Did John Kerry receive a Purple Heart for an accidental injury?

[GENIERE]

Kerry's campaign now says it is possible first Purple Heart was awarded for unintentional self-inflicted wound.

Kerry received Purple Heart for wounds suffered on 12/2/68. In Kerry's own journal written 9 days later, he writes he and his crew, quote, 'hadn't been shot at yet'.

 

[russ_watters]

Funny, and I'd like to believe it, but do you have a link?

 

[GENIERE]

The “facts?” are from the Swift Boat guys and have been circulated often for several months now. Whether true or not is the question. That Kerry’s campaign is supposedly admitting to it would be the big story. Sorry, I can’t give you a trustworthy source for that at this time. I think by this evening we’ll know.

Er.. Your boss is looking over your shoulder.

 

[Gza]

Sorry, I can’t give you a trustworthy source for that at this time.

So why create a post based on untrustworthy sources?

Is your name Michelle Malkin by any chance?

Chris Matthews of Hardball had an interview with her where she made a complete fool of herself by pushing this claim without any support whatsoever. Matthews subsequently came down on her for her outlandish claim.

On tonight's interview with Michelle Malkin

One of my jobs and Hardball is to cut through to the truth.

Tonight on Hardball one of our guests pushed the idea that John Kerry had won his Purple Heart by deliberately shooting himself.

This charge [I found] to be without merit and baseless, as our guest under close questioning herself admitted.

We'll keep covering the political issues and will 'stand up' against any attempt to broadcast disinformation.

Read the transcript for yourself:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5765243/

 

[kat]

That's the most disgusting bit of wasted time I've ever spent, it's even worse then trying to wade through a limbaugh transcript. gaw, it's faulty as well. They attribute statements to the wrong person at least once as far as I can tell. That alone puts the whole transcript in question.

At any rate, the show you linked to occurred before the statement this thread is referring to.

 

[kat]

You know, this just keeps getting more interesting all the time. I've been following John kerry since the early 90's and he has always contradicted himself and played on the publics misperceptions. He could get away with that in Mass. where approval of Kennedy practically insures your being put in office but on a national level..it's going to continue to show him in a bad light. It's really only just begun, his own words will hang him and I'm betting on the Clintonites helping him while appearing to be outraged at the audacity of the swift boat vets, his mates from the USS Gridley, POW's and the families of MIA's. Kerry made his bed way back in the 70's, what a surprise that he may now end up having to sleep in it.

 

[Gza]

That's the most disgusting bit of wasted time I've ever spent, it's even worse then trying to wade through a limbaugh transcript. gaw, it's faulty as well.

My apologies Kat. I tried to find a better source, but there is so little information to support/refute the claim that the transcript was the only thing I had (I hate Chris Matthews as much as I hate O'Reilly, so you better believe I was digging for scraps :blush: ) .

 

[wasteofo2]

Ok, so, when has anyone in the Kerry campaign said that he shot himself?

 

[kat]

Ok, so, when has anyone in the Kerry campaign said that he shot himself?

Unintentional self-inflicted does not mean "shot himself" in this case.

 

[kat]

Just FYI, here is the Swift Boats page on the first purple heart: http://www.swiftvets.com/staticpages/index.php?page=Purple1

 

[russ_watters]

Kerry made his bed way back in the 70's, what a surprise that he may now end up having to sleep in it.

What I don't understand is why this surprises him? What idiot made this the centerpiece of his campaign?

With Iraq and a mediocre recovery, defeating Bush really should be a simple matter of stating what he'll do better. Why on Earth is he focusing his campaign on the most divisive aspect of his past instead of what he plans to do now?

 

[selfAdjoint]

What I don't understand is why this surprises him? What idiot made this the centerpiece of his campaign?

He didn't. The SBV attacks tried to make it the centerpiece. Now that the lies of the veterans have been exposed, it will sink back into oblivion again. Note that even Bush has criticised the group - now that the Bush campaign has wrung every advantage from it!

 

[russ_watters]

He didn't. The SBV attacks tried to make it the centerpiece.

