Kerry Faces Questions Over Purple Heart (Boston Globe)

Boston Globe ^ | 04/14/2004 | Michael Kranish

[bitt]

"But as the presidential campaign heats up, some Vietnam veterans are using the Internet and talk radio to question the Democratic candidate's military record. They complain that Kerry's three Purple Hearts were for minor wounds and that he left Vietnam more than six months ahead of schedule under regulations permitting thrice-wounded soldiers to depart early...."

[bitt]

Kerry "Faces"...that alone caught my eye...

[Paleo Conservative]

[mewzilla]

J is for Janus-faced.

[Diogenesis]

"Ze wound waz NOT made by mee own finger nail like ze Globe says. Non. Non."

[NotchJohnson]

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1104082/posts

I posted a story about a man who fought with Kerry. He was on the radio here and I believe him. Viet Nam was a tool for Kerry to get ahead in politics. I am glad the Boston Globe is picking up on this. This guy is not the war hero everyone says he is.

[nuconvert]

"Under Navy regulations, an enlistee or officer wounded three times was permitted to leave Vietnam early, as Kerry did. "

Coincidence?
Premeditated

[dalebert]

I still want to see Kerry's military medical records.

[battlegearboat]

I'd love to read ONI's dossier on Kerry.

[SiliconValleyGuy]

Kerry faces a bigger question over a black heart. When I heard his comment the other day after the Marines shut down an Iraqi newspaper that was calling for the "killing of the American pigs" I was sick. He said that "they" (meaning our own Marines) had no right to shut down a "legitimate media source".

This anti-American piece of slime is running for President?

[tdadams]

This guy is not the war hero everyone he says he is.

Of all the people who might be painting him as a hero, no one is doing it more than Kerry himself. And if anyone should know it's a bogus boast, it's Kerry. There's a book that comes to mind when thinking about Kerry.

[guitfiddlist]

"He had a little scratch on his forearm, and he was holding a piece of shrapnel," recalled Kerry's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Grant Hibbard. "People in the office were saying, `I don't think we got any fire,' and there is a guy holding a little piece of shrapnel in his palm."

This little episode reveals in a very explicit way, the slimeball duplicity of this man. To push in such a pathetic way for such an undeserved medal - shows how much he valued them for future political currency. And within months he was hooking facsimiles of them over the White House fence, while demonstrating against the supposedly evil US military presence in Vietnam.

Now, dusting them off, he wears them on his sleeves as some kind of patriotic war hero. The man obviously is a complete political weasel, believing in nothing, shifting on complete opposites of widely split philosophies, to finnagle his way to power. The success of this POS is an indictment of our democracy.

[jamaksin]

And if the "establishment media" had done their job re: klintoon - e.g., highlighting that he was pardoned by Carter for his draft-dodging - perhaps Bubba (and Tubba as part of the package) would never have had the chance to show the US Senate's true colors at his impeachment trial.

Using Henry Hyde's metaphor ... the flag is dropping. Who will catch the flag ... ?

It will not be the media on KetchUp-Kerry ... That is a sure bet! He was in country so little time - so few "wake ups" - and garnered so many ribbons ...

[SiliconValleyGuy]

Well said. BTTT!

[angkor]

He asked for small boat duty after spotting a SWIFT while on shore leave in Nha Trang (this is sometimes called his "service" in Nha Trang by Kerry supporters). When he saw the SWIFT, he had a PT-109 moment, visions of JFK dancing in his head.

So he gets his SWIFT but is sorely disappointed when after only 1 or 2 months in VN, is reassigned to the Delta. Oops, real combat there.

And clearly he takes every possible opportunity to expose his "war wounds" (scratches) and apply for Purples.

One week after his third Purple (and 6 total months in VN), our hero requests reassignment back to the States, pleading to be an admiral's asst. in either NY, Boston, or DC.

But not before reenacting and filming his other dubious achievement which garnered him a bronze star.

It's almost unbelievable that anyone could be so calculating in buffing-up a false record, but here we have the Senator who (mistakenly) sent two letters to constituents about Iraq: one damning the war, one praising it (whoops).

[OldSmaj]

Kerry is a POS.

