One Purple Heart was, by anyone's version of events (including Kerry's own), based on rice fragments in Kerry's butt that came from him throwing his own grenade into a rice pile. Another came from a night training action on a skimmer

From the description of the events when Kerry received each of his Purple Hearts the two Purple Hearts you mention both appear to both refer to his first Purple Heart received on a night action where smugglers were interdicted. The second came from an RPG and the third came during the course of events that lead to his Bronze Star.

Are you suggesting that when the Viet Cong piled up that rice, that was an "act of the enemy" that caused John Kerry to set off that grenade? Damn, those VC were clever, if that be true.

See my "Heroes Don't Shout" link above. We're mostly in agreement about how Kerry handled his military service during the campaign.

As to the Purple Heart, this is what the regs say:

3. Criteria: a. The Purple Heart is awarded in the name of the President of the United States to any member of an Armed Force who, while serving with the U.S. Armed Services after 5 April 1917, has been wounded or killed, or who has died or may hereafter die after being wounded;

(1) In any action against an enemy of the United States;

(2) In any action with an opposing armed force of a foreign country in which the Armed Forces of the United States are or have been engaged;

(3) While serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party;

(4) As a result of an act of any such enemy of opposing armed forces;

(5) As the result of an act of any hostile foreign force;

(6) After 28 March 1973, as a result of an international terrorist attack against the United States or a foreign nation friendly to the United States, recognized as such an attack by the Secretary of the department concerned, or jointly by the Secretaries of the departments concerned if persons from more than one department are wounded in the attack; or,

(7) After 28 March 1973, as a result of military operations, while serving outside the territory of the United States as part of a peacekeeping force.

(8) After 7 December 1941, by weapon fire while directly engaged in armed conflict, regardless of the fire causing the wound.

(9) While held as a prisoner of war or while being taken captive.

b. A wound for which the award is made must have required treatment by a medical officer.

It's pretty broad. You could have been a hero, an innocent bystander, or a klutz. The injury could range from the proverbial "flesh wound" to death. Until a few years ago, it was a low ranked medal. It got bumped up the pecking order during peacetime because so many people in the 1980s had rows of medals with no combat service and some thought being wounded in battle should count for more than meritorious peacetime service.

Moreover: Kerry made a big deal throughout the 2004 campaign over his "war hero" credentials — can you possibly have forgotten the "reporting for duty" limp-wristed salute on-stage at the Democratic Nat'l Convention? He made a big deal over the fact that he volunteered for the Swift Boats. (Of course, when he volunteered, the Swift Boats were doing exclusively coastal interdiction duties that were not much more dangerous than his previous year's service on the guided missile cruiser USS Gridley; it was only while he was in training that the Swift Boats were re-tasked to one of the Navy's most dangerous missions in the Vietnam War, i.e., patrolling interior rivers and canals.) When you're trying to sell voters on your character, and you're offering as a data point that you volunteered to serve your country in dangerous duty, it's surely relevant to show that you volunteered yourself back out after only six weeks of intermittent combat, while your comrades (all of whom surely suffered at least as many band-aid wounds as you had, and many, much worse) stuck it out and continued serving their full tours.

Just say outright that you choose not to look behind his medals, no matter whether they were justified or not. I can understand that position; I can see policy arguments for it. But if that's you're position, then admit, too, that you're deliberately blinkering yourself to everything that's not contained on the face of the citation, whether good or bad. (That seems to me to be what you're doing.)

Michael: Blowing up the rice piles was legitimate, because they were trying to destroy enemy caches of supplies and ammunition. Doing so in a way that results in one's own butt being shredded suggests not heroism, but stupidity in the use of lethal weapons. (No one has ever suggested that Kerry deliberately intended to hurt himself, however, with respect to either this self-inflicted wound or the probably self-inflicted wound from the skimmer mission.)

The "three Purple Hearts and you go home" policy isn't one I'd heard of before the 2004 campaign but it's apparently what the Navy was doing. Presumably, Kerry was glad to take the out being offered to him given that he was clearly disillusioned with the war. Unless he falsified documents, pulled questionable strings, or otherwise acted dishonorably, I'm not sure why it's particularly relevant. Especially not in a campaign against a contemporary who didn't leave CONUS.

One Purple Heart was, by anyone's version of events (including Kerry's own), based on rice fragments in Kerry's butt that came from him throwing his own grenade into a rice pile. Another came from a night training action on a skimmer; there was no action report ever completed for it because, according to Kerry's training commander, there was no confirmation of enemy contact, and neither was there a casualty report for Kerry's injury (another band-aid cut, this time to the arm). Purple Heart regulations require that wounds be documented by casualty reports, and that there be after-action reports documenting that the wounds were due to enemy action (not accidental self-infliction). Kerry's admission that the butt wound was accidentally self-inflicted and the absence of required documentation for the other is proof that the Purple Hearts were erroneously awarded. (The SwiftVets never challenged the third Purple Heart, a shin wound from a shell or mine fragment that, once again, was only a band-aid wound that didn't result in any missed duty. They did point out that it was trivial, though, just like the other two, which indirectly relates to whether Kerry had good moral grounds for taking the 3-PH bug-out.)

Kinsey talks about the reluctance of people to get into nitty-gritty details. That's true, but it's been used to give Kerry a free pass. I've yet to meet anyone who can explain to me how Kerry self-perforating his own butt with rice fragments through careless use of his own grenade ought to qualify him for a Purple Heart. Yet without that Purple Heart, he wouldn't have been back stateside as an admiral's aide after serving less than a third of a normal Swift Boats tour of duty and only six weeks of intermittent combat. Dr. Joyner, can you offer a justification for how he got that PH (and thus got home so early)?

I will grant you that the Silver Star and Bronze Star awards are far more subjective. What I don't understand, however, is why the subjective judgment of the SwiftVets is automatically supposed to be "unconscionable" or "unseemly." They're veterans, some of whom participated in these same engagements, and others of whom participated in similar ones in the same operational theater. Why aren't they entitled to have, and express, their opinions?

Wouldn't releasing the full records have put the SBVFT group to rest? In theory?

Sure, Michael, all of the Swift Boat officers who were in service at the same time as John Kerry were cowards, slackers, and fools. Only he and the three who supported him in 2004 were the real heroes.

I think you misinterpreted what I was saying. I'm not accusing those men, John Kerry, or anyone else of not deserving their medals. I'm saying that if you're running a highly publicized, somebody is going to claim that.

If George Washington himself came back and ran for President tomorrow, you'd find at least two dozen people accusing him of not being a patriot. Hell, they did that back when he _was_ President. People would accuse Mother Teresa of being a godless whore if she didn't support their pet issue to their satisfaction, that's just the nature of politics in this country.

Saying that Kerry may not have deserved his medals because someone questioned him, and not these other guys who weren't running for office, is a straw man.

men whose own medals aren't disputed by anyone

Only because they never ran for President or other highly-publicized office.

The "war criminal" stuff actually originated with the Boston Globe reporters during Kerry's run for Senate against William Weld. It was the naive Boston Globe reporters who — hearing Kerry describe himself as having shot someone in the back — suggested that he'd admitted to a war crime. At that point, several of Kerry's fellow Swift Boat veterans defended Kerry from the "war criminal" charge. (Their so doing was then alleged by Kerry, in 2004, to be evidence of duplicity and betrayal when they condemned other of his actions — indisputable proof that no good deed goes unpunished.)