Did you watch any of the DNC? The slogan may as well have been 'Kerry, war hero, for President.'

 

[russ_watters]

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20040820/a_swiftpolitics20.art.htm is an interesting story with more on what I'm talking about:

“Any time there's a debate about Vietnam, we win,” Kerry spokesman David Wade contends.

You do? This article is only 6 days old. I might have expected something like this two months ago (this is the reason why he made it the centerpiece of his campaign), but last week? Does he still not see? Anyway, the story says:

John Kerry assumed his record of heroism in Vietnam would help him avoid the soft-on-defense attacks often leveled against Democrats who want to be commander in chief. He was right — but he didn't anticipate that supporters of President Bush would seize on that same record to call him “unfit for command.”

And that's the way I see it as well: they made this an issue because of the usual perception that Dems are weak on defense and didn't anticipate the backlash (because, quite frankly, Dems don't understand defense).

Kerry and his campaign are right that the fact that he served 'Nam and Bush didn't is a pro for Kerry and a con for Bush. What they should have also seen is that his actions after the war weigh just as heavily. Whether his actions in combat are inflated or not, the reason they are being questioned is his actions after the war.

Regarding my statement about his service being the centerpiece of his campaign, here it is with the initial effect and the effect after the backlash:

After Kerry's July convention, which featured constant references to his military service[emphasis added], a CBS poll found him tied with Bush among veterans. CBS released a new poll Thursday that showed him trailing Bush 55%-37% among veterans.

From Kerry's own http://www.johnkerry.com/about/john_kerry/ , roughly half of his biography is about his service in Vietnam. That part is about twice as long as the section on his service in public office.

 

[kat]

A primary claim against Mr. Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans is that Mr. Kerry's first Purple Heart — awarded for action on Dec. 2, 1968 — did not involve the enemy and that Mr. Kerry's wounds that day were unintentionally self-inflicted.
They charge that in the confusion involving unarmed, fleeing Viet Cong, Mr. Kerry fired a grenade, which detonated nearby and splattered his arm with hot metal.
Mr. Kerry has claimed that he faced his "first intense combat" that day, returned fire, and received his "first combat related injury."
A journal entry Mr. Kerry wrote Dec. 11, however, raises questions about what really happened nine days earlier.
"A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky," wrote Mr. Kerry, according the book "Tour of Duty" by friendly biographer Douglas Brinkley.
If enemy fire was not involved in that or any other incident, according to the Military Order of the Purple Heart, no medal should be awarded.
"The Purple Heart is awarded to members of the armed forces of the U.S. who are wounded by an instrument of war in the hands of the enemy," according to the organization chartered by Congress. According to regulations set by the Department of Defense, an enemy must be involved to warrant a Purple Heart.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040825-125217-7993r.htm

 

[amp]

Kat...
http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2004/08/what_the_other_.html http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2004/08/the_elliott_ret.html http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/06/veteran_retracts_criticism_of_kerry/

From here:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-08-kerry-vets_x.htm

Elliott was not available for comment Sunday, but in an interview with USA TODAY earlier this year, he said that while he strongly disagreed with Kerry's anti-war activities, "I don't know how anyone would have taken the risks he took in combat just for the glory of running for office."

• Adrian Lonsdale, who in 1996 called Kerry "among the finest of those swift boat drivers." He says he changed his mind after reading Brinkley's book. Lonsdale, who outranked Kerry, recalls meeting him only once at an officers club. "The only thing I remember is he whined a lot about the lack of air support," he said.

• Charles Plumly, a retired Navy captain who was Hoffmann's chief of staff. He says Kerry "required a lot of supervision" and "did things without permission." Asked in an interview for examples, he said, "I can't give you exact specifics."

• Van O'Dell and Jack Chenoweth, who are among those who say Kerry lied about an incident on March 13, 1969, for which he received a Bronze Star and a third Purple Heart. Kerry was cited for pulling Army Special Forces Lt. Jim Rassmann from a river during a firefight, despite an arm injury. O'Dell says there was no enemy fire and Kerry "fled the scene." Chenoweth says that Kerry's arm was not bleeding and that the official reports were "completely different than" what he saw.

