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John Kerry's Medals
The Grand Poseur
by Barbara Stanley
Teresa Heinz-Kerry, widow of republican heir to the Heinz fortune and now married to democrat John Kerry, candidate for president, spoke at the democrat convention in Boston and said of her current husband: "He earned his medals the old fashioned way." Well, not quite, unless awarding oneself medals is the old fashioned way. I have heard this lie, over and over, how John Kerry was such a war hero and I have seen his commercials, with Kerry in jungle battle dress, armed and charging thought the brush and it always struck me as contrived, even way back then, to make Kerry look like a real, honest to God soldier. However, the truth is something different. As is being reported in a new book about Kerry's Vietnam experience: "Kerry carried a home movie camera to record his exploits for later viewing," charges a naval officer in the upcoming book, Unfit For Command. Kerry would revisit ambush locations for reenacting combat scenes where he would portray the hero, catching it all on film. Kerry would take movies of himself walking around in combat gear, sometimes dressed as an infantryman walking resolutely through the terrain. He even filmed mock interviews of himself narrating his exploits. A joke circulated among Swiftees was that Kerry left Vietnam early not because he received three Purple Hearts, but because he had recorded enough film of himself to take home for his planned political campaigns." While George Bush and his compatriots will not discuss the truth about Kerry's medals lest the focus be on them for being mean-spirited, I have no problem publishing the facts and you can make up your own minds and when you conclude, as have so many others, including the attending doctors and the men who actually knew Kerry up close and personal, that Kerry is nothing more than a self-serving conniver, maybe the lie will stop that Kerry is a "war hero" and according to his wife, Kerry spent his life "putting his life on the line for others". Nothing could be further from the truth. John Kerry went to Vietnam to punch his ticket so he could return home to run for office. I am not afraid to say, after looking at all the evidence, something oddly missing in the media (although President Bush's military history is written about and questioned) the four months and a few days Kerry was actually in Vietnam leave a gaping hole in the Terry McAuliffe spin of his serving "two tours in Vietnam". Two tours means two years, not a bit more than four months. Now, let's take a look at those medals Kerry requested for himself, as Commander of a Swiftboat. John Forbes Kerry: Vietnam Service Record Four Months And Ten Days In Vietnam November 17, 1968 to March 27, 1969
John Forbes Kerry spent only 130 days in Vietnam.
Nov 1968—13 days Asked about the severity of the wounds, Kerry said that one of them cost him about two days of service, and that the other two did not interrupt his duty. "Walking wounded," as Kerry put it. A shrapnel wound in his left arm gave Kerry pain for years. —Boston Globe Kerry declined a request from the Globe to sign a waiver authorizing the release of military documents that are covered under the Privacy Act and that might shed more light on the extent of the treatment Kerry needed as a result of the wounds. —Boston Globe According to one source, the citation accompanying the Silver Star for Kerry's actions on the waters of the Mekong Delta on February 28, 1969 reads: "Kerry's craft received a B-40 rocket close aboard. Once again Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry ordered his units to charge the enemy positions.... Patrol Craft Fast 94 then beached in the center of the enemy positions and an enemy soldier sprang up from his position not ten feet from Patrol Craft 94 and fled. Without hesitation Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry leaped ashore, pursued the man behind a hootch and killed him, capturing a B-40 rocket launcher with a round in the chamber." A different version of this citation is on Kerry's website and reads: "... and B-40 rocket exploded close aboard PCF-94; with utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his boat only ten feet from the VC rocket position, and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy." What really happened? John Forbes Kerry needs to release the official records regarding all his medals including medical records relative to the three "combat related" minor wounds that won Purple Hearts. John Forbes Kerry served only four months and ten days of his twelve month Vietnam tour of duty because of the three Purple Hearts. When Kerry came back to the states, he wasted no time in trashing the very men who were still fighting in the jungle, risking life and limb to make sure it was only the enemy fighter that was killed. Not so for John Kerry who killed indiscriminately. In his own words: "I committed the same kinds of atrocities as thousands of others in that I shot in free-fire zones, fired .50-caliber machine(gun) bullets, used harass-and-interdiction fire, joined in search-and-destroy missions and burned villages." ("Meet the Press" NBC 1971 published by the Baltimore Sun 2004) In an article printed in the October 21st and 28th 1996 edition of The New Yorker, Kerry was asked about the man he had killed. "It was either going to be him or it was going to be us. It was that simple. I don't know why it wasn't us—I mean, to this day. He had a rocket pointed right at our boat. He stood up out of the hole, and none of us saw him until he was standing in front of us, aiming a rocket right at us, and, for whatever reason, he didn't pull the trigger—he turned and ran. He was shocked to see our boat right in front of him. If he'd pulled the trigger, we'd all be dead.... I just won't talk about all of it. I don't and I can't. The things that probably really turn me I've never told anybody. Nobody would understand." —The New Yorker In the article, the author quoted the Swift boat's former gunner, Tom Belodeau, as saying the Viet Cong soldier who Kerry chased "behind a hootch" and "finished off" actually had already been wounded by the gunner Belodeau. Not only did John Kerry not serve honorably in Vietnam but he isn't serving very honourably in the Senate (when he actually does show up for work there, which is rarely) and his record doesn't lie. Here is a list of those items he voted against:
He voted to kill the Bradley Fighting Vehicle In summation, John Kerry voted to kill every military appropriation for the deployment of every weapons system since 1988 to include the Battle armor for our troops. Is this the so-called military man we need in the White House during a time of war?
Copyright © 2004 Barbara Stanley All Rights Reserved
— (8/12/04) [Discuss This Article] Barbara Stanley writes from "the forests of upstate New York," and is the proprietor of BlueStarBase.org. You may see more of her articles on the BlueStarBase archive and comment on this or other articles on the BlueStarBase Forum.
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