I have a very clear memory of an incident which occurred while I was the Medical Officer at Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay.

John Kerry was a (jg), the OinC or skipper of a Swift boat, newly arrived in Vietnam. On the night of December 2, he was on patrol north of Cam Ranh, up near Nha Trang area. The next day he came to sick bay, the medical facility, for treatment of a wound that had occurred that night.

The story he told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.

Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.

That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.

What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.

I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.

The wound was covered with a bandaid.

Not [sic] other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any reported damage to the boat.

Follow the money, son...you won't be so easily led around by the nose.

Start here:
Merrie Spaeth
John E. O'Neill
Roy Hoffman


End here:
Texas
Karl Rove

... meanwhile, back in Texas, Bush was snortin' blow off hookers chests between swigs of Jack Daniels.

Oddball Wrote:Follow the money, son...you won't be so easily led around by the nose.

Like Richard Clark? :D

(And does any of this matter anyway?)

Funny how Woodward confirms the main points of Clark's book, isn't it? :wave:

Oddball Wrote:Funny how Woodward confirms the main points of Clark's book, isn't it? :wave:

So did Paul O'Neil's book. :)

And much of the testimony of the people who appeared in front of the 9/11 commission.

This showing of how flawed both presidents are is brought to you by Gary Nolan and the Libertarian Party.