More O'Neill sans shouting hecklers

Human Events Online has a lengthy interview with SwiftVets spokesman John O'Neill today, packed with details.  It's definitely worthwhile reading for anyone following the development of the facts about Kerry's medals.  By "details," I mean naming eyewitnesses' names, ranks, and opportunities to report from first-hand knowledge, with copious cross-referencing to the documentary evidence from such military records as Kerry has permitted to be released, plus inconsistencies in Kerry source materials like the Brinkley and Kranish books.

O'Neill isn't an eyewitness.  His personal interest, as he's said many times, is as someone who served in the same unit that Kerry was in, albeit shortly afterwards.  But using his skills as a calm and articulate courtroom lawyer, he continues marshalling the evidence, bit by bit, and dispelling the Kerry camp's counterspin, distortion by distortion.  And he clearly has interviewed his witnesses carefully, so that he's capable of offering vivid details at a deeper level than any commendation citation or dry affidavit can ever reflect. 

For instance, here's a snippet of what O'Neill had to say when asked about Larry Thurlow's involvement in the Bay Hap River incident out of which both Thurlow and Kerry received Bronze Stars:

He was the commander of the rear boat. He was famous for this incident because he went aboard the 3 boat, saved the boat from sinking and actually saved the crew while Kerry was gone. The boat was in slow movement, 500 RPM with one screw gone. Thurlow jumped over the boat, dropped into the water, was almost chewed up by the props, climbed back out and jumped over again. He brought the boat to a halt and began plugging the holes in the engine room so that the boat wouldn't sink with the people aboard.

It's just a snippet, a summary.  But man, I look forward to hearing O'Neill when he's given the chance to deliver a full-scale "closing argument," summarizing the evidence to paint the full vivid picture for the jury of American voters: 

Can you not imagine the scene, ladies and gentlemen?  A sudden explosion, the PCF 3 boat lifted out of the water, injured men everywhere, some thrown into the water, nervous gunners on the other boats laying down suppressive fire towards the shoreline in case this is a full-blown ambush.  PCF 3 sinking, moving slowly but without purpose, billowing black smoke, one screw churning the waters filled with injured sailors.  There's no fire coming back from the shores, but there's still an on-going crisis — lives of injured men will either be extinguished or preserved depending on what their comrades around them do.  Thurlow, commanding another boat, see all this.  And he "[d]ropped into the water [and] was almost chewed up by the props."  He stops PCF 3 from moving, keeps it from sinking, acts decisively, directs the rescue operations — risks his own flesh to stablize this chaotic, confused, still-very-dangerous situation. 

However many, or few, of these details were related accurately to the commanders who awarded it, do you doubt that Larry Thurlow deserved his Bronze Star, ladies and gentlemen?

Meanwhile, Lt. Kerry, whose own boat, by his own account, has moved away some distance, finally returns to the scene.  He's greviously wounded, somehow — a near mortal bruise to the forearm, later treated with a cold cloth (and perhaps a "boo-boo get better" kiss from a medic?)  Kerry plucks Rassmann from the water, moments before another boat would have done so.  Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down please:  Bronze Star for Skipper Kerry?

In this interview, O'Neill also provides what any good dramatist will recognize to be "foreshadowing" (bracketed portions in original):

INTERVIEWER: You mentioned that you interviewed now Rear Admiral William Schachte. [In Unfit for Command, Schachte is described as being on a Boston Whaler with Kerry on Dec. 2, 1968, when Kerry, according to the book, fired a grenade into the shore from too-close range and was slightly wounded in his arm by rebounding shrapnel. Although there was no enemy fire that night, according to Unfit for Command, it was this incident, witnessed by Schachte, for which Kerry received his Purple Heart.].

On that same August 12 Crossfire program, Lanny Davis said in an exchange with you on that issue that Schachte was not on the boat and your claim that Schachte was on the boat is false.

O' NEILL: I am absolutely certain that Schachte was on the boat. I know it from multiple sources. First of all, I know it from Rear Admiral William Schachte himself, the former acting Judge Advocate General of the Navy. Secondly, I know it from other crewmen who were available to testify that Schachte was on the boat. Third, I know it from the commanding officer of the unit, Commander Grant Hibbard, who detached Schachte for the purposes of commanding the boat.

INTERVIEWER: Is Schachte willing to come forward and speak publicly about what he told you when you were researching this book?

O' NEILL: I believe that Admiral Schachte will ultimately come forward at his own time and own his own pace to testify publicly about exactly what happened.

Heh.  The gun displayed in Act I will be fired before the conclusion of Act III.  And folks, we're still in Act I at the moment.

Update:  O'Neill gives even more details in this Washington Times op-ed.