Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (20778)	5/6/2004 1:39:10 PM
From: JakeStraw	Respond to of 81568

Kerry's wound not from battle, Navy doc told By Stephen Braun Los Angeles Times Mates allege 'splinter' not from fight WASHINGTON - A former Navy doctor who says he treated Sen. John Kerry for the wound that led to his first Purple Heart in Vietnam said Tuesday that several of Kerry's crewmates told him at the time that the injury did not occur in battle. Dr. Louis Letson, a retired Alabama physician who was medical officer at the Naval Support Facility at Cam Ranh Bay, said the crew's "confided" story contradicted Kerry's own report in December 1968 that he was wounded during a river firefight between his Swift boat and Vietcong gunmen ashore. The doctor's account surfaced as part of a barrage of criticism of Kerry by former Swift gunboat officers who gathered in Washington to press the likely Democratic nominee to authorize the release of his wartime records to the public. Kerry did not respond directly, but campaign officials angrily dismissed Letson's account and questioned why another medical official's signature appeared on Kerry's own records of his treatment for the wound. The Kerry campaign also said it has already posted online a copy of all official documents Kerry received from the Navy in his military file. Campaign spokesman Michael Meehan suggested that, "if these people have different recollections 35 years later of what they saw or signed, they ought to take it up with the U.S. Navy." Several of Kerry's former Swift boat crewmates also appeared in Washington to stoutly defend the Massachusetts senator. Drew Whitlow, an Arkansas man who served as rear gunner on one of the Swift boat's Kerry commanded, said critics "are entitled to their opinions, but I served alongside of the man. I know exactly what he was like. And I know the integrity and compassion he had." In an e-mailed account of his recollection of Kerry's treatment and in two phone interviews, Letson said Kerry, then a Navy lieutenant, appeared in the medical tent at Cam Ranh Bay on Dec. 3, 1968, with a slight wound "covered with a Band-Aid." "There wasn't much blood to it," he said. "It looked like a splinter." Letson described a "small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 centimeter" and did "not look like a round from a rifle," he said. Letson said he "simply removed the piece of metal" with forceps. Letson said by phone that the wound he observed on Kerry was "pretty rare. I don't remember treating any other shrapnel wounds at Cam Ranh Bay." Meehan questioned Letson's role, saying a J.C. Carreon signed Kerry's medical report of the wound. "This gentleman is not the man who is on the report," he said. Letson explained that Carreon, a lower-ranked "hospitalman," was "present at the time and he, in fact, made the entry into Lt. Kerry's medical record which has only recently been made available to the public." Letson, 63, was a Navy lieutenant as well as a medical officer at the time. In several accounts, Kerry has said he was wounded by a piece of shrapnel as he and his crew engaged Vietcong fleeing on a beach from their flat-bottomed "sampan" boats. Kerry has said he was uncertain where the shrapnel came from. The U.S. military's regulations for issuance of a Purple Heart require that an injury must be received during "action against an enemy of the United States." According to Letson, Kerry told him during his visit to the medical tent that his crew "had been engaged in a firefight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action." Letson said he did not recall Kerry's demeanor being "anything out of the ordinary." Later, Letson said, several of Kerry's crew members told a different version to medical workers: "They did not receive any fire from shore," he wrote, "but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewmen thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks." Letson added that the crew's account "seemed to fit the injury which I treated." He said by phone that Kerry's crewmen were "just talking to my guys. It was just casual discussion. Up until that point, I didn't have any suspicions about it, but after I heard that, the circumstances sounded a little unusual." Letson said he played no role in the Navy's decision to award Kerry his first Purple Heart. On Tuesday, nearly two dozen former Swift boat commanders appeared at the National Press Club to disparage Kerry's war performance and his leadership role in the anti-war movement after he returned from Vietnam. The group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, was organized by former Rear Adm. Roy F. Hoffmann and John O'Neill, a Dallas lawyer who commanded a Navy gunboat during the war. O'Neill debated Kerry over the Vietnam War on television in 1971 after a march organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War and was cheered on by President Nixon. He said Kerry "exaggerates the small record he established." Hoffmann, who headed a command of 3,000 officers and enlisted men in 1968 and 1969, belittled Kerry as a "loose cannon." fortwayne.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (20778)	5/6/2004 9:32:14 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

I've never attacked Kerry's heroism in VN. I think he deserves admiration for his service there. It doesn't matter if his Purple Hearts were for scratches - you don't need to lose a leg to get a Purple Heart. It doesn't matter that he figured out a way to get out after 4 months. I don't blame him for that. Kerry enlisted in the Navy and commanded men in combat and he behaved in a brave manner while doing so. However, that does not qualify him to be President. And his behavior AFTER VN, in particular his participation with and choosing to act as a spokesman and mouthpiece for the fraudulent "Winter Soldier" propaganda exercise, was dishonorable. I know he was looking to go into politics at the time and he got media exposure which helped him in that effort. Also I find his faked medal throwing episode less than honorable, both from the standpoint of throwing them away and from the standpoint of faking it.