Word: raids
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Several years ago, a reporter named Gregory Vistica, who worked for Newsweek at the time, got wind of a big story. A former commander had heard from a troubled SEAL that his unit, led by the young Kerrey, had been involved in a Vietnam raid that went horribly wrong. Vistica pursued the tale until he turned up the Navy's dusty "after action" reports on the events of Feb. 25, 1969, in the isolated peasant village of Thanh Phong. Late in 1998, when Kerrey was contemplating a second run for the presidency, the reporter put those 30-year-old documents...
...effort to tell his version of the story before Vistica's investigation appeared this week in a bylined article in the New York Times Magazine and on a segment of 60 Minutes II, for which Vistica received a producer's credit. These reports take a condemning view of the raid, strongly suggesting that Kerrey is wrong when he says the civilian deaths were the tragic consequence of the fog of war, and that the former squad mate, Gerhard Klann, is right when he says the killings were a deliberate execution. Now Kerrey faces a whole army of reporters seeking...
...interview with TIME last Friday, Kerrey said the other five members of his squad have agreed to come forward with a "statement of facts" that he hopes will help set the controversy to rest. Later Friday, they all dined at Kerrey's house and talked the raid over for the very first time. The next evening, the six former SEALs issued a statement saying the allegation of an execution "is simply not true," adding, "We took fire and we returned fire...
...plenty, but he always seemed to talk around it. Kerrey never mentioned his Bronze Star for Thanh Phong, but he could not escape the glory of his other decoration. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military prize, for his actions in another raid less than a month after Thanh Phong...
...there are still things to be learned from his aching experience. The ambiguity at the heart of the raid--did Kerrey's squad accidentally kill civilians or deliberately massacre them?--mirrors the very nature of the war. For all his talk, Kerrey does not resolve the discrepancies: "Klann's got a memory of what happened. I've got a memory of what happened. They're both vivid. They're both awful." It's not a satisfying answer, especially from a politician revered for his candor. While much of the public has sympathized with Kerrey, this week he has to weather...