Kerry the Brave

Byron York has tracked down the medic who treated Kerry for the wound on which his first Purple Heart was based. The doc's statement includes the following:

Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.

That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.

What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.

I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.

The wound was covered with a bandaid.

Now if it were me, I'd have removed the piece of metal myself and put on a bandaid, and I wouldn't have even thought about seeing a doctor for it unless it became infected, let alone putting in for a Purple Heart. I guess that's because I'm a chicken hawk, and don't understand the way things are in the service.

If this is the truth, and I have no reason to doubt the doctor's word, it confirms the impression I've had of Kerry from the beginning, that he joined the Navy in emulation of Jack Kennedy with the idea that he could use his service in his political career, that he copped three Purple Hearts as fast as he could and got sent out of harm's way. He did do some things that were heroic in one sense, but they seem quite normal to me, such as going back during a fire fight to rescue one of his crew instead of hightailing it and leaving him there. It shows bravery and decency, but anybody who would do otherwise would probably have been branded a coward and derelict for leaving one of his men behind. So his service was honorable for that 4 months, and he didn't act like a coward. Does that make him a war hero or a phoney? Probably neither.

Of his behavior during this campaign, what impresses me most is the way his mind constantly seeks to straddle both sides of every issue and leave loopholes for later on. That isn't what we need in a leader. "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (1 Corinthians 14.8) That's what we're getting from John Kerry, an uncertain sound.