I'll tell him that to his stinking face.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Front-page article in today's newspaper, though below the fold, and careful to tag Kerry's former commanding officer as a "registered Republican who's undecided about the 2004 election."

[JoeSixPack1]

I'll tell him that to his stinking face.

That'll be a long talk! :-)

[soozla]

"Kerry is a POS. I'll tell him that to his stinking face."

MEGA-DITTO that!!

[GottaLuvAkitas1]

It's about time!

[GottaLuvAkitas1]

"Under Navy regulations, an enlistee or officer wounded three times was permitted to leave Vietnam early, as Kerry did. "

What was the extent of Kerry's 3 wounds?

[Dante3]

About time these questions are being raised.

[SpinyNorman]

Kerry declined to talk to the Globe about the issue during the preparation of the Kerry biography. But his press secretary, Michael Meehan, noted that the Navy concluded that Kerry deserved the Purple Heart.

Why, is this the same military that concluded that George Bush successfully concluded his National Guard obligation? Imagine that!!

I guess three bandaids DO equal three Purple Hearts!

The Globe asked Kerry's campaign whether the Massachusetts senator is certain he was under enemy fire and whether he recalled that a superior officer raised questions about the matter. The campaign did not respond directly to those questions. Instead, Meehan said in a prepared statement that Kerry "received the shrapnel wound early in the course of that combat engagement. " Meehan also provided a copy of a medical report showing treatment for a wound on Dec. 3, 1968. The Purple Heart regulation in effect at that time said that a wound must "require treatment by a medical officer."

Release ALL THE MEDICAL RECORDS, you political hack!! You made the President dig up his, now it is your turn, Liveshot!!

I suppose he wants a medal for his rotator cuff injury from his pansy-ass bus tumble!

[Aquinasfan]

Howie Carr explained why the Globe is running this. They're caught between a rock and a hard place. They want to promote Kerry's campaign, but they're also afraid of being embarrassed by a major national media enterprise scooping them on a Kerry scandal.

[Aquinasfan]

Viet Nam was a tool for Kerry to get ahead in politics.

One thing that bothers me is this. If Kerry was there for four months, why is there so much film of him in action? Who was filming, and why?

[NYC Republican]

bump!

[Robert A. Cook, PE]

Correction:

Kerry had only 3 months (some 105 days) in Nam:

He arrived Dec 01, perhaps Nov 29 or 30 - we don't have his actual records! - and had left before mid-March to return to his admiral's aide billet in New England.

[Aquinasfan]

"He had a little scratch on his forearm, and he was holding a piece of shrapnel," recalled Kerry's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Grant Hibbard. "People in the office were saying, `I don't think we got any fire,'

LOL!

[Eva]

Did you see this article that was posted from Insight magazine?

Purple Hearts: Three and Out
Insight ^ | April 12, 2004 | Stephen Crump


Posted on 04/12/2004 7:56:02 AM PDT by kennedy


Democratic presidential nominee in waiting Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) frequently speaks of courage, brotherhood and responsibility when he mentions his brief service in Vietnam. He took Super-8 home movies there in which he staged heroics in full-battle dress, so that later he might use them for campaign ads. Kerry has made so much of his Vietnam medals which he once pretended to throw away that critics have begun to wonder why he has been so cagey about the dubious circumstances surrounding the Purple Hearts that got him out of Vietnam after only four months of combat service. Under the rules, a serviceman had to be awarded three Purple Hearts to apply to go home. Not one or two, but three. And, say critics, there's the rub.

Kerry, who piloted Patrol Crafts Fast (PCFs) as a young Lt.(jg) in the Vietnam War, has always made much of those Purple Hearts. An award often pinned on the pillow of a combat warrior so badly wounded that he cannot sit up to receive it, the Purple Heart recognizes the sacrifices of combat when a soldier or officer has sustained a wound "from an outside force or agent" and received treatment from a medical officer. The records for such treatment "must have been made a matter of official record," according to the military definition of the award.

