Kerry campaign provides military records

AP | 4/20/04 | NEDRA PICKLER

[Zoomie1]

So what? He used the legal system to delay serving and then he enlisted to serve as an officer? You apparently don't understand enlisted men and women are not officers. They can if they have the other requirements in place qualify for officer's candidate school after basic training. I was in the Air Force in the Navy they call it boot camp. I was enlisted for four years and by then had completed my degree in chemistry. I applied for and was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. John Kerry either was in Navy ROTC while in college or he earned his commission through Officer's Candidate School or he received a battle field commission. Those are very rare and even more so now that all Officers have to be College Educated.

I enlisted in the air force so I could pick what I did in the service. I suppose you would say I dodged the draft by joining the Air Force? I am not a Kerry fan in fact I've never voted for a Democrat and I sure don't expect to vote for Kerry. I have been a Bush fan for many years. W. doesn't walk on water but then he never said he could. Attack Kerry all you want but don't pick on his service record? Its honorable and when you try to dis his honorable service you stomp on the toes of a lot of very good brothers and sisters of mine.

[O Neill]

I think you better provide all the records, sir...

[Howlin]

So what?

So what is that he did not volunteer for two tours in Vietnam AS HE CLAIMED.

I never said one word about dodging the draft.

[Zoomie1]

I was an Air Force medic. I removed an AK47 round from a patients bony orbit. The round had apparently been nearly spent when it hit my patient in the left upper eye lid. the round penetrated above the upper lid tarsal plate pushed the globe of the eye down into the fatty tissue that protects the globe of the eye and came to a rest posterior to the globe of the eye and very close to the optic nerve. I was trained as an Ophthalmology Specialist. At the time we did not have an ophthalmologist in our hospital and none of the surgeons wanted to operate to remove the round. I was concerned that the round would move and damage or sever the optic nerve and blind the patient. Optic nerves don't react well when contacted by some metals lead being one. I removed that round and I sutured the wound in the eye lid. Did that patient deserve a purple heart? He didn't get one because he was ARVIN but normally his wound would have justified a purple heart. I was a Sargent at the time. Not a medical officer. Lots of enlisted medics did that level of medicine and even more on a more or less regular basis. Now days with the legal atmosphere that sort of thing wouldn't happen. The docs present would not let a medic do that sort of surgery and in all likelihood that patient would have lost his vision because they would almost certainly for fear of being sued refused to do the surgery themselves unless they were Board Certified Ophthalmologists. The navy medics were very good many of them like me were certified for independent duty. Some of them had three or four years of total training if they were in for careers and had more than one enlistment under their belts. Don't throw off on wounds treated by medics in combat. I have been covered in blood and stood for hours on end in surgery and what little I did pales in comparison to what lots of medics did every day of that war.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

sKerry did not volunteer for river patrol boat duty. He volunteered for coastal patrol boat duty. The mission of the PCFs was changed after he volunteered. He has admitted that he never wanted to be in combat.

I agree that to serve, even reluctantly, is honorable. However, to sealawyer your way into undeserved medals then out of combat it not honorable. What happened to the man who replaced sKerry after he skipped out of Vietnam? What happened to the inexperienced crew that replaced his after he ran?

[Zoomie1]

You ever hear of the Dog Days of August? Well in Vietnam the Dog Days of August run about year around. almost any penetrating injury if it is not properly treated becomes infected. Ever hear of cavernous sinus thrombosis probably not. One of my patients popped a zit between his eyes on the bridge of his nose. Apparently some of the exudate (pus) went the wrong way. Several days later he was told by his CO to go on sick call. He delayed five or six hours and when he was brought into the hospital he was running a 105 degree fever. Two days later he passed away from secondary bacterial meningitis. That zit killed him. Kerry's wound involved the removal of a piece of shrapnel don't know how big nor how deep it penetrated do you? It penetrated and thats what makes a potentially serious wound out of what may also have been little more than a splinter. The point is in Vietnam where men were exposed to warm humid conditions and where keeping wounds clean is a matter of life and death until you know the size of the shrapnel and whether the wound was a scratch probably not if shrapnel was involved you can't judge whether the wound was real or like Frank Burns (egg) shell fragment in the eye was a laugher or not.

