Kerry campaign provides military records

AP | 4/20/04 | NEDRA PICKLER

[PattonReincarnated]

Not even one stitch. Not even a band-aid. Just a bacterial dressing and return to duty.

About the time John F'n Kerry was getting his purple hearts I received a wound "playing war" in the woods next to my grandmother's house. Stupid me, I ran into a tree branch and it put a wicked gash into my eye brow. It was one of those bleeder type wounds. My grandmother broke out her sewing kit, sterilized a needle and gave me two stitches. After I stopped bleeding, I went out to play again. I wish I had a digital camera, my grandmother was no plastic surgeon – the scar is still visible today. By the way, I didn’t receive a purple heart. Purple hearts were reserved for men like my uncle, who was wounded on the 7th day of battle on Iwo Jima. He spent two years in hospitals for his wound. By the way, my uncle never talked about that and put up great resistance to any questions about his war days. It was not something that you talked about. My father had to tell me about my uncle’s service.

[Think free or die]

"A band aid and ointment merits a purple heart? My, my. I had no idea my kids were war heroes."

When I told my kids about Kerry's injuries, they said he should have received a sticker and a lollipop.

Wonder what would happen if Kerry started receiving purple heart-shaped lollipops in the mail . . .

[ntnychik]

Great pics! Keep 'em coming!

[colorado tanker]

When I told my kids about Kerry's injuries, they said he should have received a sticker and a lollipop.

That would make a really funny Saturday Night Live type comedy skit. Can't you picture a tough corpsman after doing that saying, "Would you like me to kiss your owie to make it feel better, Lieutenant?"

[Mr. Silverback]

agree with you. In a couple of books I've read concenring helicopter pilots in Vietnam, both authors stated that medals were given out to all kinds of folks for questionable reasons. Chuck Yeager even mentions it in his autobiography.

Talked to a guy today who said just that--He remembers that sometimes they would just give out a few medals after a major firefight, whether there was major heroism or not.

With that said, this is not going to sink Kerry. His stand on the issues will.

Roger that. He has two "tours" in Nam that amount to less than 9 months of combat time. He has 18 years in the Senate as the more liberal of the two Senators from freakin' Massachusetts! Which one is going to give us the most ammo?

[Mr. Silverback]

I meant if you weren't joking about Cam Rahn Bay, give us details. If you were joking, good one!

[mountaineer]

I have a question. Kerry is coming to my town next week, and I plan to freep him. I'm thinking of making a poster with a drawing of a Band-Aid, with a Purple Heart at its center.

Can you all think of any appropriate captions?

[BushisTheMan]

Hey, that was my idea!

Please use it with my blessing. I tried to get the talented Freepers to do a photoshop but no takers.

[R. Scott]

Shrapnel wounds to left thigh (20 Feb 1969) and one in the butt (13 March 1969). That accounts for two of the three Purple Hearts. Nothing is available for the alleged wound received on 2 Dec 1968.
Note that none of the documentation is from a medical file, but from his unit. It is alleged that he put himself in for two of the three awards, this would be in accordance with that allegation.
His Bronze Star with “V” devise was awarded for pulling a man from the water and towing another boat to safety. This was expected behavior, to do anything less would have been dereliction of duty. If this activity were deemed worthy of a hero medal, my boat company would have been over loaded with them.
His Silver Star was awarded for doing what was expected, nothing special or especially heroic and also in direct and reckless violation of standing orders. He intentionally beached his boat - against standing orders, needlessly endangering his crew. He led a landing party ashore - when he was carrying combat troops who job it was to go ashore. His second unauthorized landing is when he picked up a rocket launcher from a dead (or very seriously wounded) enemy.
Like his WWII hero John F. Kennedy, he needlessly endangered his boat and crew.

[mountaineer]

I thought I saw a photoshop of your idea somewhere ... in any event, I'm drawing it with pen and colored pencil. It may say enough without a caption, but I'll still entertain any suggestions!

[iconoclast]

THREE Purple Hearts for this?!

It's my understanding that 3 Purple Hearts got you a get out of Viet Nam free pass.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[MeekOneGOP]

[js1138]

I meant if you weren't joking about Cam Rahn Bay, give us details.

I wasn't joking. Cam Ranh was about the safest place on earth in 1968. The military base was on a peninsula separated from the mainland by the bay. On the mainland were about 10,000 Korean Marines who apparently hadn't heard of Geneva.

At night we would sit in lawn chairs and watch "puff" used as a rototiller on the opposite shore.

If Kerry found a way to get a Purple Heart in this environment, he's a magician.

Na Trang is in the mainland about 20 miles north. I sure there was smuggling going on. Just about any military gear that wasn't tied down was for sale in the markets. But I doubt there would be much return fire from smugglers.

[kabar]

His Bronze Star with “V” devise was awarded for pulling a man from the water and towing another boat to safety.

Kerry's selective release of him military records raises more questions than it answers. One very curious question arises over Kerry's bronze star citation. It was signed by John Lehman who was Secretary of the Navy 5 Feb 1981 - 10 Apr 1987. Since the event he was awarded the Bonze Star for took place in 1969, I wonder what were the circumstances surrounding this odd occurrence. Perhaps Kerry was trying to burnish his record in preparation for his first run at the Senate. Someone needs to raise this question.

http://wid.ap.org/documents/kerry/stars.pdf

[Mr. Silverback]

On the mainland were about 10,000 Korean Marines who apparently hadn't heard of Geneva.