Rassmann has dismissed such accounts as "pure fabrication." Del Sandusky, Kerry's boat driver, says, "I saw the gun flashes in the jungle, and I saw the bullets skipping across the water," adding that the contrary accounts are "part of the Republican slime machine."

• Louis Letson, a doctor who says he treated Kerry. He says Kerry didn't deserve his first Purple Heart because he "inadvertently wounded himself" and "there was no hostile fire." Medical records, however, note that Kerry was treated for shrapnel by J.C. Carreon, not Letson. Bill Zaladonis, who was on Kerry's boat at the time, says the men believed they were shooting at Viet Cong.

FactCheck.org, a non-partisan group that monitors political ads, says Letson's story is "based on hearsay, and disputed hearsay at that." It concludes, "There is reason to doubt" the Swift Boat Veterans' ad because of its funding and because of the discrepancies in memory between Kerry's defenders and attackers.

 

[kat]

So where in your post are you addressing Kerry's own statements and those of his campaign in regards to "self-inflicted wounds"?

and was there something specific you wanted to point out in the Beldarblog, I mean other then the glowing appraisal of "o'neills honesty and integrity?

 

[Dissident Dan]

kat, you really seem to swallow with eagerness anything that is anti-kerry. A little critical thinking goes a long way. The fact that you trust the sbvft is evidence of this.

 

[GENIERE]

Apparently the Kerry Campaign source “ admitting to self inflicted wound” has been shut up, at least for a while. There are two books cited below (Art Moore), the first was written by Kerry loyalists.

What Kerry has not refuted and cannot refute:
- He was not in Cambodia endangered by enemy or friendly fire
- He either lied in his journal or accepted the first Purple Heart without merit
- He never lost a day due to injury nor was he hospitalized
- The doctor who treated his first “injury” used a band aid
- When asked several months ago to provide documents relevant to his injuries, he saturated his website with 200+ plus pages of irrelevant material. None of the material included medical info, a defense lawyer’s ploy.

By Art Moore
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com But Douglas Brinkley's "Tour of Duty," for which Kerry supplied his journals and letters, indicates that as Kerry set out on a subsequent mission, he had not yet been under enemy fire.
While the date of the four-day excursion on PCF-44 [Patrol Craft Fast] is not specified, Brinkley notes it commenced when Kerry "had just turned 25, on Dec. 11, 1968," which was nine days after the incident in which he claimed he had been wounded by enemy fire.
A previously unnoticed passage in John Kerry's approved war biography, citing his own journals, appears to contradict the senator's claim he won his first Purple Heart as a result of an injury sustained under enemy fire.
Kerry, who served as commander of a Navy swift boat, has insisted he was wounded by enemy fire Dec. 2, 1968, when he and two other men took a smaller vessel, a Boston Whaler, on a patrol north of his base at Cam Ranh Bay.
In the swift-boat group's newly published book, "Unfit for Command," authors John O'Neill, who took over command of Kerry's boat, and Jerome Corsi assert the wound for which Kerry received his medal actually was caused by him firing an M-79 grenade launcher too close, "causing a tiny piece of shrapnel (one to two centimeters) to barely stick in his arm."

 

[kat]

kat, you really seem to swallow with eagerness anything that is anti-kerry. A little critical thinking goes a long way. The fact that you trust the sbvft is evidence of this.

Well...I think when you start argueing against the person instead of the content it's a good sign that you don't have a strong argument. The greatest evidence that I've seen has always been Kerry's own contradicting statements enjoined by the contradicting statements of those he's brought forth to argue for him..it doesn't take much critical thinking to see that there is a problem.

 

[Dissident Dan]

The argument is pretty solid. Kerry's actions have been corroborated by his peers and military records. You are relying on the words of guys who at one time gave words of praise to Kerry, but are now bashing him. And, if I remember correctly, one of the guys has said that he regrets being in the ad.