ChiTrib's William B. Rood adds context, but no revelations, about Kerry's Silver Star

This isn't a fisking.

The single best development for Sen. John F. Kerry during the past two weeks is the just-published first-person account from former Swift Boat skipper William B. Rood of the action on February 28, 1969, that resulted in Kerry's Silver Star.

Mr. Rood's memoir, entitled "Anti-Kerry vets not there that day," deserves a respectful and careful reading from anyone interested in the SwiftVets vs. Kerry controversy.  It provides context and some credible opinions that are unquestionably favorable to Sen. Kerry.

But neither it, nor the companion news article by Rood's Chicago Tribune colleague Tim Jones, directly contradicts the SwiftVets' principle allegations of fact.

To the contrary, for those who've paid close attention to what the SwiftVets have actually alleged, Mr. Rood's new memoir actually supports their main contentions regarding Kerry's fitness for the Silver Star, because they show that Kerry was not charging alone, through overwhelming enemy fire, into a dense concentration of the enemy when he hopped off PCF-94 that day.

That's not the way Mr. Rood's memoir will be spun by relieved Kerry supporters.  But journey with me now, gentle readers, and decide for yourselves as we together examine, closely and with due respect, the details of Mr. Rood's memoir.

Mr. Rood's bona fides and motives

Mr. Rood, now a metropolitan desk editor for the Tribune, has the bona fides to offer both facts and opinions on these events:

I was part of the operation that led to Kerry's Silver Star. I have no firsthand knowledge of the events that resulted in his winning the Purple Hearts or the Bronze Star.

But on Feb. 28, 1969, I was officer in charge of PCF-23, one of three swift boats — including Kerry's PCF-94 and Lt. j.g. Donald Droz's PCF-43 — that carried Vietnamese regional and Popular Force troops and a Navy demolition team up the Dong Cung, a narrow tributary of the Bay Hap River, to conduct a sweep in the area.

Mr. Rood carefully offers neither hearsay nor speculation about any of the rest of John Kerry's combat record.  Nor, apparently, does he intend to in the future:  "My intent is to tell the story here and to never again talk publicly about it."  Correspondent Jones reports that "Rood declined requests from a Tribune reporter to be interviewed for this article."  As for his motivations in speaking out now, Mr. Rood writes:

[I]n recent days Kerry has called me and others who were with him in those days, asking that we go public with our accounts.

I can't pretend those calls had no effect on me, but that is not why I am writing this. What matters most to me is that this is hurting crewmen who are not public figures and who deserved to be honored for what they did.

I'm inclined to accept that statement at face value, based on what is not in Mr. Rood's account, and on what Mr. Rood has not done over the past several months.  There's no endorsement of John Kerry for President; no glowing tribute to his overall combat record; no defense of, or even comment upon, Kerry's antiwar activism.  He doesn't corroborate Kerry's "Christmas in Cambodia" fairy tale, nor any of the other "in or near Cambodia" claims.  He provides a snapshot of Kerry in a camouflage bush hat, but does not comment on its source.  Indeed, it's not at all clear that Mr. Rood even likes John Kerry.  Yet clearly he is a knowledgeable and articulate man, a veteran and former officer who could well have stood onstage with Sen. Kerry at the recent Democratic National Convention to sing his praises, had he so chosen.

Mr. Rood's memoir comprises two principle substantive assertions, the first involving matters of judgment and opinion on military tactics, and the second involving matters of recollected facts.

Mr. Rood's opinions defending
the military tactics used that day

As to the first assertion, Mr. Rood is clearly irked by the SwiftVets' criticism of the military tactics employed that day:

Known over radio circuits by the call sign "Latch," then-Capt. and now retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the task force commander, fired off a message congratulating the three swift boats, saying at one point that the tactic of charging the ambushes was a "shining example of completely overwhelming the enemy" and that it "may be the most efficacious method of dealing with small numbers of ambushers."

Hoffmann has become a leading critic of Kerry's and now says that what the boats did on that day demonstrated Kerry's inclination to be impulsive to a fault.

Our decision to use that tactic under the right circumstances was not impulsive but was the result of discussions well beforehand and a mutual agreement of all three boat officers.

Mr. Rood notes that young Kerry "had tactical command of that particular operation," and he credits Kerry with "talk[ing] to Droz and me beforehand about not responding the way the boats usually did to an ambush."  But he does not award Kerry sole or even primary credit for devising the new tactic:

We agreed that if we were not crippled by the initial volley and had a clear fix on the location of the ambush, we would turn directly into it, focusing the boats' twin .50-caliber machine guns on the attackers and beaching the boats. We told our crews about the plan.

The Viet Cong in the area had come to expect that the heavily loaded boats would lumber on past an ambush, firing at the entrenched attackers, beaching upstream and putting troops ashore to sweep back down on the ambush site. Often, they were long gone by the time the troops got there.

