted telephone call, I didn’t hear further
from John until I read about his anti-war antics including his
appearance with Hanoi Jane Fonda and the famous episode of throwing
medals onto the capitol steps during a protest.
While he was protesting
against the war, many of us were still fighting in it. Many of us felt
betrayed that one of our own, a decorated hero, would give comfort to
the enemy by such actions. Think what you want about the wisdom in
getting involved in that war, two presidents, both Democrats, committed
the armed forces they commanded to fight it. Make no mistake; actions by
the likes of Fonda and Kerry were damaging to our morale, gave aid and
comfort to the forces we were fighting and altered the eventual outcome
in a manner less favorable to the United States than if they had kept
their mouths shut. The time for anti-war protests is before the war
starts.
There is no
question that John Kerry earned his decorations and that he put his life
at risk in the service of his country. There is no doubt in my mind,
moreover, that he has the intelligence to serve as president. But there
is also no doubt in my mind that his anti-war activities while our
troops were still fighting, dying and being tortured in filthy Vietnam
prisons were despicable.
For that
reason, even aside from his anti-defense voting record in the Senate, he
is one ex-shipmate that I could never support as commander-in-chief of
the armed forces.
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Here are the comments of
Phil Carter, RD2, on some of the items in the TOUR OF DUTY coverage of
Kerry's time on GRIDLEY. He urges everyone to read it for
themselves.
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.
Here are my
observations on the sections that bothered me:
1. Kerry
never talked about his time on GRIDLEY. He says on page 74 that it is
because “nothing much of note” happened while he was onboard. He uses
words like monotony and tedious, when, despite being a boot ensign he
was given every opportunity for responsibility by Captain Slifer and
Commander Kelly (XO). He came aboard designated for Electrical Officer
(80100), a grunt position in the Engineering Department and spent four
months in that position. He was assigned duty as First
Lieutenant, as Commander Kelly recalls, because of his knowledge of
seamanship and his experiences with small boats and sailing. Besides
being responsible for the decks of the ship, the First Lieutenant is
also responsible for the ship’s small boats. He also was assigned
collateral duties as Public Affairs Officer. Despite all the
responsibilities he was given, he gives the impression that serving on
GRIDLEY was somehow beneath him. He certainly had less of an
opportunity to collect “gongs” there.
2. Page 78 –
“motivate 400 swabbies” – The First Lieutenant is responsible only for
the personnel of 1st Division, not the entire crew. 1st
Division had a roster of about 30 in 1968. To the extent that other
divisions had responsibility for deck space, their officers would have
been responsible for motivating them.
3. Page 87
has Kerry “shuttling sailors and provisions” between GRIDLEY and KITTY
HAWK in a small motor whaleboat out in the Gulf of Tonkin. The
regular method of travel between the two ships was via helo. That is
how I went over to the KITTY HAWK. If such an event did occur, it would
have been unusual and hardly a shuttle.
4. Later on
page 87 Kerry talks about Olongapo in the Philippines. He talks about
bloated corpses floating in the river and starving women with babies
dying of malnutrition. Now Olongapo was a wild and wooly town that
existed solely for the entertainment of the US Navy, but in over three
years of calling there, I never saw a single instance of either thing
happening. Kerry uncovered this in his first visit. If this was from
his letters home then he was certainly writing for dramatic effect.
Balderdash.
5. The trip
to Danang – GRIDLEY went into Danang for briefings before going to
Northern SAR. This section is so full of hyperbole that the urge to
giggle is almost uncontrollable. “The panic and pressure onboard
GRIDLEY, strapping on a .45, wondering if I would have to use it, B-52’s
howling overhead”. A B-52 over Danang would have been so high that only
contrails would have been visible, cloud cover permitting. David Simons
confirmed my recollection that during our brief stay in Danang Harbor,
the sky was overcast to the point of being ominous.
More
seriously, no one can remember John Kerry going ashore. I was part of
the shore party that went to Monkey Mountain. We were taken in a
screened in truck (to protect against grenades being tossed in) and made
to unload our .45’s. The driver said that he did not want us newbies to
shoot anyone by accident.
Neither
Commander Kelly nor LCDR Rueckert (Kerry’s immediate boss) can recall
approving a trip ashore for Ensign Kerry. The author uses remarks of
David Simons IC2 as a lead in to the Danang section. I spoke to David
and he has no personal knowledge of Kerry going ashore at all. He did
talk to a researcher and made some generic remarks about Danang but had
never discussed Danang with Kerry. He recalls arguing with the
researcher because he tried to put the words “cowboy” in his mouth,
which ended up in the book.
There is no
mystery about the “gruesome site of a pile of dead VC.” We saw no sign
of anything like this. However, our escort to Monkey Mountain did tell
us how the VC bodies were stacked up on the LZ’s after the TET
Offensive, which had been several months before. Ensign Kerry would
have been told this story by members of the shore party.
If, indeed, he
got to the pier, because he was in charge of the motor whaleboat, it
certainly would not have been within his purview to wander Danang,
eating dog meat and drinking beer in a bar (under arms). It also seems
amazing that he had all these observations on Vietnam in such a brief
visit.
6. In command
– Again with the hyperbole. Kerry makes much about being “in charge” of
the ship after the Captain and XO. The OOD is in charge of the
operation of the ship during his four hour watch but hardly in charge of
the ship. Kerry qualified almost immediately as OOD(P), in port OOD but
that is a given. For much of his time onboard he would have been Junior
Officer of the Deck when underway. Although his fitness report as of 22
March says "he is qualified as OOD(I) now" (Independent steaming – with
no ships or land anywhere near) , only OOD(P) is listed under duties.
His Fitness Report from July 1968 lists two months as OOD(I) which would
mean he qualified after leaving the war zone.
Some of these
points may be perceived as picky, but they seem to show a deliberate
effort in his writings of the time to build a mystique for a future
political career showing him as a great leader, father confessor to the
ship and astute analyst of political and military happenings.
That is not to
say that Kerry was not a good officer. He was and to my recollection
was well liked. Did he stalk the passageways showing his future
presidential timber? Absolutely not. A reporter from the Chicago
Tribune actually asked me that. When I told him that he was just
another goofy Ensign, he was horrified and did not use that quote.
I corresponded
with a CNN Producer who was working on Kerry's bio that was shown on
July 25. I provided them with three or four photographs of Kerry on
GRIDLEY but they were uninterested in anything else I had to say.
Jim Hampton who was a BT2 at
the time writes:
I was the BT on the forward Fueling
station. Kerry was the Deck officer in charge of it. I came up to man
the station for fueling and Kerry informed me that we would fuel at 50
PSI and he wanted 15-10-54321 standbys to secure. I informed
Hinderliter BT1 and the oil king of the order. Before Hinderliter had a
chance to respond LCDR Butts came on the line from Main Control (Fwd
Engine room) and said to put Kerry on my phone line. For everyones
info, the fueling phone system was on a speaker in the two enginerooms.
Lcdr Butts informed Kerry he was responsible for hooking up the hose and
unhooking it and seamanship on the fwd fueling station. The oil king
would fuel the ship. That was my contact with Kerry while he was
aboard.
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