[Riley]

Fair enough. My service was in drier climates, I wouldn't have bothered the Corpsman over a wound if I could continue to function without doing so. The closest to those climatic conditions that I operated in was training in the South in a muggy summer. Had a serious run-in with a nasty pile of razor wire. I guess I was lucky- it healed up without medical attention.

I am convinced at this point however, that Kerry's every action was methodically and cynically scripted to advance his future political career. I do not trust him in any way.

[Choose Ye This Day]

I always thought it was "wrecked up like a douche, another runner in the night" but that made no sense.

Then I got Greetings from Asbury Park on vinyl, and it has all the lyrics on the inside cover. Deuce, as in Deuce Coupe.

[Polybius]

I was an Air Force medic. I removed an AK47 round from a patients bony orbit. The round had apparently been nearly spent when it hit my patient in the left upper eye lid. the round penetrated above the upper lid tarsal plate pushed the globe of the eye down into the fatty tissue that protects the globe of the eye and came to a rest posterior to the globe of the eye and very close to the optic nerve. I was trained as an Ophthalmology Specialist. At the time we did not have an ophthalmologist in our hospital and none of the surgeons wanted to operate to remove the round. I was concerned that the round would move and damage or sever the optic nerve and blind the patient. Optic nerves don't react well when contacted by some metals lead being one. I removed that round and I sutured the wound in the eye lid. Did that patient deserve a purple heart? He didn't get one because he was ARVIN but normally his wound would have justified a purple heart. I was a Sargent at the time. Not a medical officer. Lots of enlisted medics did that level of medicine and even more on a more or less regular basis. Now days with the legal atmosphere that sort of thing wouldn't happen. The docs present would not let a medic do that sort of surgery and in all likelihood that patient would have lost his vision because they would almost certainly for fear of being sued refused to do the surgery themselves unless they were Board Certified Ophthalmologists. The navy medics were very good many of them like me were certified for independent duty. Some of them had three or four years of total training if they were in for careers and had more than one enlistment under their belts. Don't throw off on wounds treated by medics in combat. I have been covered in blood and stood for hours on end in surgery and what little I did pales in comparison to what lots of medics did every day of that war.

First of all, Zoomie1, let me assure you that I am not "throwing off" the services provided by Corpsmen or Medics. Those services are life saving and, most imporatantly, they are rendered right in the thick of combat. They are the most "worthy" medical services to be found in the military. Everything else pales in comparison.

The language of the Purple Heart regulation is designed not to put down the Medic or Corpsman but to weed out the injuries that merit Purple Hearts from the injuries brought to Sick Call by the "Sick Bay Commandos".

The operative word are "requires treatment".

As you know, we in the military medical services often found ourselves in situations that, to be perfectly honest about it, required treament by individuals that were more specialized than we were.

You did a fantastic job with that intraconal orbital injury but that patient actually "required" an Ophthalmologist for such an injury.

When I was aboard my CGN, if some fat Senior Chief had keeled over with a heart attack as a result of a coronary artery stenosis, I would have done my best as a General Medical Officer fresh out of Internship and he might have lived but that Senior Chief would still have "required" a cardiologist to perform a coronary angiogram and angioplasty.

When I was stationed at Guantanamo we treated and now, in civilian practice in a rural county, we treat patients that actually "require" specialties that we do not have here until they can be air-lifted to the medical center in the Big City.

So, the Purple Heart requirement is written, not to denigrate the Corpsman or Medic or GMO or the surgeon when a cardiologist is "required" or the cardiologist when an orthopedic surgeon is "required", but to weed out the Sick Bay Commando.

Does an intraconal foreign body "require" an Opthalmologist? Damn right it does. But, if an Opthalmologist is not available, then that man had the next best thing and that was you.

