Kerry has shrapnel in left thigh from Vietnam War injury

AP ^ | 4/24/4 | NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

[SF Republican]

John Kerry has a piece of shrapnel in his left thigh from an injury he suffered in the Vietnam War, his doctor said Friday during a review of 36 pages of the Democratic presidential candidate's military medical records.

[O Neill]

...such an attack makes our side look petty and bad...

Yes, you've made your point...and it has some merit. You must understand, though, like one poster's tag line states, people like Kerry have been spitting on some of US for 30 years...and NOW we have a chance to spit back. I know, it's petty and not what Jesus would do. But 30 years of saliva from these twits...

It's lougeee time!!

[#3Fan]

Doyle noted that if the shrapnel had hit Kerry in the eye, it could have blinded him sounds like my Mom

I once stepped on a nail. Had I been standing on my head I could've been blinded. Where's my medal?

[#3Fan]

Still at it Destro? I think veterans who received medals for real wounds are just as offended by Kerry's hyping his "wounds" as much as any group.

[Polybius]

So what fruits will this argument gain "our" side?

Frankly, Destro, I am not at all sure which side "your" side is.

Should we put Bush's service and Kerry's service on a scale?? Who did more?? Or do think attacking Kerry's war record will make Bush's lack of one less damaging an election issue?

So Bush "lacks a record"....... According to Destro.

Well, Destro, Bush has a service record, Kerry has a service record and I have a service record.

Among the four of us, the only one that does not have a service record is you.

It was never Kerry's intention to volunteer for anything that was the least bit dangerous. Bush on the other hand, volunteered to fly jet fighters.

Bush knew that, as a fighter pilot, he could end up in Vietnam combat.

Kerry never dreamed that he would ever end up in combat and it came as a total shock to him when he did.

While it is true that Kerry ended up in a war zone and Bush did not, that was only as a result of pure bad luck. Kerry has admitted that he tailored his Vietnam choices to stay out of combat and, once bad luck put him into combat, he did everything he could to weasel himself out of combat as soon as he could. "As soon as he could" translated into 4 months.

I have dealt with the issue of Kerry's Vietnam choices on one of my previous posts (below) that I repost from time to time for the benefit of Kerry hero-worshippers such as you and for the benefit of any members of the liberal press that may be lurking on FR.

*****************************

What bothered me about this article saying Kerry "only served" four months on a tour is that he had a cushy job on the big ship and opted to volunteer for his second tour of duty on a swift boat. In other words he took himself off the easy duty and into the harder combat seeing duty. That has to count for something.

That is what Kerry and the Democrats want us to believe and that is the version they are putting out. However, that version is pure Bravo Sierra and is not supported by the facts or by Kerry's own statements.

It would indeed be extremely admirable if Kerry had knowingly taken "himself off the easy duty and into the harder combat seeing duty".

However, Kerry never volunteered for combat or any duty he dreamed would get him into combat.

Kerry was the First Division Officer when he served on the USS Gridley.

John F. Kerry, the junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts is positioning himself for a run at the Presidency in 2004. Ensign (and later LTJG Kerry) reported aboard GRIDLEY straight out of the Fleet Training Center, San Diego on 8 June 1967. This boot Ensign headed up First Division and is shown here with Calvert BM1 and BMCS Enochs. His biographical materials never mention this period even though he was aboard GRIDLEY much longer than he was in Vietnam. Between having these two old salts reporting to him and Captain Slifer after him all the time, Ensign Kerry was a busy young man.

What is "First Division"?

First Division is one of the "Deck Divisions" on a ship. In Navy slang, the "Deck Apes". They swab the decks. They chip paint. They paint the areas they finished chipping. After that, they swab, they chip and they paint some more. The bottom of the class at Navy Boot Camp ends up in a Deck Division.

In the Ward Room, the First Division Officer is the lowest guy in the ship's officers pecking order. When the XO or the CO need an S.L.J.O. (Shitty Little Jobs Officer), the First Division Officer is the guy that gets the job.

Kerry was in charge of the least skilled sailors in the lowest prestige division on his ship and, apparently, his C.O., Captain Slifer, was not making life very pleasant for our Boston Blue Blood who was more used to sailing on John F. Kennedy's yacht.

What to do?

Swift boats!

At the time, swift boats merely patrolled the coastline or ferried sailors between ships.

Most importantly, a lowly Lt.(j.g.) was the Officer in Charge (OIC).

Instead of being the SLJO on the USS Gridley, in charge of Deck Ape Division, with Captain Slifer making his life miserable, Kerry pictured himself as the OIC of his own boat, roaring up and down the South China Sea out of the war and with no Captain Slifer anywhere in sight.

But, don't take my word for it.

Let's hear it from John F. Kerry himself:

Boston Globe, 6/16/2003: ........"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."......... But two weeks after he arrived in Vietnam, the swift boat mission changed -- and Kerry went from having one of the safest assignments in the escalating conflict to one of the most dangerous.

Two weeks after Kerry assumed command of his swift boat, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt put into effect his idea of getting those swift boats out of glorified water skiing duty........

Picture of yours truly "RD2 Joe Muharsky" water skiing behind PCF 94 March 1969. Pictured is signed by Senator John Kerry who was a LTJG in Coastal Division 11.

.......into the shooting war in the rivers of the Mekong Delta.

Oooooops.

As Robert Burns once wrote, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

Kerry signed up for being OIC of his own water skiing boat and here he was in the middle of a friggin war!!

What does Kerry do now after he has gone from glorified water skier straight into deep kim-chee?