The first time we took fire — the usual rockets and automatic weapons — Kerry ordered a "turn 90" and the three boats roared in on the ambush. It worked. We routed the ambush, killing three of the attackers. The troops, led by an Army adviser, jumped off the boats and began a sweep, which killed another half dozen VC, wounded or captured others and found weapons, blast masks and other supplies used to stage ambushes.

I've yet to have read John O'Neill's Unfit for Command, so I can't speak to the details of the differing opinions he or others, including Adm. Hoffmann, may have offered on this change in military tactics.  From Mr. Rood's quotes, I gather that they express different, and critical opinions; and if so, one can understand why Mr. Rood might have taken offense on behalf of, and now spoken out to defend, himself, Lt. Droz, and Lt. Kerry with respect to the tactics they employed that day.  It may be that their criticisms, fairly read, only apply to the second ambush, in which Kerry no longer had a boatload of troops to offload onto the shore to pursue the second ambushers (who were presumably fewer in number than those involved in the first attack).

Personally, I lack the military experience and training to second-guess either set of opinions.  And while it may be true that some of the SwiftVets have criticized young Kerry's tactical judgments, that strikes me as a very minor and almost trivial part of the larger controversies that the SwiftVets have raised about Sen. Kerry's current fitness to assume the office of Commander in Chief.

Mr. Rood's factual recollections regarding
Kerry's personal combat performance

As to the second set of assertions, Mr. Rood's first-hand recollection of the facts of the day's combats are generally consistent with what Sen. Kerry has claimed, and with what both his supporters and critics have claimed.  I've already quoted above Mr. Rood's recollection as to the first of two ambushes in describing how the tactics employed by the Swift Boats that day differed from their usual ones.  As to the second ambush, Mr. Rood recalls:

Meanwhile, Kerry ordered our boat to head upstream with his, leaving Droz's boat at the first site.

It happened again, another ambush. And again, Kerry ordered the turn maneuver, and again it worked. As we headed for the riverbank, I remember seeing a loaded B-40 launcher pointed at the boats. It wasn't fired as two men jumped up from their spider holes.

We called Droz's boat up to assist us, and Kerry, followed by one member of his crew, jumped ashore and chased a VC behind a hooch—a thatched hut—maybe 15 yards inland from the ambush site. Some who were there that day recall the man being wounded as he ran. Neither I nor Jerry Leeds, our boat's leading petty officer with whom I've checked my recollection of all these events, recalls that, which is no surprise. Recollections of those who go through experiences like that frequently differ.

With our troops involved in the sweep of the first ambush site, Richard Lamberson, a member of my crew, and I also went ashore to search the area. I was checking out the inside of the hooch when I heard gunfire nearby.

Not long after that, Kerry returned, reporting that he had killed the man he chased behind the hooch. He also had picked up a loaded B-40 rocket launcher, which we took back to our base in An Thoi after the operation.

John O'Neill, author of a highly critical account of Kerry's Vietnam service, describes the man Kerry chased as a "teenager" in a "loincloth." I have no idea how old the gunner Kerry chased that day was, but both Leeds and I recall that he was a grown man, dressed in the kind of garb the VC usually wore.

The man Kerry chased was not the "lone" attacker at that site, as O'Neill suggests. There were others who fled. There was also firing from the tree line well behind the spider holes and at one point, from the opposite riverbank as well. It was not the work of just one attacker.

In his companion article, Tribune correspondent Jones reports:

Asked for his response to Rood's account, O'Neill argued that the former swift boat skipper's version of events is not substantially different from what appeared in his book. The account of the Feb. 28 attack draws heavily on reporting from The Boston Globe, O'Neill said.

And indeed, O'Neill has never claimed to have any first-hand knowledge of the events that day.  Rather, as I understand them, his and the SwiftVets' critiques have relied on the facts reported by other veterans who were present that day, including Sen. Kerry's own recollections as reported in various places, including not only newspaper accounts, but also Douglas Brinkley's authorized biography Tour of Duty and Michael Kranish et al.'s John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best.

Notwithstanding contrary portrayals by Sen. Kerry's supporters and the popular press, O'Neill and the SwiftVets have stressed repeatedly that their criticisms of Kerry, and their skepticism of his fitness for the Silver Star, do not depend on whether Kerry shot the fleeing VC soldier from the front or the back, or whether his rocket launcher was loaded or not, or whether he was a teenager or full-grown, or whether he was in a loin-cloth or a full set of combat body armor.

Thus, the only substantive facts that Mr. Rood's memoir adds are his assertions that "were [also other attackers] who fled" and that there "was also firing from the tree line well behind the spider holes and at one point, from the opposite riverbank as well."  Mr. Rood's memoir adds little in the way of details about time and distance intervals, numbers, volume and type of fire, and so forth; indeed, Mr. Rood's account is actually less detailed than that already reported by other witnesses, and discussed by the SwiftVets in their published evaluations of young Kerry's conduct.

But overall, Mr. Rood's version is generally consistent with the factual claims previously asserted both by Kerry supporters and Kerry critics.  It's a tale told — credibly enough — from yet another witness and yet another perspective, and I do not suggest that it be disregarded.  But it's not new or revolutionary.

