HA! .. Check this out
I was reading the local paper .. I couldn't get the article online .. but here is another one that reports pretty much the same thing
Seems now Kerry REFUSED to be operated on.
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/politics/9474374.htm
(SNIP)
Kicking off two days of pro-Kerry events across Pennsylvania on the eve of expected new anti-Kerry TV ads sponsored by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group, Del Sandusky said he personally witnessed the battle action for which Kerry received Silver and Bronze stars and two of his three Purple Hearts.
"He deserved every one of his medals," Sandusky, a retired computer repairman who drove Kerry's boat for nearly three months in early 1969, told a news conference at Pennsylvania's Capitol. "He carries a piece of shrapnel in his leg because he refused to be operated on and (spend) a couple of days in the hospital and leave us on the boat" without a commanding officer.
"I was there when he got wounded. I saw the blood. I don't care what Dole said," Sandusky said, referring to suggestions by Republican former Sen. Bob Dole and other Kerry critics that the Democratic presidential candidate received an early exit from combat for "superficial wounds."