August 28, 2004

More from Adm. Schachte
Posted by McQ

Yesterday, I talked about Admiral (then LT) William Schachte's version of Kerry's skimmer mission here. NRO is carrying a complete statement by Schachte here made on August 27th.

The highlights:

- Per Schachte he was manning the M-60, not Bill Zaldonis.

- All Skimmer missions were his and consisted of two officers and one enlisted man to man the outboard motor.

-Schachte doen't remember the name of the enlisted man on that particular night.

-Schachte says there was no after action report made on that night because there was no hostile fire. AA reports are only required if there is hostile fire.

-Schachte reports that he opened fire with the M-60 and it jammed after a short burst. Kerry fired with the M-16 until it jammed. While Schachte was trying to clear the M-60, Kerry fired the M-79.

As for the Purple Heart, he says:

Lt. Cmdr. Hibbard denied Lt. (jg) Kerry's request. Lt. (jg) Kerry detached our division a few days later to be reassigned to another division. I departed Vietnam approximately three weeks later, and Lt. Cmdr. Hibbard followed shortly thereafter. It was not until years later that I was surprised to learn that Lt. (jg) Kerry had been awarded a Purple Heart for this night.

Badda BOOM!

Pretty damning.

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Comments

But is there anything beyond "his word for it" to recommend his story over Kerry's? And why would two other fellow's--besides Kerry--remember it differently? I'm asking here.

Posted by: Jon Henke at August 28, 2004 09:02 PM

Not really. Well that's not true. Hibbard has said they were all his missions and Peck has said the same. I'm not sure if LT Voss (I think his name was Voss) is still alive but he was the PCF OIC for that night. It would be interesting to hear from him.

But then the technique was his, these missions were his missions, he configured them a certain way, he says he was on all of them and he was the guy that was always on the M-60 (per him).

That and he achieved 2 star flag rank and became the Navy's Judge Advocate.

Somebody's telling a whopper in all of this and its going to be interesting to see how this sorts out, but on reputation and the fact that they were his missions, my tendency is to go with him on the story.

Posted by: McQ at August 28, 2004 09:25 PM

Been trying off and on since about 12:00 central to access the PDF's on Kerry's site with his service records.

So far, the links hang every time.

I wonder what's up with that.

Posted by: Looker at August 28, 2004 10:11 PM

Yup, Kerry was pretty busy with his typrewriter me thinks. This is damning stuff..Schachte's words are devastating, they are honest and represent the final and deadliest stray piece of schrapnel to bounce back from Kerry's clumsy go with the m-79.

Posted by: Arvin Wallace at August 29, 2004 02:08 AM

Jon, I don't know if you've ever hung out with vets who served together (do they *have* to be on the same boat?), but they rather frequently, in my experience (not that I hang out with that many), disagree on lots of things, even who was present on any give day or mission. It happened to guys who had just come back (in the early '70s), so I suppose 35 years later it might still happen. Plus, it's beginning to look like Kerry started talking to most of these guys more than a year ago and started going over some of this stuff. "Prepping" the witness?

Posted by: JorgXMcKie at August 29, 2004 05:28 PM