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Comparing different versions of the Silver Star incident
Since William Rood’s article in the Chicago Tribune was written for the purpose of backing up Kerry on the Silver Star incident where Kerry chased and killed a VC who had fired at the Swift boats from the shore, a comparison of Rood’s account with the text of the official Silver Star citation written by the blogger “Precise Truth” is most interesting. Ironically, Rood’s story somewhat undercuts the official account, since, unlike the official account, Rood does not indicate that any rockets were fired at the boat, and he makes the VC forces on the shore sound rather anemic, as contrasted with the “intense” fire from a “numerically superior” enemy described in the citation. However, Rood’s account even more strongly contradicts John O’Neill’s suggestion of a lone attacker, since he speaks of an unspecified number of VC’s firing from the tree line back from the shore, which could at least be arguably interpreted as intense fire from a numerically superior force, at least as compared with Kerry and the one other man who initially jumped ashore from Kerry’s boat. So, why did O’Neill not get Rood’s story when writing the book? If Rood is telling the truth, O’Neill’s credibility would seem to be damaged by this.
(Note: I do not know that O’Neill said there was only a lone VC attacker in this incident. I am basing that statement on the blog entry by “Precise Truth” linked above, which appears to be a pro-Swifties blog.) Email entry |