[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 101 (Tuesday, June 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8679-S8681]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        ACCOLADES TO JOHN KERRY

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, last weekend the U.S. Navy formally 
retired the last of the Navy's legendary swift boats. Our friend and 
colleague, Senator John Kerry played a central role in the ceremonies 
attending the event. As many of our colleagues know, John Kerry was not 
always the genteel, polished U.S. Senator he is today. He was once the 
25-year-old skipper of a swift boat, PC-94, a title as honorable as any 
he subsequently earned.
  John Kerry distinguished himself in service to his country aboard his 
swift boat, earning the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and three Purple 
Hearts. His speech at the retirement ceremony [[Page S 8680]] was a 
deeply moving tribute to these remarkable vessels and the brave men who 
sailed them.
  I thought our colleagues would enjoy reading that speech, and I ask 
unanimous consent that a copy of Senator Kerry's remarks be included in 
the Record following my remarks, as well as an account of the 
retirement ceremony that appeared in the Boston Globe.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                    Remarks of Senator John F. Kerry

       Admiral Boorda, Admiral Zumwalt, Admiral Will, Admiral 
     Moore, Admiral Hoffman, Congressman Kolbe, families and 
     friends, and my fellow Swifties:
       We have come here today--with respect and love--to complete 
     the last River Run.
       We have brought our memories and those dearest to us in 
     order to put in a place of honored history a remarkable 
     vessel of the United States Navy. In so doing we proudly 
     share with the nation we willingly served, hundreds, even 
     thousands, of examples of daring, courage, commitment, and 
     sacrifice.
       We do that with none of the braggadocio or even brash 
     arrogance of our younger days. We do so with the humility 
     that comes from the intervening years and the fact that we 
     survived while our buddies did not; but we do so with 
     unabashed pride in the quality of our service and those we 
     were privileged to fight with--boat for boat, man for man.
       We do so knowing that no words here--no hushed conversation 
     with a wife or a son or daughter--no 30-year-later memory or 
     description will ever convey the sight and feeling of 6 or 10 
     or 12 Swifts, engines throbbing, radios crackling, guns 
     thundering towards the river bank, moving ever closer into 
     harm's way.
       But that's not all it was: We sunbathed and skinny-dipped; 
     we traded sea rations for fresh shrimp; and left our 
     Vietnamese recipients of Uncle Sam's technology grinning from 
     ear to ear as they believed they got the better deal; we 
     happily basked in wide beetlenut smiles; we glorified in 
     shouts of ``hey, American, you number one,'' and we casually 
     brushed off taunts of ``Hey, you number ten.''
       We replaced Psy Ops tapes with James Brown or Jim 
     Morrison--we used our riot guns to shoot duck and cook up a 
     feast and, yes, some did water ski.
       We harassed LSTs and destroyers, lauding it over our less 
     lucky, less plucky, black-shoed Navy brothers. We parlayed 
     our independence and proximity to the war into handouts of 
     steak, fruit, ship board meals and, best of all, ice cream. 
     We became the consummate artists of Comeshaw.
       We believed that anyone of us--officer or enlisted--might 
     one day be CNO or CINCPAC, and all the while nothing really 
     mattered that much except trying to win a war and keep each 
     other
      alive. When we broke the rules--which we never did, of 
     course--we would say, ``what the hell can they do? Send us 
     to Vietnam?!''
       Through it all, we never forgot how to laugh--and there 
     were wonderful moments, not just from the gallows humor of 
     the war but those that came from the special spirit of 
     Swifties: the times we lobbed raw eggs from boat to boat; 
     great flare fights that lit more than one life raft on fire; 
     delivering lumber to Nam Can in the middle of the war; 
     handing out ridiculous Psy-Ops packages that no one 
     understood; and of course pet dogs that didn't understand 
     English or Vietnamese for ``don't do it there.'' There were 
     as many moments of humor as Swift boats and sailors.
       And we exalted in the beauty of a country that took us from 
     glorious green rice paddy, black water buffalo caressing the 
     banks of rivers, children giggling and playing on dikes, 
     sanpans filled with produce--that suddenly took us from 
     innocence and tranquility deep into the madness of fire 
     fights, chaos reigning around us, 50 calibers diminishing our 
     hearing, screams for medevac piercing the radio waves, fish-
     tailing rockets passing by the pilot house--all suddenly to 
     be replaced by the most serene, eerie beauty the eye could 
     behold. We lived in the daily contradiction of living and 
     dying.
       In a great lesson for the rest of this country in these 
     difficult times, we never looked on each other as officer or 
     enlisted, as Oakie or Down Easterner. We were just plain 
