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A lie by O'Neill about where Tour of Duty says a mortar attack happend |
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p. 48 |
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This is a significant misquoting that has a very obvious purpose of making it seem like Kerry couldn't possibly have been anywhere near Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968. On page 48 he says, |
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The Cambodia incursion story is not included in Tour of Duty. Instead, Kerry replaces the story with a report about a mortar attack that occurred on Christmas Eve 1968 "near the Cambodia border" in a town called Sa Dec, some fifty-five miles from the Cambodian border.23 Somehow, Kerry's secret illegal mission to Cambodia, which he recounted on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1986, is now a firefight at Sa Dec and a Christmas day spent back at the base writing entries in his journal. |
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Note 23 of Unfit for Command refers readers to pages 213-217 of Tour of Duty. When one examines those pages one discovers that O'Neill's words here severely misquote what is on pages 213-4 of Tour of Duty. Words on those pages clearly say that the mortal attack occurred after Kerry and his crew left Sa Dec and got near the Cambodian border. On pages 213-4 of Tour of Duty it says, |
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Kerry and his men left Sa Dec as soon as they completed a routine intelligence investigation of village leaders. To get back into the main river from the canal, they had to negotiate their way under a rickety drawbridge, which boats could clear only at low tide. ... Kerry and his men sailed farther up the river. At a bend just as they were approaching the Cambodian border, two PBRs met the Swift. Kerry's crew stopped to talk to the men about their plans for the night's patrol as well as about the three-day Christmas truce scheduled to go into effect in just a few minutes, at six o'clock that evening. Kerry's notebook detailed what happened next: "Suddenly there is an explosion and a mortar lands on the bank near all three boats." ... "Where the hell did that come from?" Wasser asked. Kerry radioed headquarters that someone had fired a mortar round at them.
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