The same thing applied to me, a General Medical Officer fresh out of Internship in a nuclear cruiser equipped with an Operating Room. If somebody's ruptured spleen needed to be taken out, I could have muddled through it but what such a patient actually "required" would have been for a "real surgeon" to be flown over over from the carrier.

So, here we are in a war zone. I am the General Medical Officer and you are my senior Corpsman or Medic.

Lt.(j.g.) John F. Kerry, comes to our Fleet Sick Call demanding that he "requires" a medical officer for his "wound" that his Swift Boat C.O. described as being analogous to "a fingernail scratch".

Does it really "require" that I, the medical officer, see him?

Does it really "require" that you, my senior Corpsman or Medic see him?

In reality, can't his "injury" be handled, totally, from start to finish, by our lowest ranking Medic or Corpsman or even by a "striker" who is a non-designated E-2 who is assigned to the Medical Department but has not yet gone through "A" School to become a real Corpsman?

That is the isuue.

Did Kerry's wound ideally "require" treatment by a medical officer?

An HMCS?

An HMC?

An HM1?

An HM2?

An HM3?

An E-3 "striker" assigned to the Medical Department?

If the answer for John F. Kerry's Band-Aid and Bacitracin wound is: "An E-3 "striker" assigned to the Medical Department"......

Then John F. Kerry did not meet the requiremts set forth by the Purple Heart criteria.

[NormsRevenge]

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., is seen in this 1969 photo as a Navy Lt.j.g., second from left top, with members of his crew aboard PCF-31 in the Mekong Delta during the war in Vietnam. Records of Kerry's Vietnam War service released Wednesday, April 21, 2004 show a highly praised naval officer who volunteered for a dangerous assignment and at one point was ``unofficially credited with 20 enemy killed in action.'' (AP Photo/Courtesy of John Kerry, HO)

[Polybius]

Records of Kerry's Vietnam War service released Wednesday, April 21, 2004 show a highly praised naval officer who volunteered for a dangerous assignment.....

Bullsh#t.

Kerry volunteered for no such thing.

A while back, I posted the summary, pasted below, of the choices Kerry made during his Vietnam service.

Since the myth of Kerry's "volunteering for a dangerous assignment" keeps being put out by Kerry and parroted by the news media, I believe the post merits re-posting from time to time for the benefit of any news media lurkers on FreeRepublic.

************************************

What bothered me about this article saying Kerry "only served" four months on a tour is that he had a cushy job on the big ship and opted to volunteer for his second tour of duty on a swift boat. In other words he took himself off the easy duty and into the harder combat seeing duty. That has to count for something.

That is what Kerry and the Democrats want us to believe and that is the version they are putting out. However, that version is pure Bravo Sierra and is not supported by the facts or by Kerry's own statements.

It would indeed be extremely admirable if Kerry had knowingly taken "himself off the easy duty and into the harder combat seeing duty".

However, Kerry never volunteered for combat or any duty he dreamed would get him into combat.

Kerry was the First Division Officer when he served on the USS Gridley.

John F. Kerry, the junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts is positioning himself for a run at the Presidency in 2004. Ensign (and later LTJG Kerry) reported aboard GRIDLEY straight out of the Fleet Training Center, San Diego on 8 June 1967. This boot Ensign headed up First Division and is shown here with Calvert BM1 and BMCS Enochs. His biographical materials never mention this period even though he was aboard GRIDLEY much longer than he was in Vietnam. Between having these two old salts reporting to him and Captain Slifer after him all the time, Ensign Kerry was a busy young man.

What is "First Division"?

First Division is one of the "Deck Divisions" on a ship. In Navy slang, the "Deck Apes". They swab the decks. They chip paint. They paint the areas they finished chipping. After that, they swab, they chip and they paint some more. The bottom of the class at Navy Boot Camp ends up in a Deck Division.

