I haven't seen this diaried, but if I missed it, please excuse me.
ABC News (Nightline) sent a team to Vietnam to interview the people of Nha Vi,
the site where Kerry's Swift Boat battle took place. And guess what? It pretty much happened as Kerry said it did.
According to villagers, the Viet Cong had had recently supplied a 12 man unit with arms including a B-40 rocket launcher. They didn't necessarily know who Kerry was, but they do know there was a serious fire fight between the Viet Cong and the Swift Boats on that day.
From the article:
"Villagers say this is what they saw:
"Firing from over here. Firing from over there. Firing from the boat," Vo Thi Vi told Nightline.
She was only a couple hundred yards away when a Swift boat turned and approached the shore, she said, adding that the boat was unleashing a barrage of gunfire as it approached.
"I ran," she recalled, "Running fast. And the Americans came from down there, yelling 'Attack, Attack!' And we ran."
Her husband Tam said the man who fired the B-40 rocket was hit in this barrage of gunfire. Then, he said, "he ran about 18 meters before he died, falling dead."
I'll let you all read for yourselves, but I will note two things. One is that apparently the Swift Boat Liars Club had been there several months ago trying to convince the villagers that Kerry was a liar, etc.
And two, about that "teenage boy in a loin cloth" lie...
"No, this is not correct," Nguyen Thi Tuoi, 77, told ABC News. "He wore a black pajama. He was strong. He was big and strong. He was about 26 or 27."
Read the story here