Well, Kerry then proceeds to rack up three Purple Hearts for "injuries" that kept him off duty for a grand total of.....drum roll, please..... two days of duty by his own admission and zero days according to his swift boat squadron C.O.

Kerry then sea-lawyered himself out of combat after only four months and requested a transfer as an "Admiral's aide", preferably in "Boston, New York or Washington".

Boston Globe, 6/16/2003: ......... He requested and was granted a transfer out of Vietnam six months before his combat tour was slated to end on the grounds that he had earned three Purple Hearts. None of his wounds was disabling; he said one cost him two days of service and the other two did not lead to any absence. .........The bottom line is that Kerry could have remained but he chose to seek an early transfer.

When the Boston Globe asked Kerry to give permission for the release of his Navy medical records so that the Boston Globe could document what sort of injuries earned Kerry three Purple Hearts and a ticket out of combat after 4 months.........Kerry refused.

Every decision and/or request John F. Kerry ever made; from First Division Officer to swift boat OIC; from swift boat OIC to early termination of his combat tour; from early termination of his combat tour to Admiral's aide; from Admiral's aide to early discharge from active duty; from early discharge from active duty to politically-popular-in-Massachusets American-G.I.'s-are-war-criminals anti-war protestor.....

Every decision and/or request John F. Kerry ever made in his Navy career was made to further the comfort, safety and political ambitions of John F. Kerry.

[dread78645]

He then joined the Navy before he would be drafted. His number was a lot higher than George Bush in the lottery, did you know?

Uhmm ... No.

The general lottery started December 1969. Before that from 1940 - '68 it was controlled by local draft boards.
That system was declared unconstitutional by the USSC on due process grounds; because too often, as punishment, the local draft boards would call up the A-1DQ (delinquent == war protesters) first.

Neither Bush or Jf'nK had a "lottery" number.

[John Galt's cousin]

Meehan jumping in before the doctor slips

Noticed that too huh??

I smell fear

I smell Hillary . ....

Who might benefit from Kerry unraveling before the Democrat convention?

[steveegg]

Who might benefit from Kerry unraveling before the Democrat convention?

You might want to get in on libloather's March through November MADNESS! pool. IMHO, this is all just setup for the "soft Arkancide" Ke(rr)y will get on Day 2 of the RAT convention.

[rmgatto]

When the logic is unassailable, change the subject. You haven't addressed any of the good doctor's points.

[New Perspective]

Thank you for your kind words. My son is a true blessing.

www.Hunter2003.net

[daybreakcoming]

**Kerry was in danger of serious injury several times.**

How did they get him to say this with a straight face?

[AnAmericanMother]

OK, how do you stop Tripod pix from disappearing?

(That was the only copy I could find, & I was too lazy to scan from my book.)

[AnAmericanMother]

Thanks for that explication of the Navy pecking order.

The last Navy man in our family was great-uncle Henry Augustus Dent, who was with Dewey at Manila Bay. So you can see how we might not be up to date on the details. I had heard of "Deck Apes" before, but didn't know exactly who or what they were (I mean, I've got a couple of "Yard Apes", but I'm sure it's not the same . . . :-D )

[daybreakcoming]

**The rest are not worth responding to.**

Ah good. This means you are going to "move on"?

[Polybius]

OK, how do you stop Tripod pix from disappearing?

You can't.

The image I used was a diferrent image that was not on a Tripod server.

Tripod is one of those servers that imediately blocks any links to it's images. There are a few other servers that do likewise.

One trick I have learned is to use the "Cached" link when you are doing a search on Google. Google apparently needs to link to a site before it copies it into it's archive and that is long enough for the Tripod image to replace the original image. So, when you bring up the "Cached" page on Google, you will not only see your highlighted keywords but also see the Tripod logo that tells you that you have to keep searching for a useable image on some oner web site.

For a famous painting, it was hard to find "Playing Old Soldier" on another site. I had to Google search with various combinations of "Homer Winslow", "Winslow", "Civil War", "Goldbrick", etc. before I could find another copy of it outside of Tripod that I could use.

[AnAmericanMother]

Thanks for the tip.

I will avoid Tripod!

[Polybius]

Thanks for that explication of the Navy pecking order. The last Navy man in our family was great-uncle Henry Augustus Dent, who was with Dewey at Manila Bay. So you can see how we might not be up to date on the details. I had heard of "Deck Apes" before, but didn't know exactly who or what they were (I mean, I've got a couple of "Yard Apes", but I'm sure it's not the same . . . :-D )

Of course, you have to remember that, at least back in the Old Days before it was discovered that everyone has an "Inner Child" whose self esteem needs to be stroked, a Navy ship was as Politicaly Incorrect as an all-boys high school with all the ribbing that brings.

The "Deck Apes" were not the only ones subjected to such ribbing.

Our ship had a Marine detachment aboard and the Marine Detatchment Officer's uniform was the camaflouged BDU that stood out like a sore thumb along side all the Navy officers in khaki. So, he was called "The Tree".........."This is our XO, CDR Wilson, this is our Doc, LT Polybius, this is our Tree, First Lieutenant Smith....."

In my case, whenever there was a Divison Officer's meeting where someone mentioned a bow compartment on the ship, the Chief Engineer would love to say, "For the benefit of the Doc, we should explain that the "bow" is "the pointy end of the ship". ;-)

[gooleyman]

How'd he get the bolts in his neck?

-----
Notice that the nuts are on the inside.

[Destro]

This is a conservative not a Republican forum. "Us" means conservative.

[daybreakcoming]

**A SMALL group of LIBERALS? **

Yes, let's rephrase that - a large group of communist wannabes

[Destro]

Got it - the only ones who can spit on a veteren is another vetren.