Could the Press Grow a Spine?

"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote in message
om...

Show your evidence that Kerry didnt earn his third purple
heart, received in his second tour of duty.


I didn't say it was his third purple heart, I said he used an unearned
purple heart to get out of Vietnam after serving just a third of his tour.
I believe the award in question was the first one.

The following letter appeared in the USA Today "Letters" section on June
25th last, page 8A:



Criticism of Kerry's Purple Heart is just

Retired U.S. army colonel David Hackworth defends presidential
candidate John Kerry's Purple Hearts. He correctly notes that they are
awarded for a wound that necessitates treatment by a medical officer and
that is received in action with an enemy ('The meaning of a Purple Heart,"
The Forum, June 16).

I was the commanding officer to whom Kerry reported his injury on Dec.
3, 1968. I had confirmed that there was no hostile fire that night and that
Kerry had simply wounded himself with an M-79 grenade round he fired too
close. He wanted a Purple Heart, and I refused. Louis Letson, the base
physician, saw Kerry and used tweezers to remove the tiny piece of
shrapnel - about 1 centi*meter in length and 2 millimeters in di*ameter.
Letson also confirmed that the scratch was inflicted with our M-79.

We admire Col. Hackworth, but he, above all people, knows why it is
unac*ceptable to nominate yourself for an award. It compromises the basic
military principle that we survive together. To promote yourself is to
denigrate your team. I hope Col. Hackworth will rethink his characterization
of Kerry's swift-boat comrades as "grousers" passing on "secondhand bilge."
In our case, this is firsthand knowledge, and our integrity is unquestioned.

Kerry orchestrated his way out of Viet*nam and then testified, under
oath, be*fore Congress that we, his comrades, had committed horrible war
crimes. This tes*timony was a lie and slandered honor*able men. We, who were
actually there, believe he is unfit to command our sons and daughters.

Grant Hibbard, retired commander US. Navy, Gulf Breeze, Fla.

Louis Letson, M.D. Retired lieutenant commander Medical Corps, US. Navy
Reserve Scottsboro, Ala.



ALso,

Show your evidence that Bush didn't get out of Vietnam.


Evidence that Bush didn't get out of Vietnam? What the hell are you talking
about? Bush did not serve in Vietnam.



Show why any of that is more important than what both men have
done since.


I can't. I don't believe it is more important than what both men have done
since. But Kerry and the Democratic Party apparently do believe it is more
important than what they have done since. Since Kerry became the
frontrunner for their nomination Vietnam has been the key issue in their
campaign to defeat Bush. Note that Vietnam was not an issue when Howard
Dean, who spent much of the Vietnam war with a medical deferment for a bad
back but still managed to become a rather accomplished skier, was their
frontrunner.

Kerry's position on Vietnam has changed dramatically since early 1992, when
Bill Clinton, who avoided not just Vietnam but the military entirely, was
campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president:

" I am saddened by the fact that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into
the campaign, and that it has been inserted in what I feel to be the worst
possible way. By that I mean that yesterday, during this Presidential
campaign, and even throughout recent times, Vietnam has been discussed and
written about without an adequate statement of its full meaning."

"We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have
personally always believed that many served in many different ways. Someone
who was deeply against the war in 1969 or 1970 may well have served their
country with equal passion and patriotism by opposing the war as by fighting
in it. Are we now, 20 years or 30 years later, to forget the difficulties of
that time, of families that were literally torn apart, of brothers who
ceased to talk to brothers, of fathers who disowned their sons, of people
who felt compelled to leave the country and forget their own future and turn
against the will of their own aspirations?"

Senator John Kerry, Jan 30, 1992