March 11, 2004
The Tenth Man
 Stephen
M. Gardner, the
only Kerry boatmate who hadn't been heard from, has now surfaced.
As suspected, his story does not fit the JFK2 legend. Gardner says
Kerry was "chickensh-t," an "opportunist" and an "a--hole."
Unfortunately, Time's story is written by Douglas Brinkley,
about the last man you'd want to assess Gardner's
credibility. Brinkley, after all, has a whole lot
invested in his Tour of Duty tale of Kerry heroism
and leadership. He's also publicity-mad. ... The lines
that will be used to discredit Gardner are fully deployed in Brinkley's
piece. Gardner listens to Rush Limbaugh! He's a Republican! He
hates Bill Clinton! Kerry once threatened him with a court-martial, he
claims. ... Maybe Gardner's not to be trusted. But I don't trust
Brinkley to be the one not to trust him. The Limbaugh angle is
especially overplayed. (Gardner decided to come forward after listening
to Limbaugh express suspicions about Kerry. Not irrelevant, but
Brinkley tries his best to make it seem discrediting.) ... Brinkley
also writes that Gardner
claims he works at Millennium Services (an insurance
inspection company) ...
Well, does he work there or doesn't he? Couldn't Brinkley or
TIME have checked? If he does, why is that word "claims"
doing there? What's Brinkley writing, a blog?... P.S.:
One controversy I don't understand: Gardner's charge that at
night Kerry would park his boat "away from the action and hide" to
avoid getting shot at. Brinkley seems to accept that this would
be a bad thing for Kerry to have done--but why? Wasn't the idea to
avoid getting killed so you could fight during the day? Was
Kerry supposed to make his boat a sitting duck? The
unspoken possibility: Maybe Kerry was
extra-cautious, playing it safe instead of taking gung-ho
risks in a doomed cause. And maybe that's why his
crewmen like him and feel they owe him. Who wants to be the
last man to die for a mistake, as it were?. ... Mickey Kaus
MY UPDATE -
Gardner did work for Millennium Services, but was fired the day the
TIME article appeared, according to Limbo. His supervisor claimed
it had nothing to do with criticizing Kerry. In fairness, you can
always find one guy who hated his Boss/Platoon Sgt./C.O., so I take
Gardner's charge with a grain of salt. It does however comport
with what we know about Kerry 's behavior since that time.
Especially the "opportunist" part. "Chicken shit" is a
ubiquitous GI phrase used to disparage anyone and anything
the utterer disagrees with, so yes, John Kerry is a "chicken shit" too.
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Posted by pecksnif at March 11, 2004 01:47 PM
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Rog....to get a glimpse of what some Veterans really think of Kerry go to www.realheroesvoices.com
I know...I was there and so was a lot of others who will be making their voices heard like Kerry made his heard as he gave what was later proven to be false and mis-leading testimony to Congress in 1971 that added names to "The Wall".
He will never be forgiven for his actions.
Oh, I've been there. Thanks.
Of course, if the SAME dude had been, ohhhhh let's say, George W's crew chief or a mechanic in his guard unit and said the SAME type things, it would be front page news. The Kerry Kamp would have him on stage in front of the world press, with Teddy and Jessie and Barbie and Sleepy and Dopey and Doc all giving him moral support. Why, he'd be the most believeable man on earth!