Snopes says it's false.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/service.asp

Fishy, yes, and there's something else that's fishy about Sen. Kerry, too. I've seen several items like this, and the "Do you know who I am?" anecdotes, but I've never seen any spontaneous stories about what a great guy he is/was.

The only veterans who support him seem to be guys in wheelchairs -- at least those are the only ones who get any publicity. And here's Kerry with 3 Purple Hearts and no time lost from duty. Quite a contrast.

Whatever you might think about Kerry's domestic agenda, job #1 for the President is to defend the United States "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Based on what I've read about Mr. Kerry so far, and his speeches and sound bites during the campaign, I don't think he has the right stuff to do that. Courage on the battlefield does not necessarily translate to political courage. And reckless behavior on the battlefield does not suggest the trait of good judgment.

Kerry is like a landfill. The deeper you dig, the stinkier it gets. This accusation might not be entirely true, but you have to admit that whoever was handing out medals was extremely generous when it came to Kerry.

I'm even willing to give his service a pass, he was there, give the guy a break. I think his shameless exploitation of it is in terrible taste and incredibly insulting, however. Can you imagine Bush 41, or McCain, or Dole engaged in this kind of chest thumping self-promotion?

If Kerry has to work that hard to get people to notice his accomplishments, something's wrong. He's already become a cliche 8 months before the election, and there's a long way to go before we hit the bottom of that landfill...

Read the Snopes piece. It makes it clear that any Navy officer who had been where he'd been and done what he'd done would have been decorated to about the same degree. If you want to find a reason to dislike him, this story isn't it.

Have to agree with Steve T on this one - the Snopes article looks pretty authoritative.

Kerry flatly refuses to release his entire military records including his medical records. If I were the hero that he allegedly is I would be throwing copies of my record out of the window of my campaign bus...

The snopes article is hardly convincing. Three sources, all of which are fairly pro-Kerry and no author named for the article. I don't see how this is any more valid than the original article, save for the "It's on the internet, it must be true!" syndrome.

Kerry's level of decoration doesn't mesh with his level of service, in my opinion. Considering his tendency to waffle more than a waffle maker in a waffle factory, in such that it serves to be a fairly good indication of character, I'd tend to agree that something is fishy.

What I didn't like was hearing about Kerry writing up his own commendations. I don't think Snopes contradicted that either.

I'm curious:

Why did he shoot the wounded VC? Isn't that, like, a war crime or something?

Snopes or no, all that hardware (friggin Silver Star!) in four months smells fishy, especially from someone who was basically able to put him self up for awards. There is a pretty damning quote about him by Zumwalt as well, can't remember where I read it. Maked wonder if they did just approve his three PH just to get him the hell out of there before he caused a real mess. FWIW I used to train guys to drive PBRs and PBLs. Beaching one's craft in the middle of the attack (and thus rendering some of the mounted 50s useless is freaking nuts. You give up every advantage you have and go from heavily armed moving target to poorly armed sitting duck. I have read a lot of citations in my time and that one just is wierd. It is almost as if the Chain of Command approved it as is to make the point that it was BS. It reminds me of Kenndy getting his boat cut in half by the Japaneese destroyer.

Get your Admiral Zumwalt quote here.

Stephen:

Where's the link?

Without intending criticism of anyone for bringing this up, it seems to me that it will be a lot more profitable to go after Kerry's questionable conduct as a antiwar figure after the end of his tour in Vietnam and later during his political career, than to try to poke holes in his war record (as it may offend some voters who would otherwise be disinclined to support him). On the other hand, pointing out that it was rather despicable for someone making a lot of noise about being a war hero to come back home and help those who were casting aspersions--based on questionable evidence--on the living, maimed, and dead heroes who returned after he did is perfectly legitimate and should be deadly effective if raised in a well-constructed TV ad.

What's particularly repellent about Kerry is the way he wants to play both sides--the war hero and the brave opponent of the war. Part of the code of the soldier-hero is modesty, not boastfulness. You don't talk constantly of your own exploits and you don't put down others who also served. Kerry demeans his own achievements by constantly bringing them up.

If that story is true, and I have no reason to believe Snopes (I'll come back to that), then Kerry should have been court martialed. Further, if that dink took a .50 round after firing the B40, he was not in any shape to fight. Kerry gave him the coup de grace, which is a war crime.