According to Kerry's own description in Douglas Brinkley's Tour of Duty, the Dec. 2, 1968, mission behind what he has claimed to be his first Purple Heart was "a half-assed action that hardly qualified as combat." Indeed. Kerry was stationed with Coastal Division 14 at Cam Ranh Bay. At that time he piloted a small foam-filled boat, known as a Boston Whaler, with two enlisted men in the darkness of early morning. The intent, apparently, was to patrol an area that was known for contraband trafficking, but it was an undocumented mission. Upon approaching the objective point, the crew noticed a sampan crossing the river. As it pulled to shore, Kerry and his little team opened fire, destroying the boat and whatever its cargo might have been.

In the confusion, Kerry claims to have received a "stinging piece of heat" in the arm, the result of a tiny piece of shrapnel. He was not incapacitated and continued with regular swiftboat-patrol duty. William Shachte, who oversaw this ad hoc mission, was quoted by the Boston Globe as saying Kerry's injury, from whatever source, "was not a serious wound at all."

But Kerry met with his immediate superior officer, Lt.Cmdr. Grant Hibbard, the next morning and requested a Purple Heart for his wound. Hibbard recalls that Kerry had a "minor scratch" on his arm and was holding in his hand what appeared to be a fragment of a U.S. M-79 grenade, the shrapnel that had caused the wound. "They didn't receive enemy fire," Hibbard tells Insight. Since this was an essential requirement for the award, the commander rejected Kerry's request. Hibbard does not remember that Kerry received medical attention of any kind and confirms that no one else on the mission suffered any injuries.

Shortly thereafter, Kerry was transferred to Coastal Division 11 at An Thoi. Apparently, Kerry petitioned to have his Purple Heart request reconsidered. Hibbard remembers getting correspondence from Kerry's new division, asking for his approval. In the hurried process of moving to a new command himself, Hibbard thinks he might have signed off on the award. If so, "it was to my chagrin," Hibbard remembers. Kerry's second commander, Lt.Cmdr. G.M. Elliott, says he has no recollection of such an event ever occurring.

There are no written records of Kerry's magical first Purple Heart on file at the Naval Historical Center in Washington, the nation's primary repository for such documentation. A Purple Heart normally is not requested but is awarded de facto for a wound inflicted by the enemy - a wound serious enough to require medical attention. The Naval Historical Center keeps all documents connected to such awards to U.S. Navy and Marine personnel. These typewritten "casualty cards" list the date, location and prognosis of the wound for which the Purple Heart is given, and they are produced by the medical facility that provides treatment for the combat wound at the hands of the enemy. There are two such cards for Kerry - for his slight wounds on Feb. 20 and March 13, 1969, but none for his December 1968 claim.

After receiving a Purple Heart for the March 13 scratch and bruise, Kerry sought an early pass out of combat duty, invoking the informal Navy "instruction" known as 1300.39. According to the Boston Globe, 1300.39 meant an officer could request a reassignment from his superior officer after receiving three Purple Hearts. The instruction states that, rather than being automatic, the reassignment would "be determined after consideration of his physical classification for duty and on an individual basis." Of the 138 servicemen and officers in Kerry's unit who received Purple Hearts during the time he was there, records indicate only two received more than two. These were Lt.(jg) Jim Galvin and a boatswain's mate named Stevens. When Insight reached Galvin he said all three of his Purple Hearts were the result of shrapnel or glass shards. Such minor injuries were common on PCF boats with their glass windows and thin steel hulls, and, like Kerry's, Galvin's injuries were not serious enough to take him out of combat for more than a few days.

Unlike Kerry, Galvin elected to stay with his men. Indeed, though a professional Navy officer, he never had heard of instruction 1300.39. It was not until early April of 1969, when Galvin noticed that Kerry was preparing to leave the officers' barracks at An Thoi that he learned about "three Purple Hearts and you're out." According to Galvin, it was Kerry who told him, "There's a rule that gets you out of here and I'm getting out. You ought to do the same." Galvin remembers, "He seemed to take care of everything pretty quickly," because that was the last time Galvin saw Kerry in Vietnam.

The three-times wounded Galvin stayed with his men, transferred to Cam Ranh Bay to get them a respite from the dicey Mekong Delta, and eventually left the swiftboats for destroyer school.

Insight: contacted many men who served in Coastal Division at the same time Kerry did to ask if any of them had heard of anyone leaving the combat zone by invoking three minor wounds. Of the 12 who replied, none had heard of anyone doing so but John Kerry."

