Lyndon B. Johnson loved to wave his Silver Star around on the soapbox.
Some wag described his decoration as "The least deserved, but most appreciated medal ever awarded."
Believe he earned the star by flying as a passenger in a cargo plane in the Pacific theater, but sure he made up with rhetoric, as a US Rep at the time, in the citation what he lacked in valor.
Kerry, same thing. He made his service an issue, like Sheehan waved her brave son's bloody shirt. It's an issue because he opened the door, not his critics.
Actually, LBJ volunteered to be an observer on a bombing mission in the Pacific. His plane had some kind of mechanical problem and turned back. The other planes on the mission were bounced by Jap fighters and IIRC one of the other observers was injured or killed. His plane wasn't anywhere near the action. He deserves praise for volunteering for a combat mission but certainly not a Silver Star.
Yep, it looks like both Murtha and Kerry learned well from LBJ: Get the medal and write your own ticket to congress, just fake the documentation any way you can then hide behind the privacy of military records. Check it out:
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/johnson.silver.star/story/storypage.html
Not quite right. Johnson was commissioned a LtCdr, USNR, while serving as a Member of Congress. He was sent on a Congressional fact-finding tour of the Pacific and was called to active duty for that period. The team arranged to fly aboard a squadron of B-26 bombers on a bombing raid. On the morning of the raid, there was a mix-up about who was assigned to which aircraft. Johnson was shifted from one aircraft to another. The aircraft he rode on experienced a mechnical problem shortly after take-off, aborted the mission and returned to base. Never flew over enemy air space and was never fired at. The aircraft that he was orignally assigned to was shot down over the target area, all aboard were killed.
Johnson was awarded the Silver Star by GEN Douglas MacArthur who knew a thing or two about the important of kissing the a$$ of Congress. The orders were legit, but of course, Johnson never heard a shot fired in anger.