[internetworkers] ABC Interviews Vietnam Villagers

Michael Czeiszperger michael at czeiszperger.org
Fri Oct 15 11:34:43 EDT 2004


This story is particularly interesting in that members of the Swift 
Boat Veterans for Truth had already been to this particular village, 
and apparently tried to get villagers to say on video that Kerry didn't 
deserve his medals.  But unfortunately for the SBVFT, the accounts of 
soldiers who were actually in the battle remembered events in much the 
same way as the official Navy reports.

His wife, Vo Thi Vi, 54, said Feb. 28, 1969, is a day that the 
villagers of Nha Vi hamlet will never forget. "Everything was 
destroyed," she said. "There's no houses left. They leveled everything. 
There was no leaves left. The fighting was very fierce."

[...]

That account is disputed by Swift boat veteran John O'Neill, author of 
"Unfit for Command," who maintains in his book that the statement "is 
simply false. There was little or no fire."

[...]

"... they have no problem remembering Ba Thanh, the man who has been 
dismissed by Kerry's detractors as "a lone, wounded, fleeing, young 
Vietcong in a loincloth." (The description comes from "Unfit for 
Command," by Swift boat veteran John O'Neill.)

  "No, this is not correct," Nguyen Thi Tuoi, 77, told ABC News. "He 
wore a black pajama. He was strong. He was big and strong. He was about 
26 or 27."

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Vote2004/story?id=166434&page=1

___________________________________________________________________
michael at czeiszperger dot org
Chapel Hill, NC




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