Last SBVT post (I hope)

I posted the following in the comments to the last post, but I like it enough that I think I'll put it up here too:

For a nicely footnoted rundown of the SBVT claims and the evidence, go here.

To summarize:

-Schachte claims to have been the 4th man on the skimmer when Kerry got his Bronze Star, and says Kerry hurt himself with a grenade. Runyon and Zaladonis, two other men who everyone agrees were on the skimmer, deny that Schachte was there and say Kerry never used a grenade. (This story, by the way, was the one that Michelle Malkin tried to spread on Hardball.)

-Thurlow claims that Kerry wasn't under fire when he pulled Rassmann out of the water. He is contradicted by everyone on Kerry's boat, a guy on his own boat, well-corroborated military records, and intelligence reports that show 1 VC killed and 5 wounded in the battle. While Thurlow claims that some of the reports were written by Kerry, not all of them could have been.

-Elliott now claims that Kerry merely shot down a fleeing defenseless wounded enemy and doesn't deserve his Silver Star. This fits ill with Elliott's intense praise for Kerry during the war, and is contradicted by Kerry's crewmates and William Rood, who say the enemy had a rocket launcher and could have blown up Kerry's boat.

-The one thing I will concede is that Kerry wasn't in Cambodia during Christmas. He was there later though, and I think the experiences that he described as 'seared into' his memory (a winter holiday, allies celebrating and firing weapons, Nixon being president) are from Tet rather than Christmas.