Swift Boat ad #3

[tpahl]

Is anyone starting to notice a similarity between Kerry and Al Gore ?

Oooh!!! Ohh!! I know the answer to this one!!!

They are all robots!



What do i win?

Travis

 

[Annie]

yeah he did. It would be better to respond with something along the lines of 'whether you were in vietnam or not has nothing to do with this race. Lets hear what ideas you actually have for this nations future' Instead of questioning where he was or how superficial his wounds were which does nothing for this nation.



What he said about the war is important, what he did or did not do in the war is not.

Seems some DO care:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20040825-085753-2062r

John Kerry has presented his Vietnam record as his major qualification to be president of the United States. It is, therefore, the duty of the American public to scrutinize that record carefully. And it is the duty of candidate John Kerry to facilitate that scrutiny. If all the senator's claims about his four months in Vietnam are factual, it would be to his great advantage to facilitate such scrutiny.

Before we get to his record in Vietnam, however, we should examine the widespread misconception about how he got to Vietnam. The oft-repeated claim that Mr. Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam misleads: He apparently volunteered only after the draft deferment he had applied for was turned down -- thus allowing him to choose service in the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army.

I served as a combat surgeon in DaNang, (U.S. Naval Support Hospital) from Dec. 10, 1967, through Dec. 11, 1968. While there, I evaluated and treated hundreds of severely wounded combatants.

During my year in DaNang, a few combatants urged me to verify small abrasions as "wounds" so they could get a Purple Heart. Each freely admitted trying to acquire Purple Hearts as rapidly as possible to take advantage of the policy allowing those with three Purple Hearts to apply to leave Vietnam early. I refused them. But some went shopping for another opinion. Unfortunately, we had some antiwar physicians in Vietnam who were happy to become accomplices in these frauds. Most with valid Purple Hearts didn't need to apply to leave Vietnam: The seriousness of their wounds demanded it.

Lt. John Kerry's collecting three Purple Hearts within 100 days -- all for wounds too minor to require hospitalization -- recalls the distasteful memories of having to deal with those few miscreants in DaNang. More disturbing is the revelation that crewmen on Mr. Kerry's boat denied they had received any gunfire from shore at the time when Lt. Kerry claimed such gunfire had caused his wound. The doctor who disapproved Lt. Kerry's application for his first Purple Heart for that wound agreed that the tiny metal splinter sticking in the skin of his arm was inconsistent with enemy gunfire from shore. His crewmates claimed that Lt. Kerry, himself, had fired a grenade launcher from the boat striking a rock on the nearby shore -- and his wound was from a metal splinter from the grenade that ricocheted back, striking him in the arm.

...

In the absence of the medical records that Mr. Kerry apparently declines to make public, the only details we have about his second and third Purple Hearts are that he also based them on wounds too minor to require hospitalization. My reason for refusing to verify insignificant wounds as the basis for a Purple Heart was the regulation covering Purple Heart awards. In Part B, Paragraph 2, of the Army Purple Heart Regulation (600-8-22 of 25 February 1995), we find "the wound for which the award is made must have required treatment by a medical officer."

Dr. Louis Letson was entirely correct in turning down Lt. Kerry's first Purple Heart -- even if the wound had been the result of enemy action. Can there be any doubt that the tiny metal sliver could have been removed easily, and safely, by a Navy corpsman? It certainly did not "require" treatment by a medical officer (an MD).

Purple Hearts are not supposed to be awarded for self-inflicted wounds, nor for wounds too minor to require treatment by a physician. So where and how did Lt. Kerry eventually obtain a Purple Heart for his first wound? Nobody seems to know. Only his medical records will tell -- and the American public needs that information to evaluate candidate Kerry's qualifications and candor.

The highly unlikely occurrence of being wounded three times within 100 days, in the very beginning of a tour of duty, and all three wounds being so minor that none required hospitalization, would seem sufficient cause for further investigation.

 

[tpahl]

Seems some DO care:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20040825-085753-2062r

I am not questioning that people do care. This person obviously cares. What I am trying to find out is WHY they care.