Question for all you FReepers about Kerry

Self

[Getsmart64]

Does anyone really know how Kerry received his wounds in Vietnam? Did he take a couple of gunshot wounds to the head(maybe why he is so indecisive), an arm, leg, etc or did he get a couple of paper cuts and/or stubbed toes while cleaning his gunboat??

[Publius]

Tour of Duty: John Kerry in Vietnam

[Triple Word Score]

Cut himself while stabbing his fellow soldiers in the back, most likely.

[Liz]

I think Jane Fonda gave him a hickey....it was considered bravery while in (ahem) action.

[MJY1288]

ROFLMAO

[vrwinger]

Supposedly, he missed 2 days TOTAL for all three Purple Hearts... FWIW...

[tcuoohjohn]

As I recall his silver star citation refers to fragmentation wounds from a B-40 rocket. One PH award refers to a GSW T&T ( Gunshot wound, through and through) of the right leg. The other PH citation is not known to me.

[FairOpinion]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1075941/posts

John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress [Original Interiew]
Harvard Crimson ^ | 2/18/1970 | Crimosn Staff Writer


When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy. The Navy assigned him to the USS Gridley which between December 1966 and July 1968 saw four months of action off the Vietnam coast. In August through November, 1968, Kerry was trained to be the skipper of a patrol boat for Vietnamese rivers.

For the next five months, until April of 1969, Kerry was the commanding Lieutenant of a patrol boat in the Mekong Delta. He was wounded slightly on three different occasions and received a Silver Star for bravery. His patrol boat took part in Operation Sealords, mostly scouting out Viet Cong villages and transporting South Vietnamese marines to various destinations up and down narrow rivers covered with heavy foliage on either side.

One time Kerry was ordered to destroy a Viet Cong village but disobeyed orders and suggested that the Navy Command simply send in a Psychological Warfare team to be friend the villagers with food, hospital supplies, and better educational facilities.

[finnman69]

Good nickname

Bad troll post.

[RandallFlagg]

I have another question:

Has the Kerry/Fonda pic made it's rounds on the news/talk shows and have FReepers received any recognition for finding them yet?

[helen crump]

I don't know but his arrogance creeps me out. My uncle was at Normandy beach in WWII and received a purple heart. I didn't even know about it until a couple of years ago when my mother told me. She said he keeps it in the back of a drawer at his home and never talks about it. Kerry could take a few lessons from him. I don't want to take anything away from anyones' service to their country but maybe Kerry just had a problem with being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, doesn't he have 4 purple hearts? Maybe he just wasn't very good at what he did.

[COUNTrecount]

Purple heart....injuries suffered while receiving numerous botox injections caused by being two-faced

[soozla]

I understand that none of his wounds required him to leave his post...meaning they were superficial enough to allow him to continue his honorable service to our country for the entire 4 months he was in Nam....and since they had a rule which allowed wounded service persons to request early "out" after receiving three injuries, he received the third injury for which he was awarded a purple heart and two days later he requested his "early out".......this I discovered by doing some preliminary research...will do more.....much more!!

[Lady Jag]

Hanging with Jane

[#1CTYankee]

This excerpt from www.usvetdsp.com

Kerry experienced his first intense combat action on Dec. 2, 1968. He was slightly wounded on his arm, earning his first Purple Heart.

In late January 1969, Kerry joined a five-man crew on swift boat No. 94 completing 18 missions over 48 days, almost all of them in the Mekong Delta.

Kerry earned his second Purple Heart after sustaining a minor shrapnel wound in his left thigh on Feb. 20, 1969.

On February 28, 1969: When Kerry's Patrol Craft Fast 94 received a B-40 rocket shot from shore, he hot dogged his craft beaching it in the center of the enemy position. To his surprise, an enemy soldier sprang up from a hole not ten feet from Patrol Craft 94 and fled.

The boat's machine gunner hit and wounded the fleeing Viet Cong as he darted behind a hootch. The twin .50s gunner fired at the Viet Cong. He said he "laid 50 rounds" into the hootch before Kerry leaped from the boat and dashed in to administer a "coup de grace" to the wounded Viet Cong. Kerry returned with the B-40 rocket and launcher. Kerry was given a Silver Star for his actions.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Best I can tell, (in truth, not joking!), is that he got minor shrapnel wounds once (apparently from a US grenade that exploded too close).

The other two wounds were some kind of "minor flesh wounds" that didn't require any days off duty. Nor apparently medical attention - but he hasn't released his medical records to show whether he even went to the doc. Or corpsman. Falls, scrapes, bruises ... We don't know.

Absolutely NO bullet wounds or burns.

Cut? "Nick" or "grazing"? Don't know.

(I've written several times to other members of his boat unit, and we do know he wrote up his own Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and Silver Star recommendations.)

[Robert A Cook PE]

He only had 3 months in country best i can tell. (Bush had more days flying than Kerry had in Vietnam.)

Dec to late February, early March.

Then he requested transfer back home to go to an "admiral aide" position in Boston.

Even from easy of a position, he requested early discharge to go run for Congress!

[helen crump]

So there were three purple hearts and he was just there 4 months!??!! Probably stomped his feet and said "stop it, stop it!! No wonder he threw the medals away.

[Robe]

One time Kerry was ordered to destroy a Viet Cong village but disobeyed orders and suggested that the Navy Command simply send in a Psychological Warfare team to be friend the villagers with food, hospital supplies, and better educational facilities.

IIRC....Direct disobedience of a direct order in battle IS a COURT MARSHAL offense.

Any correlation in accusing GWB of disobeying an order to get a flight physical?????

HMMMmmmmm

[pieces of time]

http://www.usvetdsp.com/jf_kerry.htm

scroll down the page and besides the interesting pictures with the Kennedy's on a yacht there's some info on wounds but not really how they were sustained. Note that he was in command of "carelessly firing at targets of opportunity, and the Navy's "fire free zone" policy". The buck stops where?
Any info on how early his early discharge was?