I was in Viet Nam in those days too. When Snopes says that level of decoration would be "normal" for any officer in those circumstances, THEY ARE FULL OF SHIT.

Snopes has an agenda of their own, always have had. It doesn't necessarily make them bad people, but they are not unbiased truth tellers either.

Well. as far as the .50 is concerned, a lot depends on *where* he took it, and if the boat was beached and the .50 didn't have angle on the badguy, I dunno if he was in fact hit by the .50.

Beaching the boat with hostiles around sounds stupid to me. The swift boats were intended to be mobile, and beaching it means it's not mobile any more. Running off after an armed hostile by yourself is also stupid. When the person doing it is an *officer*, and they're leaving their men on the boat... well, Kerry may have been brave, but he wasn't being smart when he did that.

After all the nonsense about Bush's service records, I want to see Kerry's before deciding he's a f***wit, but even the Snopes version of what happened doesn't look good.

I've always found Kerry to be rather sleazy, but Snopes is a fairly good site. I'm not sure what evil liberal agenda I'm supposed to believe Snopes has when at least one writer there had to apologize for utterly going off on Michael Moore.

There is a whole JFK thing behind both Kerry and Edwards. Kennedy had two things going for him, his heroism during WW2 and his youth. And looking at these two, I keep thinking of the Elvis stamp vote.

The Dems have settled for the older JFK, the old Elvis.

I don't know what kind of soldier (sailor) Kerry was in Vietnam. But his post Vietnam actions have not given me any confidence, and his more recent statements about how the war on terror should be a law enforcement issue. That, in my eyes means I can't vote from him.

M. Scott is of course, right on. From most veterans' standpoint (at least most that I know except one hard head who just likes to argue) the man is practically a traitor for his post war behavior. It can be demnstrated that his actions (and those of Hanoi Jane et al) gave aid and comfort to the enemy. Not to mention him telling tales of atrocities that did not happen... Anybody who wants him as CINC needs to consider how he helpe win the Viet Nam war for the enemy and remember that anybody can beat the USA if we similarly lose the resolve to fight. When JFK 2.0 talks about engaging in talks with terrorist regimes like Iran or NK and not keeping up the pressure, I cringe. It is nothing but gutless appeasement. These despotic regimes are the best at taking advantage more powerful nations' distaste for force.

Not to say that there should be a focus on medals and stuff, but the idea that he was a veteran didn't save ADM Boorda, iirc.

Nor has it stopped a look-see or two at David Hackworth.

But the investigators SHOULD have their ducks lined up, not simply mount a fishing expedition.

My father spent 2 YEARS in Vietnam as a Huey pilot. 1st tour as a Medivac, 2nd tour as a gunship pilot. While he has his fair share of medals, they are nowhere near what Mr. Kerry has received. I have asked him what he thinks, (btw, he has absolutely REFUSED to talk about his own personal experiences in Vietnam) and he has the same types of doubts as were raised in this article.

W. Scott Thompson's quote of Zumwalt originally appeared in The Taipei Times, on February 11. I blogged it at the time. I sent the link around to a handful of Big Kids, but only Mickey Kaus expressed the remotest interest, saying that his editor "may want more evidence that Zumwalt said this".

Well... yeah. If I were a professional, I'd make it a project, as Thompson suggested in his original article. At the very least, the insinuation is that there's a lot more to the story than whacking that RPG guy on the beach.

Know what else sounds fishy? Getting released from defending the Texas skies so you can work on a political campaign.

'cept its not Wolvie, I can tell you first hand, having worked with reserve commands that they are flexible about such things. Those who make a big deal about the whole AWOL thing are talking out of their asses. If he got a DD214, which he did, then he is good to go. As for notion that being in the ANG was getting out of something, the fact is that most men his age, especially in politics and the commentariat, did not serve at all.

I agree with M. Scott Eiland, and want to add something.

If you take any war hero in politics, decide you hate him, and that therefore you don't believe he was really as heroic as all that, you will likely be able to back the charge up to some extent. For instance:

I once heard Col. Hackworth, on TV, ranting about how John McCain's conduct as a POW "wasn't exactly red-hot [tone of deep scorn], if you think about, you know, some papers that he signed." Well, that's a gotcha, if you really want one. McCain did break under torture and sign some papers he really wishes he hadn't.