More to the point, it does not address the SwiftVets' main contention, which is that the Navy brass (including Captain George Elliott) who recommended young Kerry for his Silver Star were then under the impression — since dispelled by Kerry's own repeated telling of the story, plus that of other witnesses now including William B. Rood — that Kerry's valor was in charging ashore through overwhelming fire into a dense concentration of the enemy.

Conclusion

Near the conclusion of his memoir, Mr. Rood writes:

My Bronze Star citation, signed by Zumwalt, praised the charge tactic we used that day, saying the VC were "caught completely off guard."

There's at least one mistake in that citation. It incorrectly identifies the river where the main action occurred, a reminder that such documents were often done in haste and sometimes authored for their signers by staffers. It's a cautionary note for those trying to piece it all together. There's no final authority on something that happened so long ago — not the documents and not even the strained recollections of those of us who were there.

But I know that what some people are saying now is wrong. While they mean to hurt Kerry, what they're saying impugns others who are not in the public eye.

Surely everyone interested in this controversy can agree with Mr. Rood's cautionary note.  To his considerable credit, Mr. Rood himself doesn't claim to be the "final authority" on any of these matters.  He acknowledges that Sen. Kerry's critics in the SwiftVets and elsewhere don't mean to impugn others.  Certainly to the extent, if any, that their criticisms may have been taken, reasonably enough, to include within their ambit Mr. Rood and others who served bravely that day, Mr. Rood has spoken carefully and eloquently and persuasively to refute those criticisms.

But my impressions from Mr. Rood's memoir are not unlike those I had in 1992 when I cross-examined John O'Neill under oath as an expert witness called by my opponents to support their claim for attorneys' fees in a huge securities fraud case.  O'Neill was a damned impressive witness, and with every word, every opinion, he told the truth as he saw it.  But there was much in that truth that actually supported my client's position, when the spin and hoopla was stripped away.  In my first-hand encounter with John O'Neill, there was indeed a "final authority" — the jury that ended up using O'Neill's testimony as justification for that portion of their verdict in which they found that a "reasonable attorneys' fee" for my opponents' efforts was "zero." 

In the SwiftVets vs. Kerry controversy, of course, the final "verdict," whether authoritative or not, will come at the voting booths in November.  And unless spin ultimately prevails over substance, I remain unconvinced that Sen. Kerry will be rescued there by Mr. Rood's memoir.

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Update:  The ChiTrib helpfully has published an annotated scan of the after-action report to which Mr. Jones' article refers, here.  To more accurately summarize the SwiftVets' own allegations, I've also deleted the word "alone" from my phrase near the end of my original post that originally read "charging ashore alone, through overwhelming fire, into a dense concentration of the enemy"; the mistake was mine, and Kerry's Silver Star citation clearly refers to him "personally [leading] a landing party ashore" rather than being alone.

Update:  McQ of QandO has a military service background that I emphatically lack, and weighs in on the question of whether the tactics employed by the Swift Boats that day were or weren't prudent.  After reading Mr. Rood's memoir, McQ still is inclined to the latter view.  McQ also argues that

[w]hen you read the citation, the impression I get is it's being awarded for the whole operation. It appears to me that the award is being given to the OITC (Officer In Tactical Command) of the operation (Kerry) for the results of the operation, a part of which was this pursuit of the wounded (or not wounded) VC. Hoffmann's praise was for the operation's total results, not the killing of the single VC. So I'd have to side with Kerry and Rood on this one.

McQ's argument about Kerry's status as OITC is the best I've heard yet.  My fairly confident inference, however — from Captain George Elliott's emphasis on Kerry's on-shore pursuit activities in Elliott's second affidavit — is that when he approved Kerry's Silver Star nomination, Elliott was under the misimpression that Kerry's onshore pursuit was the same part of the multi-part engagement in which Kerry had displayed "personal courage" by "attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire."  Captain Elliott has said in so many words that he would not have recommended Kerry for the Silver Star had he had available to him back in 1969 the versions of events that were related in 2004 by Sen. Kerry's biographers like Kranish et al. from Sen. Kerry's own telling of the tale.  Mr. Rood's memoir adds little if anything to the account of Kerry's onshore pursuit that the Kranish book contained; it's therefore hard to imagine how Mr. Rood's memoir could undercut Captain Elliott's revised opinion, and indeed, it seems that Mr. Rood's memoir would, if anything, only further support Captain Elliott's reasons for changing his original view from 1969.  The separate "way to go" approval message at the time from Hoffmann may indeed have been praise for the entire operation, including Kerry's role as its OITC; but it's unclear to me what role, if any, Hoffman had in the nomination or approval of Kerry for his Silver Star, much less the selection of the language used in the Silver Star citation.

Meanwhile, Captain Ed posts with further analysis of Mr. Rood's memoir, and points up what seem to be troubling inconsistencies.