Swift Boat crewman: Kerry boat took fire
Says Thurlow 'too distracted' to notice gunfire
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:40 a.m. ET Aug. 27, 2004
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5835000/
PORTLAND, Ore. - A Swift Boat crewman decorated in the 1969 Vietnam
incident where John
Kerry won a Bronze Star says not only did they come under enemy fire but
also that his own
boat commander, who has challenged the official account, was too
distracted to notice the
gunfire.
Retired Chief Petty Officer Robert E. Lambert, of Eagle Point, Ore., got a
Bronze Star for
pulling his boat commander - Lt. Larry Thurlow - out of the Bay Hap River
on March 13,
1969. Thurlow had jumped onto another Swift Boat to aid sailors wounded by
a mine
explosion but fell off when the out-of-control boat ran aground.
Thurlow, who has been prominent among a group of veterans challenging the
Democratic
presidential candidate's record, has said there was no enemy fire during
the incident.
Lambert, however, supports the Navy account that says all five Swift Boats
in the task
force "came under small arms and automatic weapon fire from the river
banks" when the mine
detonated.
"I thought we were under fire, I believed we were under fire," Lambert
said in a telephone
interview with The Associated Press.
"Thurlow was far too distracted with rescue efforts to even realize he was
under fire. He
was concentrating on trying to save lives."
The anti-Kerry group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, has been running
television ads
challenging the Navy account of the boats being under fire. Kerry has
condemned the ads as
a Republican smear campaign.
'What happened happened'
A career military man, Lambert is no fan of Kerry's either. He doesn't
like Kerry's
post-Vietnam anti-war activity and doesn't plan to vote for him.
"I don't like the man himself," Lambert said, "but I think what happened
happened, and he
was there."
A March 1969 Navy report located by The Associated Press this week
supports Lambert's
version. The report twice mentions the incident and both times calls it
"an enemy
initiated firefight" that included automatic weapons fire and underwater
mines used
against a group of five boats that included Kerry's.
Kerry's Bronze Star was awarded for his pulling Special Forces Lt. Jim
Rassmann, who had
been blown off the boat, out of the river. Rassmann, who is retired and
lives in Florence,
Ore., has said repeatedly that the boats were under fire, as have other
witnesses. Lambert
didn't see that rescue because Kerry was farther down the river and "I was
busy pulling my
own boat officer (Thurlow) out of the water."
Thurlow could not be reached for comment about Lambert's recollections.
But speaking for the Swift Boat Veterans group, Van Odell, who was in the
task force that
day, remembers it differently from Lambert.
"When they're firing, you can hear the rounds hit the boat or buzz by your
head. There was
none of that," he said in a telephone interview from Katy, Texas, where he
lives.
On Thursday, the group released a 30-second Internet ad disputing Kerry's
contention that
his Swift Boat crossed into Cambodia. Kerry's campaign has acknowledged
that he may not
have been in Cambodia on Christmas Eve of 1968, as he has previously
stated, but that he
does recall being on patrol along the Cambodia-Vietnam border on that
date.
Lambert said the Swift Boats were on their way out of the river when a
mine exploded under
one, PCF-3.
'Always a firefight'
"When they blew the 3-boat, everyone opened up on the banks with
everything they had," he
said. "That was the normal procedure. When they came after you, they came
after you.
Somebody on shore blew that mine."
"There was always a firefight" after a mine detonation, he said.
"Kerry was out in front of us, on down the river. He had to come back up
the river to get
to us."
Lambert retired in 1978 as a chief petty officer with 22 years of service
and three tours
in Vietnam. He does not remember ever meeting Kerry.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material
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