One of the attacks currently being leveled against Kerry is that he lied about being in Cambodia. O'Neill claims that Kerry is lying and that his boat was stationed nowhere near Cambodia. I think there is good evidence in support of Kerry's claim from his own contemporaneous journal.
Here is a portion of John Kerry's contemporaneous journal transcribed back in 2003 in the Boston Globe that refers directly to the action of Christmas 1968. I reprint a significant section because there is a good deal of information there that can be cross checked. The journal also reinforces just how underhanded the whole Swift Vote Vet attack on Kerry really is.
{Update}
A shower is two days behind you and two days hence but some how dirt doesn't (unable to read) you at all. It's good to be alive and to see the small ducks following their mother to food somewhere in the mangroves that line the bank of the river. Ducks remind you of geese and geese bring back the cold of Massachusetts and the memories of warm fires and chestnuts and houses that have been turned into Christmas lights and the feeling of warm skin meeting cold leather as you climb into a frosted automobile that will skid and slide and precariously take you to the even more precarious Christmas shopping.
You are running on one engine to preserve gas because your station is at the mouth of the Co Chien River and there is no outpost to give you fuel and no LSP to (unable to read) with milk and warm food. Today though luck is with POF 44 and her small generator is still running; still capable of warming the hotplate and giving you fried eggs for breakfast. For some reason though you don't feel like fried eggs and so you open a O-ration can that has peanut butter in it -- (unable to read) 11 which is smooth -- and also a can of strawberry preserve and a sandwich satisfies an already deranged stomach.
Today you move to the northern end of the area -- towards Cambodia -- and excitement tingles the nerves that appreciates the new and the unexplored and you enjoy starting the other engine, hearing the deep throb of the diesel engine and the hums as the boat reaches for the step and shoots spray out on both sides as she moves up the river. The (unable to read) shows you where you are and where you are going and you trust the mesmeric sweep that illuminates islands and boats and jumps and sandbars. The (unable to read) hasn't been working very well and without it speed can be dangerous but you have moved over this part of the river before and nothing can stop you now. A (unable to read) sweeps by on one side and you feel large and protective(?) compared to this small fiberglass hull. The patrol officer warns you of a sandbar ahead in an area that you haven't traversed and you thank your wisdom for stopping and asking advise about the upper reaches of the river.
....
Droning engines, throbbing on and on, mesmerize and push you towards the next turn and the next. An eye flickers up and catches sight of the world around you, glimpsing through your now idylls haze of reverie and wonders where you are. Two (unable to read) stalk your side and make you stop and you hold a mid stream briefing for the nights patrol. Suddenly there is an explosion and a mortar lands on the bank near all these boats. You jump and grab binoculars and search the back for activity but there is none and you wonder who sent it and from where. You call on the radio and tell headquarters that someone has shot a mortar near your boat and are there any friendly troops in the area. They say no and so you resign yourself that it is one of Charlie's continual sniper harassments. You continue to talk when with a thumping crash another mortar round lands fifteen yards away in the water. The boats come alive. You scramble. Before all the lines are untied you are going full speed, the two (unable to read) beside you. Then, while you radio and say that you are receiving fire they turn sharply to the right and go up a river in back of where the fire come from. Two men run madly down the beach in your direction and yell for your boat to come over and you charge the engines whit all their force and not caring if there is sand or rock or no water at all the boat begins to charge the beach, jumping with excitement and with the power of a horse that has just been uncaged from the starting gate. You stop dead in your tracks and the men yell that the VC attacked their village and wounded one man and they have roved down in the direction of where we are. So Charlie had shot at us hoping we would answer with a hail of fire that eliminate our own troops. I looked quickly at my watch and noticed that it was three minutes after this truce has been initiated. So this was Charlie's truce.
