This is only a minor nit-pick to set the record straight, but for what it’s worth, here it is.

The citation for John Kerry’s Silver Star is still available in pdf at his website. It reads:

The extraordinary daring and personal courage of Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry in attacking a numerically superior force…

According to this previous post on Kerry’s citation for his Silver Star (with or without ‘V’), :

7 Confirmed enemy *(though probably at least triple that) vs 94 troops and the crews of the Swift Boats is ‘Overwhelming odds’ alright, but not in the way Kerry’s citation claims.

Now from ABC, there is confirmation from Vietnamese participants that the number of VC was 20, as we at TCP deduced :

According to Vo, there were at least 20 Viet Cong soldiers at Nha Vi there that day. “There were 12 soldiers from the provincial level and eight from the district level,” he said.

Of course, after 35 years, memory is at best unreliable.

Oh yes - the ABC report also stated that the Vietnamese had been interviewed before.

Back in Tran Thoi, villager Nguyen Van Khoai said that about six months ago he was visited by an American who described himself as a Swift boat veteran and told him another American from the Swift boats was running for president of the United States. Nguyen said the man was accompanied by a cameraman.

“They say he didn’t do anything to deserve the medal,” Nguyen said. “The other day, they came and asked me the questions and I said that the recognition for the medal is up to the U.S.A.”

He said that, after they met, the Swift Boat veteran and the cameraman turned around and went back down the river. “Nightline” has not been able to identify the men.

The interviewers have since been identified. The ABC could have done this with a little Googling but as it didn’t fit their storyline, it was left to bloggers. From the Washington Monthly :

First, there’s a dispatch from AP reporter Margie Mason, who took a trip up the Bay Hap river in August. Apparently she interviewed the same guy:

”I think it’s American politics,” said Nguyen Van Khoai, 61, a former Viet Cong who fought American troops in the area but never attacked the Swift boats. “On any side, a soldier who made an outstanding feat is given a medal, but maybe some people try to think otherwise.”

Second, a few minutes ago I spoke with a Vietnam vet named Doug Reese, who works with Vietnam’s official tourist agency and has visited the country frequently. In particular, Reese visited Tran Thoi in March and spoke with several villagers who were witnesses to the Silver Star incident. He identified himself as a journalist, not a Swift boat vet, and he didn’t have a cameraman with him, but he thinks it’s likely that Khoai confused his visit (March) with Mason’s visit (Swift boat related) to come up with the quote he gave Nightline. Reese is a Kerry supporter and no fan of SBVT, but even so, he says, “I’m confident the Swift boat guys didn’t go there.”

So, is the ABC deliberately omitting facts, or just incompetent? We report, you decide.

Finally, the John Kerry site has never claimed that there were more than 20 VC present. It’s only the suspect third version of Kerry’s citation that has the claim about being a “numerically superior force”.

As John Kerry has never signed a form 180 to expose his records to outside scrutiny, that’s all we can say at this point.