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Two lies by O'Neill about what Tour of Duty says was Kerry's call sign when in Vietnam |
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p. 51 |
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On page 51 of Unfit for Command O'Neill says that, |
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In reality, Kerry was regarded by his military peers as reckless with human life. While the Brinkley biography recalls that he used the call sign Square Jaw for a short time in Vietnam, it doesn't mention the sign he actually used for most of his tour, Boston Strangler. |
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O'Neill gives page 166 of Tour of Duty as his source (giving no source for his claim that Kerry had another call name for a while). But this is yet another lie by O'Neill, because the cited page of Tour of Duty actually gives a different call name: |
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James C Carolan's size-14 feet rated the handle "Clodhopper J," while Stephen Hayes curly hair made him "Steel Wool". PCF-57s Tedd Peck was known as "Chubby Checker" for sharing the King of the Twist's October 3 birthday as well as a knack for the dance. As for the lieutenant (j.g.) on PCF-44, Kerry's call sign was "Rock Jaw," commemorating his prominent long face. |
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Notice two lies are apparent: a further misquoting by O'Neill was his attributing the claim of "for a short time" to Tour of Duty. But Brinkley says nothing about Kerry ever having any other radio name than "Rock Jaw" when in Vietnam. Here O'Neill surely sought to make it appear that Brinkley subtly revealled that Kerry had another call name, yet hid it from readers.
Apparently, the call sign "Rock Jaw" sounded too cool to O'Neill, so he felt a need to make up another one.. About the name "Boston Strangler", well, it's very difficult for me to imagine that such a bizzare sounding radio name could have been given to any Swift Boat commander. If it ever was a call sign for Kerry I'm sure it would have been reported somewhere in one of the hundreds of newspaper articles about Kerry's war service and O'Neill would have been able to cite the article as evidence. |
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I used Lexis-Nexis searches to test these claims of Tour of Duty and Unfit for Command. I searched for all instances of,
"Kerry" AND "Square w/2 Jaw"
"Kerry" AND "Rock w/2 Jaw"
"Kerry" AND "Boston w/2 Strangler"
For each of these three searches, I searched all possible dates of all newspapers of "US News" for the "Northeastern Region" of the US, which searched roughly 25 years of articles (all since around 1980) of one fourth of 272 US newpapers (about 85 newspapers).
These were the results:
"Kerry" AND "Square w/2 Jaw" got two hits, with each article using the expression to refer to the shape of someone's jaw (in one case Kerry's, in another case Vice President Dick Cheney's).
"Kerry" AND "Rock w/2 Jaw" got two hits. Each was an article claiming that Kerry had a "radio name" of "Rock Jaw" when in Vietnam.
"Kerry" AND "Boston w/2 Strangler" got several hits. In every case "Boston Strangler" was used to refer to the actual Boston Strangler that terrorized Boston. In no case was "Boston Strangler" used as any kind of nickname or radio name for Kerry or anyone else.
"Boston Strangler" isn't an entry in the index of Unfit for Command. However, when reading the book I noticed it used in two other places. On page 77 O'Neill says, |
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Shortly before Kerry left Vietnam, Wright and others spoke to him an An Thoi. Kerry's three Purple Hearts would allow him to leave Vietnam, and they urged him to do so. Wright was not upset to see the "Boston Strangler" leave Vietnam. He believed that Kerry simply did not belong there. Kerry never formed the kind of human relationships with his fellow sailors that are essential to effective performance. |
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And on page 79, after claiming that Kerry was responsible for casualties from psy-op operations that possibly were Kerry's idea (in which Swift Boats would cruise slowly while playing psy-ops tapes over a loudspeaker), O'Neill says, |
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Many Swiftees and Mobile Riverine Sailors died or were wounded on these missions following the "Boston Strangler's" recommendation. |
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