     brothers in combat, proud Americans who together with our 
     proud vessels answered the call.
       We were bound together in the great and noble effort of 
     giving ourselves to something bigger than each and every one 
     of us individually, and doing so at risk of life and limb. 
     Let no one ever doubt the quality and nobility of that 
     commitment.
       The specs say Swifts have a quarter-inch aluminum hull--but 
     to us it was a hull of steel, though at times that was not 
     enough. It was hospital, restaurant, and home. It was 
     sometimes birthplace and deathbed.
       It was where we lived and where we grew up. It was where we 
     confronted and conquered fear and where we found courage. It 
     was our confessional; our place of silent prayer.
       We worked these boats hard. No matter the mission, no 
     matter the odds, we pushed them and they took us through 
     violent cross-currents of surf, through 30 ft. monsoon seas, 
     through fishstakes and mangrove, through sandbars and 
     mudflats.
       We loved these boats, even if we abused them of necessity, 
     and the truth is--they loved us back. They never let us down.
       We made mistakes. Sometimes we bit off more than we could 
     chew. We didn't just push the limits, we exceeded them 
     routinely and still the boats came through. They were our 
     partners on a grand and unpredictable adventure.
       Mines exploded underneath us, and--for the most part--the 
     boats pressed on.
       The Marines made amphibious landings and took the 
     beachheads--so did we.
       The Army conducted sweeps and over-ran ambushes--so did we.
       The regular Navy provided shore bombardment and forward 
     fire control--so did we.
       The Coast Guard intercepted weapons and gave emergency 
     medical care--so did we.
       The nurses and Red Cross saved lives and delivered babies--
     so did we.
       The Seals set ambushes and gathered intelligence--and so 
     did we.
       The only thing our boats couldn't do by definition was fly; 
     but some would say that, light of ammo and fuel, and 
     exuberant to have survived a firefight or a monsoon sea--we 
     flew too.
       But the power and the strength was not just in the boats. 
     It was in the courage and the camaraderie of those who manned 
     them.
       In the darkness and solitude of night, or parked in a cove 
     before a mission, or in the beauty of a crimson dawn before 
     entering the Bay Hap, or the My Tho, or the Bo De, or any 
     other mangrove cluttered river--we shared our fears and, no 
     matter what our differences--we were bound together on an 
     extraordinary journey the memory of which will last forever.
       On just routine patrol these boats were our sanctuary--our 
     cloister, a place for crossing divides between Montana, 
     Michigan, Arkansas, and Massachusetts.
       The boats occupied us and protected us. They were the place 
     we came together in fellowship, brotherhood, and ultimately 
     love to share our enthusiasm, our idealism--our youth.
       Now we are joined together again after more than a quarter 
     century to celebrate this special moment in our lives. It is 
     a bittersweet moment and it is a time to reflect on those 
     events and those friendships that changed our lives and made 
     us who we are today.
       Some were not as lucky as we were. They did not have the 
     chance to grow up as we did. They did not get to see their 
     children. They did not have the chance to fulfill their 
     dreams, and we honor their memory today.
       In their presence we are gathered with so much more than 
     just mutual respect and admiration, more than just nostalgia.
       We loved each other and we loved these boats.
       But because of the nature of the war we fought we came back 
     to a country that did not recognize our contribution. It did 
     not understand the war we fought, what we went through, or 
     the love that held us together then. It did not understand 
     what young men could feel for boats like these and men like 
     you.
       This is really the first time in 30 years that we've been 
     able to share with each other the feelings that we had then, 
     and the feelings we have now. They are deeply and profoundly 
     personal feelings. They are different for each of us, but the 
     memories are the same--rich with the smells and sounds of the 
     rivers and the power of the boats--punctuated by the faces of 
     the men with whom we served and the thoughts we shared.
       But that was 30 years ago, and now it is time to move on.
       Joseph Conrad said, ``And now the old ships and their men 
     are gone; the new ships and the new men have taken up their 
     watch on the stern-and-impatient sea which offers no 
     opportunities but to those who know how to grasp them with a 
     ready hand and an undaunted heart.''
       So, today, we stand here, still with ready hand--and more 
     than ever undaunted hearts--to complete this last River Run 
     and escort these magnificent boats into history. We who 
     served aboard them are now bound together not just as 
     veterans, not just as friends, but as family.
       To all who served on these boats, I salute you. And may God 
     bless you and your families.
                                                                    ____

