IIRC, one of the reasons his superiors let him know about the three Purple Hearts and go home rule (and possibly helped him meet it) was because they thought he was going to get fragged. Possbly after getting a lot of guy’s killed. It was a win-win, Kerry gets to go home, they avoid a very unfortunate and messy situation involving an investigation, probable court martial and a lot of paperwork.
PH's very small....
Considering we know JFK is an idiot now....not beyond any thinking person he was an idiot then......