Kerry was an obscure officer on some obscure ship before the Navy allowed him to volunteer for "Swift Boat" duty. They should have had a psychiatric evaluation at the time but they didn't. Kerry had a unique position where he was able to recommend himself for awards. Most of the Swift Boat skippers (God bless 'em) honorably served but Kerry was a savvy politician long before he ran for office. To put it in perspective, Marine Col Victor Krulak was awarded a Navy Cross and a Purple Heart for taking shrapnel wounds to the head and later the shoulder during in a Para-Marine operation in the Pacific during WW2. The Army dominated review board claimed the injuries weren't severe enough to qualify for a Heart. Times changed during the Vietnam war. It seems that Kerry took shrapnel to his butt from his own grenade when he tossed it into a cache of VC rice. For Heart #2 apparently some explosive device was triggered in the retrieval of a mine and Kerry suffered a wound to his finger that didn't even require a bandaid. Kerry 's boat took fire from a single VC on shore and instead of delegating authority to his crew to dispatch the threat, the freaking skipper grabbed a .45 and chased the unarmed single VC kid and shot him dead. Kerry wrote himself up for a Silver Star for his valor and it was systematically forwarded.