In the Ward Room, the First Division Officer is the lowest guy in the ship's officers pecking order. When the XO or the CO need an S.L.J.O. (Shitty Little Jobs Officer), the First Division Officer is the guy that gets the job.

Kerry was in charge of the least skilled sailors in the lowest prestige division on his ship and, apparently, his C.O., Captain Slifer, was not making life very pleasant for our Boston Blue Blood who was more used to sailing on John F. Kennedy's yacht.

What to do?

Swift boats!

At the time, swift boats merely patrolled the coastline or ferried sailors between ships.

Most importantly, a lowly Lt.(j.g.) was the Officer in Charge (OIC).

Instead of being the SLJO on the USS Gridley, in charge of Deck Ape Division, with Captain Slifer making his life miserable, Kerry pictured himself as the OIC of his own boat, roaring up and down the South China Sea out of the war and with no Captain Slifer anywhere in sight.

But, don't take my word for it.

Let's hear it from John F. Kerry himself:

Boston Globe, 6/16/2003: ........"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."......... But two weeks after he arrived in Vietnam, the swift boat mission changed -- and Kerry went from having one of the safest assignments in the escalating conflict to one of the most dangerous.

Two weeks after Kerry assumed command of his swift boat, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt put into effect his idea of getting those swift boats out of glorified water skiing duty........

Picture of yours truly "RD2 Joe Muharsky" water skiing behind PCF 94 March 1969. Pictured is signed by Senator John Kerry who was a LTJG in Coastal Division 11.

.......into the shooting war in the rivers of the Mekong Delta.

Oooooops.

As Robert Burns once wrote, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

Kerry signed up for being OIC of his own water skiing boat and here he was in the middle of a friggin war!!

What does Kerry do now after he has gone from glorified water skier straight into deep kim-chee?

Well, Kerry then proceeds to rack up three Purple Hearts for "injuries" that kept him off duty for a grand total of.....drum roll, please..... two days of duty by his own admission and zero days according to his swift boat squadron C.O.

Kerry then sea-lawyered himself out of combat after only four months and requested a transfer as an "Admiral's aide", preferably in "Boston, New York or Washington".

Boston Globe, 6/16/2003: ......... He requested and was granted a transfer out of Vietnam six months before his combat tour was slated to end on the grounds that he had earned three Purple Hearts. None of his wounds was disabling; he said one cost him two days of service and the other two did not lead to any absence. .........The bottom line is that Kerry could have remained but he chose to seek an early transfer.

When the Boston Globe asked Kerry to give permission for the release of his Navy medical records so that the Boston Globe could document what sort of injuries earned Kerry three Purple Hearts and a ticket out of combat after 4 months.........Kerry refused.

Every decision and/or request John F. Kerry ever made; from First Division Officer to swift boat OIC; from swift boat OIC to early termination of his combat tour; from early termination of his combat tour to Admiral's aide; from Admiral's aide to early discharge from active duty; from early discharge from active duty to politically-popular-in-Massachusets American-G.I.'s-are-war-criminals anti-war protestor.....

Every decision and/or request John F. Kerry ever made in his Navy career was made to further the comfort, safety and political ambitions of John F. Kerry.

[R. Scott]

…including some time under my bunk during a rocket attack. Hard to believe it was over 35 years ago.

How time flies! It seems like only last week.
When we were finally evaced from Hue to Phu Bai we all felt safe. The first night the hospital was hit with 122 mm rockets. We spent several hours in unfinished bunkers.

[R. Scott]

" 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. "

One of our boats (an LCU) was captured in Cambodia. We had numerous resupply missions in that area, but never thought it was anything special. We certainly never considered we were the Army’s Most Inland Unit”.
The crew of the captured boat was held as POWs at a very fine hotel, their captures picking up all the tabs they ran up for room service. They had guided (guarded) tours around the city and actually enjoyed themselves for the first few months. One of them later joined my crew after release. He seemed embarrassed to admit he had been a POW.
The Cambodians had to take the boat to show their support for the Communist forces, but they also treated them very well because they had to show their support for the US.