Less than a month after having claimed three wounds for which he lost no more than a total of two days of duty, Kerry reported as an aide to a navy yard admiral in Brooklyn, New York, leaving his crew in Vietnam. Two years later, preparing for a congressional race in a left-wing Massachusetts district - where the seat eventually was won by the even more radical Rev. Robert Drinan - Kerry was working with Maoists and other radicals in Vietnam Veterans Against the War, saying of those he left behind who were being killed and wounded for real that they were committing crimes "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels."

Indeed, Kerry said, he knew men who in Vietnam "had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the countryside." Addressing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971, about these and other alleged war crimes, he called on the United States to pay "extensive reparations."

[7thson]

When I was in the Navy, I served onboard the USS Independence for 2 years. We had a guy in our division that had a scar on his right arm - from his elbow down towards his hand - about 3, 4 inches in length. A buddy of mine said to me to ask him about the scar. There was some big story about how he obtained it that made him out to be the BMOC. A couple weeks later, someone else asked him about it and he had a different story. In total, I heard 3 different stories about this scar that always involved danger and made the guy out to be a hero. He was what an officer I served under would refer to as a "depot hero." And since there is a web site devoted to knocking down the lies of people claiming to be in the military, we all know that this c**p happens. Unfortunately, the partisan press will never pressure Kerry on this. I suppose conservatives will have to sneak in during his town-hall meetings and confront him.

[angkor]

Kerry had only 3 months (some 105 days) in Nam:

I recall reading he started out in Da Nang or Nha Trang for a month or so, and was then reassigned to the Delta.

It's a little confusing, even the book Tour Of Duty is unnecessarily vague on dates and timelines:

Tour of Duty: John Kerry in Vietnam (very long)

[Robert A. Cook, PE]

We really don't know:

His Swift boat training at home in CA began after his ship came back to Long Beach the first days of June, and lasted ???? months.

Kerry was apparently based in Long Beach and supposedly trained there, but I only know of Swift boat training out of Mare Island, CA - up north of San Francisco in the Napa Valley.

Regardless, he finished small boat training in ????? (fill in date) from ?????? (fill in location), took leave for ?????? (fill in days), and actually reported to ????? (fill in who) in ?????? (fill in location in Vietnam) for immediate assignment to ????? (fill in small boat squadron CO), where he actually began duty in ?????? (fill in date ....) on his first PBR.

Which might have been that Boston Whaler when he shot up the unarmed (???) (unknown number of unknown civilians or VC) ???? in his first war crime.

[dennisw]

Fake, phony, fraud used these war lies to get the uber liberals of Massachusetts to vote him in time and again. Silly liberals of Massachusetts were gulled by this fraud who ran his macho war hero jive right past them ..... without serious verification.

Massachusetts voters unquestioningly accepted Kerry's Vietnam war credentials.

[Ciexyz]

"Three bandaid" Kerry.

[commish]

Nearly three months later, a document was sent to Kerry informing him that he would receive a Purple Heart "for injuries received on 2 December 1968." The Naval Historical Center, which could not locate a copy of the original card for the incident, nonetheless confirmed that Kerry did receive the Purple Heart.

Gee, the CO questions his injury, his crew does not recall taking fire, Kerry then gets his purple heart BACKDOOR, and now the INJURY CARD is nowhere to be found. How F-in convenient!

[angkor]

Regardless, he finished small boat training in ????? (fill in date) from ?????? (fill in location), took leave for ?????? (fill in days),

Hah, exactly.

It's like citing his "two tours of duty" in VN, one of which was clearly a shore leave in Danang:

"On the afternoon of February 26, 1968, the twenty four-year-old Ensign John Kerry was on watch on the bridge of the USS Gridley....A gentle wind blew across the harbor as Kerry's transport landed at the base of Monkey Mountain in the South Vietnamese port city of Danang. It was the spring of 1968...But what really caught Kerry's attention was a fifty-foot American-made aluminum patrol craft fast (PCF), commonly called a "Swift boat"... The boat Kerry saw gleamed with the possibilities of JFK's PT-109. "Tied up to the same wharf we got off at was a small swift boat and I thought jealously of my own desires to have one," --- Tour Of Duty)

[Joe 6-pack]

"That'll be a long talk! :-)"

ROTFLMAO!!