                 [From the Boston Globe, June 14, 1995]

  Churning Through Their Past--With Potomac Trip, Kerry, Vietnam Crew 
                           Relive Old Dangers

                            (By Bob Hohler)

       Washington.--The brown river narrowed suddenly, pulling the 
     dense shrubbery along the shores ever tighter yesterday 
     around the last two Navy swift boats.
       ``Looks awful green over there, skipper!'' Drew Whitlow 
     shouted from a mounted machine gun to Sen. John F. Kerry at 
     the helm of the lead boat, PCF-1.
       ``Awful green!'' the Massachusetts Democrat yelled back. 
     ``That's an eerie sight.''
       When they last saw each other in 1969, Kerry was the 
     commander and Whitlow a gunner on a swift boat whose six-
     member crew patrolled the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, where 
     ambush-mined insurgents seemed to lurk in every patch of 
     green.
       Because some memories never die, it mattered little that 
     Kerry, Whitlow and a dozen other highly decorated veterans of 
     the 65-foot-long swift boats churned through the Potomac 
     River rather than the once-treacherous Bay Hap or Doug Cung 
     rivers in Vietnam. [[Page S 8681]] 
       The veterans were making the swift boats' last run, a 90-
     mile journey up the Potomac from the Naval Surface Warfare 
     Center in Dahlgren, Va., to the Washington Navy Yard, where 
     the boats are to be formally retired, closing a chapter in US 
     naval history.
       And green still spelled danger. ``We were surrounded most 
     of the time on the rivers by great, green beauty,'' Kerry 
     recalled over the roar of engines and crushing waves. ``There 
     were lush greens and sampans and junks and water buffalos and 
     beautiful Vietnamese children.''
       Then the green turned to fire and smoke, and ``there were 
     moments of utter terror where all hell broke loose,'' and 
     Kerry, who earned the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three 
     Purple Hearts as a 25-year-old commander of a swift boat, 
     PCF-44.
       The swift boats, modeled after the all-metal crafts used to 
     ferry crews to offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, 
     were dispatched to Vietnam because they were best suited to 
     navigate the region's shallow and narrow waterways, the 
     control of which US commanders considered vital.
       But the boats became prime targets for the Viet Cong, who 
     destroyed three of the 125 craft the Navy commissioned. Three 
     others were lost in heavy weather off the coast of Vietnam. 
     And one, PCF-14, sank after accidentally being attacked by 
     the US Air Force.
       For Kerry, action never seemed far away. ``He was the type 
     who if no other crew would take the job, he would take it,'' 
     said Whitlow, a former gunner from Huntsville, Ark., who made 
     his career in the Navy.
       But his crew trusted him, said Tom Belodeau, an electrician 
     from Lowell, who manned an M-60 machine gun on the bow of 
     Kerry's boat. ``He understood that his crew and his boat 
     could get along without him, but that he couldn't get along 
     without them,'' said Belodeau. ``We all respected each 
     other.''
       Kerry, clad yesterday in a brown leather jacket adorned 
     with a ``Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club'' patch, reminisced with 
     Whitlow and Belodeau on their four-hour journey up the 
     Potomac, a reunion they said they never expected to occur.
       Kerry joked about the time a Vietnamese woman nearly gave 
     birth in Whitlow's arms as their boat sped to a medical unit. 
     And he reminded Belodeau of the day a water mine exploded 
     under the boat, catapulting their dog, VC, from the deck of 
     their boat onto a nearby swift boat.
       Kerry cited luck yesterday for much of his success in 
     Vietnam. As he steered the swift boat toward the Washington 
     Navy Yard and a clutch of dignitaries, he noted how well-
     preserved the craft was in contrast to his former boat.
       ``By the time I left'' Vietnam, Kerry said, ``there were 
     180 holes in my boat.''
       ``To be honest,'' Belodeau said, ``it looked like Swiss 
     cheese.''

  Mr. McCAIN. In closing, Mr. President, had Senator Kerry's modesty 
allowed me to, I would have liked to also include in the Record his 
citations for conspicuous bravery and heroic achievement, virtues which 
Senator Kerry repeatedly demonstrated in service to his country's 
cause, in the company of heroes, aboard as durable and dependable a 
vessel as ever flew the colors of the United States.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would like to associate myself with the 
remarks of the distinguished Senator from Arizona as it relates to our 
distinguished colleague from Massachusetts. I happened to have been in 
the Department of Navy during that period and am well aware of his 
distinguished record.

                          ____________________