During an April 1971 antiwar protest, John Kerry threw away several medals he earned in Vietnam. "In a real sense, this [Nixon] administration forced us to return our medals," he declared back then. "I did turn my medals in," he said in the June 15, 1971, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. "I gave back, I can't remember, six, seven, eight, nine medals," Kerry told Washington, D.C.'s WRC-TV on November 6, 1971.
But in the February 21, 1985, Washington Post, John challenged his own earlier statements. "It's such a personal thing...I did not want to throw my medals away." Then, in the October 6, 1996, Boston Globe, he explained that he only discarded his ribbons since "I didn't bring my own medals to throw because I didn't have time to go home and get them."
John told ABC News in December, "I'm proud of my medals. I always was proud of them." Was John proud of his medals but ashamed of his own ribbons? Who really knows? Thankfully, as John reassured Good Morning America's Charlie Gibson on Monday, "I have been accurate precisely about what took place."
hardly accurate, hardly precise
then of course there is the brouhaha on how he received those medals in the first place |
