A wounded VC, BTW, one previously hit by a at least one 50 cal. round from the swift boat's M2.
I'm trying to imagine that VC being ANY kind of a threat, being ANYthing other than an ambulatory corpse, and I just can't.
In addition to which, having already fired his rocket, the man was effectively disarmed. Of course once he got into the hooch, the man could have grabbed an AK. In that case, Kerry would have been fully justified in shooting him, but I am skeptical. At any rate, this is hardly Silver Star stuff.
Don't you have to hack the head off the living dead to kill them, which is what Kerry claimed was happening.