[kabar]

Hyland's citation does incude "The extraordinary daring and personal courage of Lieutenant (jg) Kerry in atttacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire were responsible for the highly successful mission.

The Lehman citation includes only the following additional statement "By his brave action, bold initiative, and unwavering devotion to duty Lieutentant (jg) Kerry reflected great credit upon himself..." Not too significant in my mind.

[mtntop3]

The Hyland Silver Star certificate added the glowing sentence you note that was not in the original (Zumwalt); and the Lehman has that Hyland addition plus yet another add-on, glowing sentence.

Both the tone and implication of these, and their combination, significantly differ from that of the original (Zumwalt).

Again: the Hyland and Lehman now state that Lt. Kerry did not just "directly contribute" to the success of the operation but that, explicitly, his "extraordinary daring and personal courage...were responsible..." for it.

Why/how is a Silver Star certificate/citation changed in this manner? As stated earlier on this thread, most of us, and especially veterans, have assumed that a military award/citation was written up for one time and one time only by a single authority. Are we mistaken? We are not dealing here with casual words but with carefully selected words that have meaning and ramifications.