oneill11

A msiquoting by O'Neill about what Tour of Duty says about the "Bo De massacre"

p. 42-3

Unfit for Command gives a very distorted version of what Tour of Duty says about an incident in which seventeen US soldiers were wounded by enemy fire largely because (according to Kerry and others quoted in Tour of Duty) of failures of military planning and execution. According to Tour of Duty, the fouled up mission required that five Swift Boat crews travel from the South China Sea through the Bo De River then to other rivers, finally reaching the Gulf of Thailand. But they got fired upon as soon as they entered the Bo De Rivier, with the result described this way on page 168 of Tour of Duty:

The five Swifts had shoved off from the captain's LST as his ship began bombarding the shore to cover their entrance into the Bo De. The Stars and Stripes reporter covering the operation criticized the LST because her shells had for the most part fallen short, landing harmlessly in the South China Sea. As the mostly useless bombardment ended, the boats started for the entrance of the river with the anticipation that their scheduled air support would arrive. After all, the entire mission had been predicated on it.
But in what became a not infrequent Sealords foul-up, the air support never showed. This failure did the mission in. ... Within five minutes of entering , the VC started firing from both banks and sliced the Swifts to ribbons. Seventeen men were wounded in the fiasco; one officer's leg was shot off. It seemed a miracle that no one was killed.

According to Tour, Kerry concluded that the US casualties were due largely to two foul ups: (1) an LST boat (one from which the boats left when they started to enter the Bo De River) fired too-short shots with its heavy weapons, causing the ammunition to fall harmlessly in to the sea, and (2) the absence of air support that was supposed to be covering the boats. He thought (2) was the primary cause.
Unfit for Command distorts the story in several ways, including omission of essential information and outright lying about what relevant pages of Tour of Duty actually say. O'Neill begins a chapter section (on pages 42-3) he devoted to Kerry's claims about the incident this way:

The Dinner That Never Happened
Kerry's Fictious Journal Account
In Kerry's account of the An Thoi transfer, he makes up an entire conversation with the skipper of the Landing Ship Tank (LST) who Kerry claims invited him and Peck for dinner on their way to An Thoi. As Kerry told the story in Tour of Duty, the LST captain launched into a discussion about his role in what has become known as the "Bo De massacre." According to the version of the story told by Kerry, the LST captain presented a defensive account, attempting to correct a Stars and Stripes story criticizing him for LST covering fire that had supposedly fallen short, exposing the Swiftees on mission to unnecessary casualties.
But according to Captain Peck's recollection and that of Kerry's crewman Steven Gardner, he and Kerry were at the LST only a few minutes for refueling, not enough time for a comfortable dinner with the LST captain -- and there was no conversation about "the massacre" as described by Kerry. Even more significant, Kerry's account of the "Bo De Massacre" is a breathtaking lie. In Tour, Kerry presents the first Swift incident on the Bo De as a "massacre" of Swiftees with seventeen wounded caused by the incompetence of all commanders whom he chose to blame rather than the vagaries of war or the enemy. Kerry's fabrication comes even though he was not there. Joe Ponder was there as a Swiftee on the mission in question. Today, still badly disabled and on crutched from the incident, Ponder says, "There were only three persons wounded -- not seventeen as Kerry states..."

The chapter-section title appears in large bold type just like how I've reproduced it above. The words above in italics below the title also appear exactly as they do in the book. O'Neill clearly wishes to emphasize his claim that Kerry said a dinner happened that really never happened. But when one sees what Tour of Duty actually says about this, it becomes clear that O'Neill again has fabricated claims and falsely attributed them to Kerry.

With their maintenance complete, PCFs 44 and 57 continued south, sterns seaward, firmly pinioned to their large friend. "I looked up about twenty feet to the deck of the ship and saw a ladder come tumbling down on us with an invitation to come aboard," Kerry recalled. "We quickly accepted."
The LST's captain interrupted a late-night showing of a Jerry Lewis movie to welcome Kerry and Peck with coffee and conversation. Kerry wanted neither but acceded to the latter, which meant listening to the captain boast about a recent operation his ship had conducted with some Swifts. He seemed at pains to clarify a Stars and Stripes news story that had criticized his vessel for missing some of its targets during the preraid bombardment. Suddenly Kerry realized that the captain was speaking of the raid that had taken out the men and boats he himself and Peck were being sent to An Thoi to replace. Curious, Kerry pressed him for details. The captain related more about what eventually would become known as the Bo De massacre. What astonished Kerry most was that the LST officer appeared to be less concerned with the damage to the Swifts and their crews than he was with the press coverage.

      As can be seen, Kerry did not say that the man invited him to "dinner". And, Kerry did not say that he had dinner (not even coffee). O'Neill was using his claim that Kerry said he had dinner with the captain to show that the interaction "as described" by Kerry couldn't possibly have happened.
        And notice that O'Neill failed to tell readers that Tour says the captain invited Kerry for conversation.
       Additional distorting was done by O'Neill by giving only a partial description of what Kerry believed had caused the US casualties. O'Neill mentioned only the poorly aimed artillery fire from the LST, but nothing about what Kerry is quoted in Tour of Duty as saying was much more important: missing air cover (from helicopter gunships I presume).
       Another lie is O'Neill's attributing the claim that seventeen US servicemen were wounded. But Kerry isn't quoted saying this. That claim in Tour of Duty appears to be Brinkley's.
       Further distorting is done by O'Neill's failure to tell readers that Tour of Duty gives a full two pages of transcripts of a tape-recording that was made of the incident by "An ABC News correspondent riding on one of the Swifts..." (p. 168).

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