We moved down towards the small stream where some sampan activity has been sighted and there you sweated while you waited for the (unable to read) to come from the side they had dispersed to. You will send them up the stream which is too small for you to enter and you will cover them from as close as possible. You look around and hear your own breathing, smell the hear in the air, see your men now in flak jackets and battle helmets and ready for might come. The (unable to read) arrive and then again, from the bushes, we start to take sniper fire, small arms weapons that can kill but which you feel is just a ploy by Charlie to bring the fire in. Suddenly, in a flash that is a moment of hell and blindness the read erupt and bullets walk out across the water at your boat and those around you. Then screaming flashes of tracer, red and deadly come at you with a terrifying suddenness that catches all by surprise and you watch for a moment as red streaks move at you in a three dimensional kaleidoscope out of the water. From (unable to read) and Swift a cacophony or explosions as they answer with anger shame and surprise the wall of fire that met theirs. Quickly, too quickly you are past the ambush point and you wheel your boats around to run back and out into the main river. From somewhere reason calls and you grab the loud speaker and yell to your men to hold your fire until right on top of the spot and then there is thunder again and no hearing and only red streaks tearing towards the land. You are in the river and away and you slow your boat. The (unable to read) are with you and you stop to catch you breath. Somehow, while firing you had grabbed the radio and told headquarters that you were receiving automatic weapons fire and were clearing the area to the north and you remember how you had to shout to make yourself heard. Now you hear them recalling the help gunships that were scrambled while you were in there and you realize how quickly help was on the way. You cannot help but feel a throaty exhilaration because you have gone through and there are no scratches and you are still free. Two friendly troops have been wounded, Vietnamese you are told and the (unable to read) are called to Medvac them. While you sit in the river and rearm the smaller boats beside you receive twenty rounds of sniper fire from the bank on the other side but it falls short of the boat and so you don't give a damn.
You head back towards Sa Dec to make your report while transiting the night darkness is broken by tracers flying up out of a Vietnamese outpost that is celebrating Christmas. The bullets pass dangerously near your boat and you think of the stupidity of the whole thing and the ridiculous waste of being shot at by your own allies and so angry you jump on the radio and ask who the hell is shooting at you and inform your seniors that they had better squared away before you return fire. Apologies are quick to (unable to read) but they mean nothing amidst all the chaos and waste.
It's cool now and the evening has closed around you to become full night. The night for once is comforting and you take a coke and some peanut butter and jelly and go up on the roof of the cabin whit your tape recorder and sit for a while, quietly, watching flares float silently through the sky and flashes announce disquieting intent somewhere in the distance. You call down to one of your men and ask him to draft a message to the Admiral in Command of all Naval Forces in Vietnam and also to the Commander of Market Time. IT says "Merry Christmas from the most inland Market Time unit." You hope that they'll court marshal you or something because that would make sense. But the night soothes everything and the people and things that are close to you dart through the mind and bring the only warmth and peace that there is. Visions of sugar plums really do dance through your head and you think of stockings and snow and roast chestnuts and fires with birch logs and all that is good and warm and real. It's Christmas Eve.
First, Kerry says that he has been out on a mission lasting 4 days. O'Neill claims that Kerry was stationed 50 miles from the Cambodian border but, clearly, a four day mission on a boat that travels 23 knots can cover 50 miles.
Second, Kerry mentions the Co Chien river that according to the Swift Boat web site is in zone 6h. {Note that this fact is consistent with Kerry being stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo which is consistent with O'Neill's claims (and contradicts the ideamouth claim that Kerry is stationed at An Thoi--although that is not really germane one way or another.)} Here are some photos of the Co Chien river area circa 1968-69. Kerry's journal records him returning from the north (ie., traveling back down river) to Sa Dec which as you can see from the linked map is quite far inland. Read the link and you will see that there is a clear path to Cambodia. During Christmas 1968 Kerry is participating in the Sea Lords operation designed by Admiral Zumwalt. Here is some history about SeaLords that specifically refers to incursions into Cambodia:
In early November 1968, PBRs and Riverine Assault Craft opened two canals between the Gulf of Siam at Rach Gia and the Bassac River at Long Xuyen in an operation labeled Search Turn. Vietnamese paramilitary ground troops helped US Naval patrol units secure the transportation routes in this operational area.
Later in the month, in operation Foul Deck, Swift Boats, PBRs, Riverine Assault Craft, and Vietnamese naval vessels penetrated the Giang Thanh River-Vinh Te Canal system, north of Search Turn and nearer to the Cambodian border, to establish patrols all along that waterway from Ha Tien on the Gulf of Siam to Chau Doc on the upper Bassac.
Then in December, against heavy enemy opposition, U.S. Naval forces pushed up the Vam Co Dong (Vam Co East) and Vam Co Tay (Vam Co West) Rivers west of Saigon to cut infiltration routes on either side and through the "Parrot's Beak" area of Cambodia. This Giant Slingshot operation, so named for the Y-shape of the confluence of the two rivers on a map, severely hampered Communist resupply in the region near the capital and in the Plain of Reeds.
Completing the first phase of the SEALORDS program, in January 1969, PBRs, Assault Support Patrol Boats (ASPB), and other river craft established patrol sectors along canals westward from the Vam Co Tay River over to the Mekong River in operation Barrier Reef.
To some up, it is very credible that Kerry was in or near Cambodia during Christmas 1968 AND it is clear that the operation involved substantial incursions into Cambodia.