Of course, that was on one day, in over five years. He resisted the rest of the time, with an in-your-face contempt for his captors that cheered those around him. When he knew he was about to break, he attempted suicide, rather than give in. His captors thwarted the attempt, tortured him for days on end, then he broke. That one time. So Hackworth holds him in utter contempt. Charming.

Of course, let's take Hackworth, whose byline reminds us at every turn that he's "America's most decorated living soldier." Let's say I hate the good colonel for his smear of McCain, and I want to question his heroism. Seems to me he got called, as another commenter pointed out, on wearing some medals when maybe he wasn't literally entitled to--the same offense for which he disgraced the late Adm. Boorda.

Or Bob Kerrey, the retired senator who in Vietnam lost a leg and won the Medal of Honor. His bio says that he was initially supposed to receive the Silver Star, for refusing painkillers and calmly directing his SEAL team through a tricky mission after getting mangled by a mine. He admits it. The award was upgraded in the process to the Medal of Honor. If we hated the man, we could take that claim to fame, and question whether he really earned it.

But to what end? Coming back to Kerry, he's a pompous droning bore and shifty opportunist, who advocates bad economic policies and comes as close as a Senator can to advocating unilateral disarmament. His being a war hero doesn't change that; nor do I need to impeach his heroism to oppose him and root for his stinging defeat this fall.

Sorry for the long post above. Correction: Bob Kerrey was put in initially for the Navy Cross, not the Silver Star.

Wolvie -- don't also forget that said 'release' was in 1973... i.e., when our participation in Vietnam was winding down, and we had a whole bunch of active-duty personnel rotating home. They were sorta over-supplied with pilots at the time, and were therefore handing out "early outs" to damn near anybody who wanted one.

I never served. So, for obvious reasons, I have nothing to add on the issue whether Kerry's service record is or is not questionable.

But one point that is worth repeating is the mind-numbing hypocrisy from the left when it comes to this entire topic.

First, a huge percentage of the drones in the liberal media who are touting Kerry's war record flat out avoided military service during the Vietnam War. The rank hypocrisy of that stance speaks for itself.

Second, the angry 30-40-ish liberals who denigrate the current President's ANG service and simultaneously laud Kerry's service also are being hypocritical to a stunning degree.

Was comparative military service records an issue when George H.W. Bush faced Bill Clinton? Of course not.

Bush Senior was a war hero. Clinton avoided service. But pressing that point was verboten. Furthermore, Bush didn't make it an issue, and the RNC didn't make it an issue. To this day, in fact, Bush Senior is self-deprecating to a fault when it comes to his war service.

The same thing held true when Dole faced Clinton. The fact that Dole was a decorated war hero who nearly was killed in combat simply was not a part of that campaign; not at all.

Now, however, it has come to this for the left: if a Democratic candidate who served in combat will be facing a Republican candidate who did not serve it combat, not only will the former's combat record and the comparative merits of both candidate's records be issues, they will be THE ISSUES that will frame the debate (in their view), and THE ISSUES on which the Democrat's campaign will be founded.

Given the left's treatment of this issue during the Clinton years, the hypocrisy of their current stance almost defies description, much less belief. But, frankly, I'm no longer surprised.

The Democratic Party (especially the left wing thereof) is a dying micro-minority that simply has no conception of how to address the myriad of challenges and problems we face as a country. Their only "value" is trying to win elections. That's it.

Ask a Democratic candidate what they plan to do about social security, for example. All they know is that they're against what the Republicans propose.

Tax policy? Whatever is contrary to what the President has done.

Immigration policy? Bush's plan stinks. What's your proposal, then? Response: Bush's plan stinks.

Iraq? I oppose Bush's policies. What's your policy, then? We should have more international forces. Really? You mean the forces currently on the ground from Britain, Spain, Poland, Austrialia, South Korea, Japan, Bulgaria, etc., etc., etc., are somehow not "international" enough? Response: There were no WMD's. Okay. But every senior U.S. Government official -- in BOTH PARTIES -- from the House, the Senate, the Administration -- BOTH IN THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION AND THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION -- thought Saddam was a grave threat who possessed WMD's and should be removed from power, by force if necessary. Response: Bush lied.

It goes on and on and on and on.

What a disgrace the left has become!