[js1138]

I think it's increasingly clear that Kerry sstaaarted out with the goal of getting three Purple hearts. That was his ticket out. He took advantage of a system that gave out awards rather easily.

I think everyone has been in school with a kid who sucked up all the awards.

[OffMyMeds]

http://www.historicmonroe.org/h028.htm

Here is a link to a webpage for Matthew Urban, one of the most highly decorated combat veterans during World War II. Reading about the actions that won him these medals made my jaw drop.

[Polybius]

The crew of the captured boat was held as POWs at a very fine hotel, their captures picking up all the tabs they ran up for room service. They had guided (guarded) tours around the city and actually enjoyed themselves for the first few months. One of them later joined my crew after release. He seemed embarrassed to admit he had been a POW. The Cambodians had to take the boat to show their support for the Communist forces, but they also treated them very well because they had to show their support for the US.

Well, actually, since Cambodia was neutral at the time, he was legally an "Internee" in Cambodia and not a POW.

Under international law, when belligerent forces end up inside a neutral country and are "caught" by the neutrals, the neutral have an obligation to keep them inside the neutral country until the war is over. However, since the neutral country wants to stay friendly with both sides, the treatment during internmemt is usually Club Med or as close to it as wartime conditions will allow.

During World War II, many damaged U.S. aircraft were flown to Switzerland so that they would not crash land in Germany. All those American airmen were "Internees" of the Swiss until the end of the war unless they "escaped".

As you can see from the link of the Swiss Internees Association Website, these guys did not have a "Stalag 17" experience........."Am wondering if any Internee from the Palais Hotel or Bel Air Bar winter of 1944/45 remembers a young chambermaid/waitress whom you nicknamed "Betty"? "

An Internee can brag about being on the mission, about the combat and about his service but, when an Internee meets a "real" POW, it is best not to brag about his internment at the Palais Hotel and "Betty" the waitress. :-)

One amusing aspect of the Swiss internment was that the town chosen as the internment site for American airmen was right next to a Swiss resort popular as a German R&R area. So, Amerticans and Germans in uniform would bump into each other on the neutral Swiss streets. The Fourth of July was celebrated by aiming fireworks and rockets at the German consulate. :-)

Life in Switzerland.

303rd BG(H) Switzerland Internees

[Mr. K]

he requested a purple heart for THIS??

SENATOR PAPER-CUT was a good name for him...

[R. Scott]

I think that at the time they were classified as POWs, as Cambodia was nominally on the side of the Communists but they didn’t want the war to spill over into their country any more than it already had.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

" Kerry signed up for being OIC of his own water skiing boat.."

And water balloon fights, chicken races and shooting flares at US supply ships.

"The Long War of John Kerry " Joe Klein


"To release the tension after a trip up the river, Kerry would often instigate chicken races between the swift boats, cutting over each other's wakes."
" He also organized water-balloon battles."
" Once, his three-boat squadron attacked an American supply ship at night with flares."

And this doozy.
From the upcoming bio of Kerry by a group of Boston Globe reporters, " John F. Kerry, The Complete Biography " :

"Kerry and Jim Rassman decide to toss grenades into "a huge rice cache that had been captured from the Vietcong and was thus slated for destruction. … "

"Rassman escaped the ensuing explosion of rice, but,
Kerry was not as lucky—thousands of grains stuck to him."

I can't get the image of Kerry, covered in rice, out of my mind. Maybe that's how he got the bruise on his forearm ?

John Kerry- Rice a Phoney, the San Francisco Treat.

[BushisTheMan]

How about these:

Three boo-boos for a boob!

Band-aid wounds should not qualify for purple hearts

"Real purple heart soldiers" - wounded but keep on fighting in Iraq

Few in Vietnam took advantage of "3 purple hearts and you can get out" rule -- but someone how wants to be commander-in-chief Kerry did

Kerry denigrates ALL valid purple heart recipients

Band-aids cannot stop the ooze coming from Kerry's lips