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"I like my modifier 'up close and personal' over hand to hand combat. When you track down and are close enough to see the man you kill 'up close and personal' sounds about right to describe it."

After taking a belt of .50 cal from the swift boat, I doubt that VC had much fight left in him anyways. I'm guessing if Kerry even did see the VC....he was in small pieces by that time. It would be interesting to see the narrative on the citation for the silver star.....and to learn who wrote it.

I like my modifier 'up close and personal' over hand to hand combat. When you track down and are close enough to see the man you kill 'up close and personal' sounds about right to describe it.

The details of the event for which he was given the Silver Star make no sense at all. Supposedly, a B-40 (rocket propelled grenade) was fired at the boat and missed. Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand, the bow gunner knocks him down with the twin .50 (caliber machine guns), Kerry beaches the boat, jumps off, shoots Charlie, and retrieves the launcher. If true, he did everything wrong. (a) Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put your stern to the action and go (away) balls to the wall. A B-40 has the ballistic integrity of a Frisbee after about 25 yards, so you put 50 yards or so between you and the beach and begin raking it with your .50's. (b) Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a .50 caliber round and get up? The guy was dead or dying. The rocket launcher was empty. There was no reason to go after him (except if you knew he was no danger to you - just flopping around in the dust during his last few seconds on earth, and you wanted some derring-do in your after-action report). And we didn't shoot wounded people. We had rules against that, too. (c) Kerry got off the boat. This was a major breach of standing procedures. Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat in a hot area. EVER! The reason was simple. If you had somebody on the beach your boat was defenseless. It couldn't run and it couldn't return fire. It was stupid and it put his crew in danger. He should have been relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any boat crewman ever leaving a boat during or after a firefight.
Something is very fishy.

from what I read, Kerry saw the back of the man he killed as he was fleeing having been wounded. he went into a hooch and "finished him off",,for all we know the poor guy was lying there bleeding out. That does not count as an heroic act in my mind. And I have also read that for him to beach his boat and run after a wounded man was a clear violation of rules,,he put his boat and men at risk to be a hero.