My point is, that regardless of his stupid left-wing politics, Kerry was there, and deserves credit for that. No doubt he had political ambitions, but, unlike Clinton, he sought to preserve his "political viability" by serving his country, not hiding from the draft. If all Kerry did to get the Silver Star is what is recorded on the website, he didn't deserve that medal in my view, but he still gets a lot of credit in my book for putting himself in harm's way. Unlike Bill Clinton who hid out in Oxford, Kerry could very well have been killed or maimed for life; he wasn't sitting behind a desk in Saigon. Its all well and good that Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam and volunteered for Riverine duty. Yes it was very dangerous there...pretty much all of the combat area was...
But lets examine Kerry's taking a "Silver Star" for the act as described on the web site.... and his allowing some navy corpsman to put him in for three "cheap hearts" and after getting his third cheap heart...puts himself in for transfer for some really cushy duty and gets it...
Now to me this speaks volumes about HIS CHARACTER...(of course if you are a democrat of the Clinton ilk...character doesn't count...but for some of the rest of America it does)...
I will give you one more observation...when Kerry left...the way he did...he was not showing LEADERSHIP OR INSPIRING HIS MEN TO SACRIFICE OR COURAGE...
America has been gravely damaged in our recent past by leaders of little if any character...The president of the USA must be a man of impeccable character to be an effective leader
I will give Kerry credit for volunteering for Vietnam..(most of the men in combat were volunteers BTW)
But for taking a medal imo he didn't merit..
For using his cheap hearts to get out of combat (and leaving his crew) I will not give him credit or vote for him...
His obvious dislike of the America of our founders and what I consider his profound lack of character imo disqualifies him from serving in federal legislature let alone the Presidency..
IMO
Recently, Kerry became extremely defensive when David Warsh, an economics columnist for The Boston Globe, questioned the circumstances for which Kerry was awarded the Silver Star. Kerry, who was in a close re-election battle with Gov. William F. Weld, a Republican, quickly gathered his former crew from his Swift boat days to rebuff the "assault on his integrity."
According to the official citation accompanying the Silver Star for Kerry's actions on the waters of the Mekong Delta on February 28, 1969: "Kerry's craft received a B-40 rocket close aboard. Once again Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry ordered his units to charge the enemy positions. . . Patrol Craft Fast 94 then beached in the center of the enemy positions and an enemy soldier sprang up from his position not ten feet from Patrol Craft 94 and fled. Without hesitation Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry leaped ashore, pursued the man behind a hootch and killed him, capturing a B-40 rocket launcher with a round in the chamber." In an article printed in the October 21st and 28th 1996 edition of The New Yorker, Kerry was asked about the man he had killed.
"It was either going to be him or it was going to be us. It was that simple. I don't know why it wasn't us--I mean, to this day. He had a rocket pointed right at our boat. He stood up out of the hole, and none of us saw him until he was standing in front of us, aiming a rocket right at us, and, for whatever reason, he didn't pull the trigger--he turned and ran. He was shocked to see our boat right in front of him. If he'd pulled the trigger, we'd all be dead . . . I just won't talk about all of it. I don't and I can't. The things that probably really turn me I've never told anybody. Nobody would understand," Kerry said. In the column, Warsh quoted the Swift boat's former gunner, Tom Belodeau, as saying the Viet Cong soldier who Kerry chased "behind a hootch" and "finished off" actually had already been wounded by the gunner.
Warsh wrote that such a "coup de grace" would have been considered a war crime. Belodeau stood beside Kerry and said he'd been misquoted. He conceded that he had fired at and wounded the Viet Cong, but denied Kerry had simply executed the wounded Viet Cong. Dan Carr, a former Marine from Massachusetts, who served 14 months as a rifleman sloshing around in the humid jungles of I Corps, South Vietnam, questioned whether or not Kerry deserved a Silver Star for chasing and killing a lone, wounded, retreating Viet Cong. "Kerry is certainly showing some sensitivity there. Most people I knew in Vietnam were just trying to pull their time there and get the hell out. There were some, though, who actually used Vietnam to get their tickets punched. You know, to build their resumes for future endeavors," Carr said.
http://www.usvetdsp.com/story10.htm