February 18, 1966 While a senior at Yale, Kerry asked his draft board for permission to study a year in Paris, which the draft board declined. A Slate article reported that Kerry wrote in a 1986 book:
Page 50: Why did Kerry, a Vietnam War opponent, decide to enlist? In addition to feeling obliged to serve his country (and wanting to go on the same adventure that his Yale friends were going on), Kerry says that part of the reason he enlisted in Vietnam was fear of the draft: "I called [the draft board] because I was thinking one of the options was, maybe I'll go study abroad, which was a euphemism for screwing around a bit, but it was clear to me that I was going to be at risk. My draft board … said, 'Look, the likelihood is you are probably going to be drafted.' I said, 'If I'm going to be drafted, I'd like to have responsibility
and be an officer.' "
Page 70, 77: When Kerry asked to be a Swift boat captain, he wasn't asking for combat duty. At the time, the boats were not yet being used for the daring river raids that would make Kerry a war hero. In a 1986 book, Kerry wrote that the
Swift boats "were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing. Although I wanted to see for myself what was going on, I didn't really want to get involved in the war."
Page 73-76: After getting hit in the arm by a piece of shrapnel during a firefight, Kerry asks Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard to put him in for a Purple Heart. Hibbard objected before relenting, and now says, "I've had thorns from a rose that were worse." The book does note, "Purple Hearts were widely given for many types of injuries, including minor ones."
Page 95: Kerry's second Purple Heart. "Kerry was also hit by shrapnel in his left thigh, an injury that would merit a second Purple Heart. He was treated on an offshore ship and returned to duty hours later."
Page 107: Kerry's third Purple Heart. The injury "left him off-duty for a couple days. (He had immediately returned to duty after the earlier two wounds.)"
Page 108: Kerry asks to be transferred out of Vietnam on the three-Purple- Hearts-and-you're-out policy. His commander, Roy Hoffman, "remains upset that Kerry left more than six months ahead of schedule. 'That just turned me off then and there, and as far as I was concerned, he bugged out,' " Hoffman says.
Page 88-89: An interview with Steven Gardner, the one crewmate who doesn't speak highly of Kerry's behavior in Vietnam (and the one crewmate who wasn't interviewed for Douglas Brinkley's Tour of Duty). "Gardner argued that Kerry retreated from firefights too quickly—a view at odds with descriptions by others of Kerry's aggression in later months."
Page 90: Gardner says Kerry threatened him with a court martial for shooting a boy who was about 12 years old. Kerry disputes this, saying that "it was a terrible thing, but I've never thought we were somehow at fault or guilty."
Page 105: Some Hogan's Heroes-style antics: 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."
Page 99-101: Kerry comes up with the tactic that won him the Silver Star.
"Kerry was frustrated that the swift boats were supposed to just race along the river, draw enemy fire, and speed away with guns blazing. Who knew if they shot the enemy? They usually couldn't even see the guerrillas. Kerry insisted it would make more sense to beach the boat and chase down the enemy. …
Rather than ordering his crew to hit the enemy and run, which was standard navy operating procedure, Kerry decided to chase down the Vietcong who were firing at his crew."
Page 103: "When Kerry returned to his base, his commander, George Elliott, raised a familiar issue with Kerry: the fine line between whether the action merited a medal or a court-martial."
http://slate.msn.com/id/2099184/
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