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The events of February 28, 1969 that lead to Senator John F. Kerry being awarded the Silver Star is analyzed. Action by Lt.(jg) Kerry on the 28th of February can be broken into two distinct combat engagements, which I will refer to as events A and B.Event A consisted of a three swift boats whose mission was to insert some 70 VN Marines (Kerry tells of 70 VN's, while Zumwalt mentions 30 VN troops per boat in the first Silver Star citation) for the purpose of sweeping an area where small arms fire were encountered by the same three...

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.

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,...