Heard those guys were something to see in action.

Thanks for the info, and for your service. I always thought that Kerry's record would fail to lead anywhere useful, and I still think that it shouldn't be our main line of attack, but this is sure becoming a lot more interesting than I thought it would!

[Zoomie1]

I was a medic in the Air Force serving from April 71 through mid May 75. I was never in Vietnam but being specialized in Ophthalmology I was privileged to provide care for some Viet Vets who had sustained visual trauma in combat. I think I recall that in order for a wound to qualify for a Purple Heart the wound must be serious enough to require the attentions of a physican. Its true at times we were so busy that the threshold for a physican's attentions to a moderate but non life threatening wound were pushed to let the physicians give their attentions to more seriously wounded personnel. I did procedures at times that going strictly by the book and in less pressing situations a physician would normally have done. Debraiding a minor uncomplicated wound cleaning the area and throwing a couple sutures in and dressing with a bacitracin patch might or might not have been enough for a Purple Heart. Find out who the medic was and ask him or her the medic could have been a nurse some of whom were males and some were females.

[R. Scott]

12 years is a long time between action and award.
My Purple Heart was awarded for wounds received on 23 February 1968. The orders were cut on 28 May 1968 and I received it in early 1969 while assigned in Okinawa.
Of course there was a reason for the delay. I was Army but was treated in a Navy Hospital (Da Nang) after being transferred from the Army field hospital at Phu Bai. We didn’t carry our medical records with us on the boats - they were maintained at our orderly room, a place seldom seen by us.

Kerry Award

[kabar]

Kerry must have initiated a request for the award. His DD-214 listed the Bronze Star, but he must not have received the award while he was still in the service, unlike the Silver Star. I think he was just adding to his resume and asked for the award. It shows his mindset. He is the guy who declared that everyone was a war criminal and urged everyone to throw their medals away. Now he cloaks himself as a decorated war hero who should be lauded for his service.

I had a similar experience receiving awards from Vietnam. They were pinned on at my next duty station. I was stationed in Danag and know the Naval hospital. I spent a week there with pneumonia, including some time under my bunk during a rocket attack. Hard to believe it was over 35 years ago.

[Zoomie1]

Don't get me wrong I am a Bush fan but when I lost my student deferment as a result of nonperformance in college I was about to be drafted so I joined the Air Force. I volunteered to be a medic but was selected based on training and education to that point to be trained as an Ophthalmology Specialist. I was in the first class of medics to be trained in that field and so with so few of us in the Air Force there was virtually no chance any of us would ever be anywhere near any real fighting. Hospitals were generally pretty safe. I admit that at times I feel a little guilty for having it so easy. John Kerry served in a safe billet at sea then he volunteered for river patrol boat duty. I have friends who were petty officer skippers on those boats. Many of them will tell you that duty was at times very hairy. It doesn't matter if Kerry used every deferrment available to him or not. He served. He volunteered for duty that was not in air conditioned hospitals and at times the buzzing in the air was not mosquito but AK-47 rounds. His service was honorable. I don't understand why he dishonored his honorable service when he came home I think all the body bags he saw filled would haunt him for the things he has said since his return to the real world but thats for his conscience to settle.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

"His second unauthorized landing is when he picked up a rocket launcher from a dead (or very seriously wounded) enemy. "

The enemy was a 14 yr old VC, wearing a loincloth.
The VC used women and children, so, I don't have a problem with his age.
However, if the kid was wounded and basically naked, you could obviously see if he had weapons on him.
I believe Kerry has acknowleged shooting the kid in the back.
The question is-was the kid still armed and was he already wounded when Kerry dusted him ?

"His Bronze Star with “V” devise was awarded for pulling a man from the water and towing another boat to safety. This was expected behavior, to do anything less would have been dereliction of duty"

Amen. I think the media , which glorifies any Democrat in uniform, has no idea what is expected/required behavior in the military.
I think if Kerry showed up in a Good Humor uniform, they would swoon.
Their ignorance of all things military is why they glorify Kerry and denigrate ANG pilots.

Today, John Dalton was on CNN auditioning for the Secretary of Defense position in the Kerry administration. He skated around Judy Woodruff's questions about the missing files and questions about Kerry's first PH.
Dalton, who admitted that he had not seen any of Kerry's records-implied that Kerry had been medevaced out, on a stretcher, for his injuries.
Then Dalton said that Lt Col Hibbard, Kerry's CO who told the Boston Globe that Kerry's first injury was nothing, a fingernail scratch- was a partisan, right wing Republican nut and not to be believed.

From the Boston Globe series on Kerry :

" To top it off, Kerry said, he had gone several miles inside Cambodia, which theoretically was off limits, prompting Kerry to send a sarcastic message to his superiors that he was writing from the Navy's "most inland" unit. "

"Back at his base, a weary, disconsolate Kerry sat at his typewriter, as he often did, and poured out his grief. "You hope that they'll courtmartial you or something because that would make sense," Kerry typed that night."

".. and Kerry was slightly wounded on his arm, earning his first Purple Heart on his first day of serious action."

"It was not a very serious wound at all," recalled William Schachte, who oversaw the mission and went on to become a rear admiral."