I'm sick of hearing about the wounded. What about all the thousands of wonderful guys who are fighting this war without any of the credit or the glory that always goes to those lucky few who just happen to get shot. ~ Frank Burns, M*A*S*H*What about them indeed. And what about the ones who take the credit and the glory without happening to get shot?
What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry’s arm. The metal fragment measured about one centimeter in length and was about two or three millimeters 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 three or four millimeters. It did not require probing to find it, nor did it require any anesthesia to remove it. It did not require any sutures to close the wound. The wound was covered with a band-aid. No other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any injury to the boat. ~ Dr. Louis Letson, Unfit for Command, Ch. 3, describing one of the wounds for which John Kerry applied for the Purple Heart.
This requires a bit more context… I know a Viet Nam vet who has a Purple Heart. He was shot through the ribs under his left arm. But it wasn’t the chest wound that very nearly killed him, it was a wicked case of Peritonitis brought on by hiding three days from the Viet Kong by submerging himself in the water of a rice paddy.
So while Kerry didn’t exactly do a Frank Burns and trip on a bedpan to get his Purple Heart, he did put in for one after getting stuck in the forearm by a piece of metal about the size of a finishing brad.
Can’t you see Kerry facing down terrorism, all red-in-the-face, looking over the top of his bi-focals, wagging his index finger in defiance and barking, “I once killed a gopher with a stick.”
I can. That dog don't hunt...
So basically, it sounds like Kerry knew this criteria for receiving the purple heart:
"A wound for which the award is made must have required treatment by a medical officer."
and couldn't pull the scrap out of his arm himself. Hmmmph. I learned how to do that when I was about 7...
Posted by: tallglassofmilk | August 05, 2004 at 01:34 PM