I know it's been said but this bears repeating to folks who have never met real American heroes (like Medal of Honor winners):

Real military heroes don't talk about this stuff! They certainly don't set up meetings with people whose life they saved on a stage in front of rolling cameras. There is something terribly creepy about this guy. He may have more in common with Lurch from the Adams Family than simply a physical resemblance. Although to be fair, Lurch had a better personality.

Wolvie,

I'm glad you find "released from defending the Texas skies so you can work on a political campaign" so fishy.

So I guess you find that Kerry's request for and subsequent early release so he could run for Congress fishy as well.

As long as we're fishing....

I don't know why it isn't obvious to everybody that Kerry can't be the Democrat candidate. He's said and done so many stupid and contradictory things and told so many lies and so much of it has been immortalized on video tape that he could never survive even a cursory scrutiny.

Then there's that background music, Louis Armstrong singing "Just a Gigolo."

The only suspense is when and how Hillary disposes of him. It will be an entertaining couple of days in Boston this summer.

I am 56 years old & a Viet-Nam Vet, as are most of my life long freinds. I spent 15+ months in Nam and never saw civilians cruelly mistreated. That said, I will not second guess Kerry's heroism, until his valor is proven otherwise. I hold him in contempt for his actions after he came home and villified my brothers in arms with unfounded accusations and outright lies. His voting record for the past 15 years in the Senate shows his contempt for the military and our national defense. What is his plan on our war on terrorism and states that support terrorists? We don't know because he has never publicy given one, he just does'nt like GWBs. I personaly beleive, according to statements made and his voting record, that he would put our interests secondary to the interests of the U.N., that cabal of dictatorships, tyrants, and self serving socialists. The war on terror is issue #1 for me , and Kerry is not the man I would wan't leading this nation in these perilous times.

"Or Bob Kerrey, the retired senator who in Vietnam lost a leg and won the Medal of Honor. His bio says that he was initially supposed to receive the Silver Star, for refusing painkillers and calmly directing his SEAL team through a tricky mission after getting mangled by a mine. He admits it. The award was upgraded in the process to the Medal of Honor. If we hated the man, we could take that claim to fame, and question whether he really earned it."

Bob Kerrey got a lot of hostile attention from left-of-center types a few years back regarding the details of some of the military actions he was involved in during the Vietnam War--and on Usenet I saw multiple references to him as a "war criminal" (and it wasn't Republicans doing it). I doubt it was a coincidence that the particular war hero absorbing this abuse was the one who had the nerve to--accurately--publicly describe one William Jefferson Clinton as "a particularly good liar." Keep this in mind as the lefty talking heads screech in outrage about the Republicans daring to besmirch the character of the Great War Hero Kerry by pointing out his conduct AFTER he returned.

I'm just a civilian, so I give Kerry a pass on his service record.

However, anybody who has seen Apocalypse Now knows to 'never leave the boat!.'

I love it when Sean Hannity falls all over himself to say that Kerry's record as a war hero is old news and not relevant to the presidential campaign, but will nevertheless stoop to any level to discredit that record (i.e., talking up a doctored photo of Kerry and Jane Fonda together). Does this behavior sound familiar to anyone? I also thought he really showed us something when he talked incessantly about the affair that wasn't, hoping against hope that even though it was unsubstantiated rumor that it would turn out to be true. Does anyone see echoes of this in the "problems and suspicions" of the Admiral and Annapolis grad who prefers to remain nameless?

I think we should go easy on Kerry. If he keeps talking up his record of service in Vietnam and posing for photo ops with other veterans, remember that he has to compete with some pretty compelling stuff: Bush being flown onto the deck of an aircraft carrier and posing in his flight suit with a "Mission Accomplished" banner in the background, Bush's courageous decision to choose the Texas Air National guard over shooting out his eardrum with a shotgun to avoid active duty in Vietnam- hell, those Bush "Top Gun" action figure dolls you can get at "NewsMax.com" are going be everywhere pretty soon!

I'm retired Army (67-89) I was a REMF in the Vietnam war, but I know plenty of those who were not.

Somehow the "atrocity" reports never seemed to come from actual veterans, but anti-war types on campuses in the States.

I've also known many Purple Heart recipients and the most common explanation I've heard is "I forgot to keep my ass down."

The usual explanation I've heard for hero medals is "I did something stupid and someone saw me."