One must be careful when discussing the merits of PHs and the difference between bravery and exercising good sense...
I have never met any group of men any braver that those men that fought from PBRs.
One Navy enlisted PBR crew member, remains a close friend to this day..
The VC and NVA feared and hated them, and would go to great lengths to attempt to kill them by any means..
I don't begrudge any man - wounded three times, wishing to invoke the "Return to the World" clause..
I had never heard of that "clause"....and a lot of men would still be alive if they had known and invoked the clause..
It's the definition of a Purple Heart level "wound" that requires some scrutiny...
That definition varied a great deal, between branches and even units within the same branch..
Our Gunny defined a "wound" - as one that required more attention than could be properly provided by our Corpsman..
In other words, in HIS mind - you were not wounded unless you had to be conveyed to Field Hospital or choppered out to the fleet hospital or beyond.
Anything less than that was considered a "wake up call" and you were lucky...
Kerry just doesn't pass the smell test..
For one so proud of his service - yet opposed to our being there - and then working against those warriors STILL there --- just doesn't calculate..
It seems Kerry was getting his Political Card Punched - in Vietnam - and left as soon as he has the necessary "punches".. Just as many Officers in some branches..did the same.
Semper Fi
One must be careful when discussing the merits of PHs and the difference between bravery and exercising good sense... I have never met any group of men any braver that those men that fought from PBRs.
One Navy enlisted PBR crew member, remains a close friend to this day..
The VC and NVA feared and hated them, and would go to great lengths to attempt to kill them by any means..
It's my understanding that Kerry was in PCF Swift boats, not the smaller PBRs, though there were certainly come particularly courageous individuals in the Swifts and Nasti boats of the *brownwater* navy as well- as to whether or not he was one of them, then, I'll leave to those who knew him then [1968 and '69] to debate; the jury's not in either way so far as I'm concerned.
But I'd certainly doubt the good sense of any individual who gets himself or those under him repeatedly wounded or injured in combat, and I'd have some real hard questions about the sort of judgement such a person might have had either way back then, or 40 years after the fact. Some leadership positions most certainly do not call for the impulsive valour that might be praiseworthy in a junior officer or enlisted man- cool deliberation and rational thought would be more of a requirement.
