Posted on 05/04/2004 2:47:46 PM PDT by rwfok
Some critics of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry have questioned the circumstances surrounding the first of three Purple Hearts Kerry won in Vietnam. Those critics, among them some of Kerry's fellow veterans, have suggested that a wound suffered by Kerry in December 1968 may have made him technically eligible for a Purple Heart but was not severe enough to warrant serious consideration, even for a decoration that was handed out by the thousands. Whatever the case, Kerry was awarded the Purple Heart, and, along with two others he won later, it allowed him to request to leave Vietnam before his tour of duty was finished.
Kerry was treated for the wound at a medical facility in Cam Ranh Bay. The doctor who treated Kerry, Louis Letson, is today a retired general practitioner in Alabama. Letson says he remembers his brief encounter with Kerry 35 years ago because "some of his crewmen related that Lt. Kerry had told them that he would be the next JFK from Massachusetts." Letson says that last year, as the Democratic campaign began to heat up, he told friends that he remembered treating one of the candidates many years ago. In response to their questions, Letson says, he wrote down his recollections of the time. (Letson says he has had no contacts with anyone from the Bush campaign or the Republican party.) What follows is Letson's memory, as he wrote it.
I have a very clear memory of an incident which occurred while I was the Medical Officer at Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay. John Kerry was a (jg), the OinC or skipper of a Swift boat, newly arrived in Vietnam. On the night of December 2, he was on patrol north of Cam Ranh, up near Nha Trang area. The next day he came to sick bay, the medical facility, for treatment of a wound that had occurred that night.
The story he told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.
Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.
That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.
What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.
I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.
The wound was covered with a bandaid.
Not [sic] other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any reported damage to the boat.
We already had one of those. She fled to Kenya.
-PJ
I second this nomination for the new moniker.
(Although "Johnson and Johnson" Kerry has a certain quality as well.)
You remember the malingerers, the whiners, and the "bandaid Purple hearts". JF'nK was also probably pretty snotty in his "wannabe blueblood" way to a country doc from Alabama! (Being a poor relation makes some folks mean.)
In the U.S. military, "medical officer" means an M.D. or a D.O. In other words, a "Doctor".
If you are in an area without combat casualties streaming in, there is nothing unusual about a medical officer seeing "minor" stuff.
For example, I was a medical officer and the OIC at the Fleet Sick Call Clinic at Guantanamo for one of my tours. During the mornings, we did active duty Sick Call and, after all acute active duty cases were seen, we then saw civilian contract workers, chronic cases, follow ups, etc.
While it is true that the medical officers would see the more serious problems first, after those were seen, we did not just sit around drinking coffee. We pitched in and helped our Corpsmen clear out the Clinic by seeing our fair share of "minor stuff" from the common cold to jock itch.
When officers came to Sick Call, they would usually be seen by a medical officer rather than a Corpsman just as a matter of rank courtesy.
One "minor stuff" case at Guantanamo was rather memorable. It was a Marine Pfc. with the medical complaint. "Personal problem. Wants to see medical officer".
This Marine's "problem" was that he could "do it" (his words) "only" four times a night on a good night.
Huh?
Well, it seems that he had just gotten himself his first "serious" girlfriend at GTMO and that gal had been told by her friends that a "real man" should have no problem performing five times a night. If her guy was only able to perform three or, at best, four times a night then he was obviously using up his other two times with some other girl.
".....and it's every night, Doc! Sometimes, I can get up to four but that's it. Never five. Sometimes, if I'm tired, I can only do it twice and then she's really upset. And I'm not cheating with another girl. Honest! That's not normal is it? I mean, you can do it five times a night, can't you, Sir?"
Yep. Sometimes "minor" cases were memorable. :-)
You cannot believe HOW SMALL this thing was.
2mm in diameter is .078125" or 5/64" (a tad bigger than 1/16")
3mm is .12" (a tad smaller than 1/8")
and 1cm in length is NEGLIGIBLE
Seriously this is an utter disgrace. No wonder his original CO denied the PH request. This 'shrapnel' would have to 'grow up' TO BE a splinter.
My God, navel lint is bigger than this shrapnel. And the Rose Thorn reference is being way, way, WAY too generous. And a paper cut compared to this 'wound'... HA! That would be like open heart surgery in comparison.
And we thought Willard was shameless. This guy is beneath Klintoon! Kerry is pond-scum.
Have you read Spike Milligan's Hitler, My Part In His Downfall? If not, I highly recommend it. He has some stories that will make you fall over laughing. I'm thinking of a similar story of a Lance Bombardier who was worried that his girlfriend might "p*** off with a Polish Airman" because he feared he was inadequately "endowed." . . . . didn't have as happy an ending, though.
I get stuff worse than that in the garden all the time. For heaven's sake, last night at dog agility training class my Lab was a little too eager for a treat and nicked the cuticle on my left index finger with one canine tooth. Ouchie! I washed it and put a bandaid on, and we went back to class.
Where's my Purple Heart? (If you'd ever run my dog on an agility course, you'd agree that it's "combat." :-D )
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