Weigh the evidence against Kerry -- you decide.
Swift Vet Steve Gardner on the Hugh Hewitt show (link courtesy of Slave's post above) suggests that the Mekong River was too small and barricaded to get a swift boat through:
- HH: OK. When you were on the boat, did you ever go into Cambodian waters?
SG: Absolutely not. That was a physical impossibility to go inside Cambodian waters.
HH: Why?
SG: They had four or five, at all times, boats, plus they had it wired with wire, they had concrete pylons down so that thee only time they could get through it was at high tide, and that was just so the sampans and the people that trafficked back and forth could get through.*
* * * * *
HH: Did you get near Cambodia and drop anybody off?
SG: The closest we can get to Cambodia, and that's a long swim, is 50 miles.
* * * * *
HH: If such a mission had been undertaken, would it have been undertaken by a swift boat?
SG: Nope.
HH: What kind of boat would it have been undertaken by?
SG: If something was going to be done, it would have had to have been done by a PBR.
HH: What's a PBR?
SG: That's one of the smaller boats that they used in Vietnam, that were water driven motors.
* * * * *
HH: Is that the closest you think you came, 50 miles?
SG: I know it is, categorically. You couldn't go any farther.
HH: Could it have happened once you left the boat?
SG: No, you still couldn't get through that same creek.
Here's a map of the area. Note how far along the Mekong River the Cambodian border is from the ocean.
According to Gardner, it was still "tidal" there. Think about what that means about the size of the river system.
Indeed, here are some pictures of the "creek" he's talking about, west of that border (notice the size of the ship in the top picture -- just a little larger than a swift boat):
If Kerry's critics were held the same nitpicking standard of truthfulness that they're holding Kerry to, they'd have been run out of town on a rail.
* How could Gardner know this if the closest he got to the border was 50 miles? Hmm.
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