[mabelkitty]

He needs to release his military records.
This only adds many more questions than answers, and frankly, I need to know if he filed false reports with our Armed Forces. It's that important.

[mabelkitty]

Kudos for Ann Coulter for being the first to nail this issue - she of the Max "What's that?" Cleland issue.

[kellynla]

Well, well, well...it's only taken the Boston Globe over THIRTY FRIGGIN' YEARS to check out Ketchup Kerry's war record...
I guess it's like the "Big Dig"...it might not be completed in our lifetime but their still digging! LMAO

Three PH's in less than four months and not one night in a hospital?
If anyone at the Globe had spent any time in combat they would have known that Kerry's service record is about as credible as a screen door on a submarine!

Semper Fi,
Kelly

[The Shrew]

One reason that Kerry has long divided Vietnam veterans is because of the way he led a group called Vietnam Veterans Against the War after he returned to the United States. While in Vietnam, Kerry began to question the policy of "free-fire zones," which permitted sailors to open fire on rivers where Vietnamese were violating nighttime curfews.

Weren't "Free Fire Zones" designed to protect the true civillians of Vietnam by identifying areas where hostile fire and intent could be expected and that the civillians could then avoid?

Nice spin by the Globe!

Regards,

TS

[EllaMinnow]

Maybe after he loses in November, JFinK can make Band-Aid commercials.

[The Shrew]

But neither he nor Runyon saw the source of the shrapnel that lodged in Kerry's arm. '`We came across the bay onto the beach and I got [hit] in the arm, got shrapnel in the arm," Kerry told the Globe in a 2003 interview. Kerry has also said he didn't know where the shrapnel came from.

Wouldn't a source of shrapnel likely be an explosion, or at the very least an impact either on the boat or in the vicinity of the boat? Wouldn't the boat itself have shown a degree of damage having suffered an impact or an explosion? But, there is no record of the boat being repaired? Wouldn't you sit on that boat and while repairing, cleaning, painting (Navy theme, "If it moves salute it, if it doesn't move paint it gray") have brought up discussion among those involved in said repairs to discuss "What a close call, Whew, we almost bought it when that one hit!" etc?

This POS is such a scam!

Semper Fi,

TS

[Howlin]

I'm almost positive that I read somewhere that Kerry claimed to have been on a boat returning to California on the night Bobby Kennedy was shot -- seems to me he claimed they listened to it on the radio.

[Howlin]

Why did Kerry make the statement "I know about aircraft carries, Mr. Bush?"

[mountaineer]

From an otherwise incoherent speech by John Effin' Kerry on 3/2/02:

.... New Hampshire sent a message to the nation that a President was wrong. You changed history. 1968 - Gene McCarthy.

During that time I was in the Gulf of Tonkin serving my first tour of duty. Months later I was on my way back from Vietnam on a ship coming into Long Beach when I heard the news that we'd lost another agent of change -- Robert Kennedy. I will never forget the words he quoted of George Bernard Shaw: "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream things that never were and ask why not."

I believe that now more than ever it is time for us to get back to dreaming things that never were and asking "why not?" link

[Bob]

"On the afternoon of February 26, 1968, the twenty four-year-old Ensign John Kerry was on watch on the bridge of the USS Gridley....A gentle wind blew across the harbor as Kerry's transport landed at the base of Monkey Mountain in the South Vietnamese port city of Danang. It was the spring of 1968...But what really caught Kerry's attention was a fifty-foot American-made aluminum patrol craft fast (PCF), commonly called a "Swift boat"... The boat Kerry saw gleamed with the possibilities of JFK's PT-109. "Tied up to the same wharf we got off at was a small swift boat and I thought jealously of my own desires to have one," --- Tour Of Duty)

Well, which was it?

If he was standing watch on the Gridley, he couldn't have gone ashore. If he went ashore, he obviously wasn't standing watch on the ship.

His cruise on the Gridley did qualify him for the two Tonkin Bay Yacht Club ribbons; he didn't have to go ashore to do that.

[Howlin]

Thank you. One more day that I can pretend I haven't lost my mind.

[Howlin]

You know, that Brinkley book isn't worth the paper it's written on.