Purple Heart wound treated with Band-Aid: Doctor recalls hearing Kerry boast he'd be next JFK

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Wednesday, May 5, 2004

[JohnHuang2]

The wound that made John Kerry eligible for the first of three Purple Hearts was not severe enough to warrant consideration, according to the physician who treated him in December 1968. Louis Letson, now a retired general practitioner in Alabama, said he has "a very clear memory of an incident which occurred while I was the Medical Officer at Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay," according to National Review Online editor and columnist Rich Lowry.

Kerry's Purple Heart and the two others he won later allowed him, under Navy regulations, to request and receive leave for the United States after just four months of his 12-month tour of duty.

Letson, according to NRO, 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."

Yesterday, a group of 18 veterans who served with Kerry in Vietnam held a press conference in which they described him as a self-serving, "loose cannon" who needed constant supervision and came only to launch a political career.

The physician, who says he has no contacts with the Bush campaign or the Republican party, wrote down his recollections in response to questions from his friends.

Letson wrote, on the night of Dec. 2, 1968, Kerry "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 physician continued:

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.

[Mo1]

PING A LING

[Prime Choice]

Purple Heart wound treated with Band-Aid...

Well, whaddya know 'bout dat...

[JohnHuang2]

LOL!

[Mo1]

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.

He shoot himself ???

LOL .. what a LOSER

[dc-zoo]

When hilary gets through with him he may actually qualify for a purple heart and really end up like JFK.

[piasa]

Kerry really blew it, then... out of this incident he could have had two purple hearts. One for when the metal went in... and one for when the bandaid was pulled off.

If he wasn't such a douchebag, I'd feel sorry for what Hillary is doing to him, too.

[EGPWS]

The wound that made John Kerry eligible for the first of three Purple Hearts was not severe enough to warrant consideration,...

then who was it that awarded it to him?

[Conservative4Ever]

LOL....ya got to love it when the geek of the year gets a Purple Heart from a band-aid wound. It is an insult to all the other good men who were wounded or died in Vietnam. Kerry is getting almost as annoying as Hillary.

Red

[JohnHuang2]

Bump!

[miltonim]

...and did not require any sutures to close the wound.

The wound was covered with a bandaid.

lol

[highlander_UW]

He shoot himself ???

Gee...when I was in the army I got a real bad sunburn one time...but I was never savvy enough to put in for a purple heart...I wonder if it's too late to submit for it now.

[KneelBeforeZod]

OK M*A*S*H was a lefty show full of lefties...

but anyway, does anyone remember the episode where major burns gets a purple heart for "shell fragment in eye"

it was just an egg shell...

[ThirstyMan]

WND reports all this stuff but nobody else seems to think it is interesting, heh? We are in a very, very strange age of unrelenting media bias. At least we have alternatives to the main outlets now. Go WND, Go Fox! Yeah FreeRepublic!

[pawdoggie]

The "next JFK" comment is particularly enlightening. When Kerry heard about the "Swift" boats (which were described in contemporary news reports as being the "PT boats of the Vietnam War") the SOB must have figured that the Almighty Himself had created this opportunity for him to shine up his political resume. Then he learned that the mission of the boats had changed (they were apparently being sent up river from the mouth of the Delta), and he realized that the enemy was using real ammunition. So he contrived the Purple Hearts, campaigned for the "Valor" (SS, BSM) medals, and the rest is history. In your heart you suspected it, but your unwillingness to attack a GI made you want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

[bondjamesbond]

Since the first Purple Heart was not really valid, the Three-and-Out rule does not apply. So the Navy ought to put him back into uniform and send him back into combat.

Fortunately, we have a nice little war to send him to. Two actually, he can have his pick...

Admiral Boorda committed suicide over much less than this.

[Quilla]

Mr. Bond illustrates the Kerry nom de plume.

[bondjamesbond]

Very nice...

[dd5339]

Gee, what a war wound.... Makes me sick.

Semper Fi

[VRWC_minion]

KInda funny how a lie sometimes never dies.