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JOHN
KERRY'S THIRD PURPLE HEART
SUMMARY
FACTS
(For detailed proof, scroll down or click here)
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SBV's claim that
Kerry's third purple heart was due to a self-inflicted wound is grossly
misleading because it does not tell the whole story. The shrapnel
wound was due to a grenade explosion and only part of the reason
for Kerry's purple heart, the other being a separate arm injury
from a separate explosion.
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SBV's claim that Kerry
was kicked out of Vietnam by his officer-in-charge after Kerry's
third purple heart is
contradicted by the facts. Indeed, Navy regulations required Kerry
to transfer out of Vietnam unless Kerry himself requested that he
be allowed to stay. Kerry did not. SBV's claim is thus, once
again, misleading (to put it mildly).
DETAILED
FACTS
1. SBV
claim on the cause of the injury that led to Kerry's third purple
heart
2. SBV claim
regarding reason(s) for Kerry's transfer out of Vietnam after his
third injury/purple heart
1. SBV CLAIM
ON THE CAUSE OF THE INJURY THAT LED TO KERRY'S THIRD PURPLE HEART
[via FactCheck.org]: The
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth further says Kerry didn't deserve his
third purple heart, which was received for shrapnel wounds in left
buttocks and contusions on right forearm. The affidavits state that
the wound in Kerry's backside happened earlier that day in an
accident. "Kerry inadvertently wounded himself in the
fanny," Thurlow said in his affidavit, "by throwing a
grenade too close (to destroy a rice supply) and suffered minor
shrapnel wounds."
[O'Neill
via Media Matters]: The third Purple Heart
is the deal where he threw a grenade into rice. He caught some rice
in his butt. He then attempted to attribute it to the incident
involving the [PCF] 3 boat and thereby left Vietnam.
FACT
This claim is grossly misleading because it does not tell the whole
story. The shrapnel wound was only part
of the reason for Kerry's purple heart, the other being a separate arm
injury from a separate explosion.
REFERENCES
FactCheck.org:
The grenade
incident is actually supported by Kerry's own account, but the
shrapnel wound was only part of the basis for Kerry's third
purple heart according to official documents. The evidence here is
contradictory.
Kerry's account is in
the book Tour of Duty by Douglas Brinkley, who based it
largely on Kerry's own Vietnam diaries and 12 hours of interviews
with Kerry. "I got a piece of small grenade in my ass from one
of the rice-bin explosions and then we started to move back to the
boats," Kerry is quoted as saying on page 313. In that
account, Kerry says his arm was hurt later, after the mine
blast that disabled PCF-3, when a second explosion rocked his own
boat. "The concussion threw me violently against the bulkhead
on the door and I smashed my arm," Kerry says on page 314.
And according to a
Navy casualty
report released by the Kerry campaign, the third purple heart was
received for "shrapnel wounds in left buttocks and
contusions on his right forearm when a mine detonated close aboard
PCF-94," Kerry's boat. As a matter of strict grammar, the
report doesn't state that both injuries were received as a result of
the mine explosion, only the arm injury.
The official citation
for Kerry's Bronze Star refers only to his arm injury, not to the
shrapnel wound to his rear. It says he performed the rescue "from
an exposed position on the bow, his arm bleeding and in pain."
The description of Kerry's arm "bleeding" isn't consistent
with the description of a "contusion," or bruise.
In any case, even
a "friendly fire" injury can qualify for a purple heart
"as long as the 'friendly' projectile or agent was released
with the full intent of inflicting damage or destroying enemy troops
or equipment," according to the website of
the Military Order of the Purple Heart. All agree that rice was
being destroyed that day on the assumption that it otherwise
might feed Viet Cong fighters.
Another major
discrepancy raises a question of how close Kerry's accusers actually
were to the rescue of Rassmann. Tour of Duty describes
Rassmann's rescue (and the sniper fire) as happening
"several hundred yards back" from where the crippled PCF-3
was lying, not "a few yards away," the distance from which
the anti-Kerry veterans claim to have witnessed the incident.
2.
SBV CLAIM
REGARDING REASON(S) FOR KERRY'S TRANSFER OUT OF VIETNAM AFTER HIS
THIRD INJURY/PURPLE HEART:
John Kerry has long
insisted that using the three-injury loophole to leave combat early
was his own idea, but Kerry's fellow Swift officer Thomas Wright,
who served on occasion as the OIC (Officer in Charge) of Kerry's
boat group, contradicts
that claim. Wright reports that he "had a lot of trouble
getting Kerry to follow orders," and that those who worked with
Kerry found him "oriented towards his personal, rather than
unit goals and objectives." He therefore requested that Kerry
be removed from his boat group. After John Kerry qualified for his
third Purple Heart, Thomas Wright and two fellow officers informed
him of the obscure regulation, and told him to go home. Wright
concluded, "We knew how the system worked and we didn’t want
him in Coastal Division 11."
FACT
Wright is entitled to his opinion, but the facts from the U.S. Navy do
not support his allegation. Indeed, Navy regulations required Kerry to
transfer out of Vietnam unless Kerry himself requested that he be
allowed to stay. Kerry did not. SBV's claim is thus, once again,
misleading (to put it mildly).
REFERENCES
Thomas
Lang, Campaign Desk:
The policy in
question, the impenetrably-named BUPERS Instruction 1300.39, is no
longer in place. During Vietnam, it mandated that any soldier
"wounded three times, regardless of the nature of the wound or
treatment required" should be "reassigned as having
completed a full Vietnam tour with the hospital release date
considered the tour completion date. They will not be ordered to
Vietnam ..."
Furthermore, the
official U.S. Navy document states that, "The commanding
officer of an officer who is hospitalized and/or wounded under the
above criteria will advise the Chief of Naval Personnel (Pers-B1) of
the officer's location, duty status, and expected duration of
hospitalization. Reassignment of the officer will be determined
after consideration of his physical classification and on an
individual basis."
An additional,
virtually unreported section of the Navy code, notes that any
soldier wishing to "waive reassignment under the purview of
this Instruction must forward a written request to that effect to
the Chief of Naval personnel (Pers-B) for final determination."
Kerry, of course,
chose not to waive this order, and his commanding officers request
for re-assignment can be viewed
(PDF file) on the candidate's Web site.
For a complete and
accurate description of Kerry's Thrice Wounded Reassignment,
Campaign Desk directs its readers to the Associated
Press, which, this time, gets it exactly right where others got
it wrong :
After the third
Purple Heart, the Navy was required to reassign Kerry out of
Vietnam, and a document dated March 17, 1969, said Kerry requested
duty as a personal aide in Boston, New York or the Washington
area. Kerry could have volunteered to stay in Vietnam, but left
the country in early April 1969.
Snopes.com:
Back in 1969, Navy
regulations specified that any soldier wounded in combat three times
be automatically reassigned away from a combat zone to an assignment
of his choosing (unless the thrice-wounded soldier specifically
requested to stay). Four days after Kerry took his third hit of
shrapnel, Commodore Charles F. Horne, an administrative
official and commander of the coastal squadron in which Kerry
served, forwarded a request on Kerry's behalf to the Navy Bureau of
Personnel asking that Kerry be reassigned to "duty as a
personal aide in Boston, New York, or Washington, D.C." Soon
afterwards Kerry was transferred to Cam Ranh Bay to await further
orders, and within a month he had been reassigned as a personal aide
and flag lieutenant to Rear Admiral Walter F. Schlech,
Jr. with the Military Sea Transportation Service based in
Brooklyn, New York.
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