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[snip]Kerry's commander, Grant Hibbard, is quoted as saying that Kerry came to see him the next day to seek a Purple Heart, but "I told Kerry to 'forget it.' " Asked how Kerry got a Purple Heart, Hibbard replied, "It beats me." Later that month, was ordered to more dangerous duty on inland waterways at a place called An Thoi but fellow Swift Boat veterans say he loudly bellyached until he got transferred out within a week, showing that he had "very little nerve for facing serious combat." The book quotes fellow Swiftee William Franke as saying Kerry complained that...

John Kerry's commanding officer was just interviewed on Fox News. According to Lt. Commander Grant Hibbard when Kerry showed up in front of him requesting a Purple Heart, Hibbard saw that he had a "scratch"(Hibbard's word) on his forearm. And because, according to Hibbard, there was no report of enemy action on Kerry's patrol that day and the "scratch" did not receive medical attention from a medical officer, Hibbard declined Kerry's request for a Purple Heart.

Meanwhile, Burkett is digging below the surface of the official paperwork -- revealed and yet unrevealed -- hoping that the relatively small Vietnam Swift Boat community will come forth and reveal a more realistic picture of Kerry's truncated tour in Vietnam. That tour was cut short by Kerry invoking an informal regulation that permitted thrice-wounded Navy personnel to leave the combat zone early. Retired Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard, his commanding officer at the time, now says the wound for which Kerry was awarded his first Purple Heart "resembled a scrape from a fingernail." Burkett, who has been receiving intelligence from...

ABC Defends “Kerry’s Distinguished War Record,” CBS Skips Topic      A lot more skeptical of Bush than Kerry on Vietnam-era service. Back on February 10, when the White House, in reaction to Terry McAuliffe’s uncorroborated claim that George W. Bush was “AWOL” from the National Guard in the early 1970s, released his military records, the networks stressed how they only “raise more questions.” But with Kerry, the networks ignored for a week questions raised last week in the Boston Globe about whether he deserved one of his Purple Hearts, and then prompted by Kerry’s release of his records finally got...

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry claimed on Sunday that he's already released his medical records, including those that would prove he deserved three Purple Hearts in Vietnam - though reporters have been clamoring for weeks for Kerry to make the documents public. Asked if he would "agree to release all your military records," Kerry told NBC's "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert, "I have. I've shown them." In the next breath, however, Kerry pulled back from the claim that he had publicly released his Vietnam records, telling Russert, "They're available to you to come and look at. . ....

<p>April 15, 2004 -- John Kerry was facing questions about his celebrated war record yesterday after his former commanding officer in Vietnam said Kerry didn't deserve his first Purple Heart medal because his injuries were just a scratch. Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard, who was division commander of then-Lt. j.g. Kerry's Navy unit, told The Post he opposed Kerry's petition for the Purple Heart, awarded to service people wounded in combat, for an encounter with Viet Cong smugglers Dec. 2, 1968.</p>

<p>April 15, 2004 -- Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry has never been forthcoming about how he earned three Purple Heart medals in Vietnam - and the reason for his reticence appears now to be coming clear. At least the first of the decorations - awarded for wounds suffered in combat - was received in circumstances that can best be described as dubious.</p>

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry insisted on being awarded his first Purple Heart in Vietnam even though his injury amounted to no more than a "fingernail scrape," his commanding officer at the time now says. Retired Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard tells the Boston Globe that he can still recall Kerry's wound, and that "it resembled a scrape from a fingernail," the paper said. "I've had thorns from a rose that were worse," Hibbard insists. Still, the former Navy man remembered that Kerry insisted on receiving a Purple Heart for the wound he said was incurred during a Dec. 3,...