"Anyway, my general point was to not focus on the single VC. There is mmore there"
Good point. I think it might help shed some light to reconstruct the broader operations which Kerry's incidents occurred in. I'm curious what prompted him and the other Swift Boat commanders to agree to the beaching plan in the first place--seems to me like the opposite of what you'd want to do in that situation. My understanding is that if you get ambushed you want to get *out* of the kill zone, not stop in the middle of it. How Kerry persuaded others to do otherwise puzzles me, unless there was a minimal threat and it was all a stunt to get medals from the get-go.
That seems to be the case. Turning into the threat was not a spur of the moment decision, according to some who were there.