Kerry's Doctor says Purple Heart Injury Suspect

[fintstone]

May 04, 2004, 4:26 p.m.
Kerry Purple Heart Doc Speaks Out
The medical description of his first wound.

By Byron York

Some critics of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry have questioned the circumstances surrounding the first of three Purple Hearts Kerry won in Vietnam. Those critics, among them some of Kerry's fellow veterans, have suggested that a wound suffered by Kerry in December 1968 may have made him technically eligible for a Purple Heart but was not severe enough to warrant serious consideration, even for a decoration that was handed out by the thousands. Whatever the case, Kerry was awarded the Purple Heart, and, along with two others he won later, it allowed him to request to leave Vietnam before his tour of duty was finished.

Kerry was treated for the wound at a medical facility in Cam Ranh Bay. The doctor who treated Kerry, Louis Letson, is today a retired general practitioner in Alabama. Letson says he remembers his brief encounter with Kerry 35 years ago because "some of his crewmen related that Lt. Kerry had told them that he would be the next JFK from Massachusetts." Letson says that last year, as the Democratic campaign began to heat up, he told friends that he remembered treating one of the candidates many years ago. In response to their questions, Letson says, he wrote down his recollections of the time. (Letson says he has had no contacts with anyone from the Bush campaign or the Republican party.) What follows is Letson's memory, as he wrote it.

I have a very clear memory of an incident which occurred while I was the Medical Officer at Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay.
John Kerry was a (jg), the OinC or skipper of a Swift boat, newly arrived in Vietnam. On the night of December 2, he was on patrol north of Cam Ranh, up near Nha Trang area. The next day he came to sick bay, the medical facility, for treatment of a wound that had occurred that night.

The story he told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.

Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.

That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.

What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm 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 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.

The wound was covered with a bandaid.

Not [sic] other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any reported damage to the boat.

[speeder]

Knock yourself out, dude.

I heard that Cheney caught the clap from a frat brother in '68, but a simple dose of anti-biotics and a couple of group spankings made everything like new.

[350HP930]

Thats mighty big for a chair force veteran like yourself to go digging up every web blog hack piece about kerry's wounds and posting them here on this board.

On another automotive forum I saw a quote from the same doctor stating that he had gotten worse wounds from rose thorns.

I never new that rose thorns could leave a person's body permananly embedded with metal shrapnel.

I guess you bush lovers and arm chair warriors will do anything to deflect from the fact that kerry served in hostile terroritory and was wounded several times while performing his duties.

I guess you are trying to make kerry look bad but all posts like this do is make their propagators look like asses.

I'm sure you and bush could tell some awsome stories about some mean paper cuts and scraped knuckles.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by speeder
Knock yourself out, dude.

I heard that Cheney caught the clap from a frat brother in '68, but a simple dose of anti-biotics and a couple of group spankings made everything like new.

What does that have to do with the topic? I guess it is easier to change the topic than respond to it.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by 350HP930
Thats mighty big for a chair force veteran like yourself

I have a combat crewmember badge, how about you little boy?

[fintstone]

Originally posted by 350HP930
I never new that rose thorns could leave a person's body permananly embedded with metal shrapnel.

Even Kerry does not claim to have any embedded metal shrapnel from this injury. Do you know something about this wound that he and his doctor do not?

[fintstone]

Originally posted by 350HP930
I'm sure you and bush could tell some awsome stories about some mean paper cuts and scraped knuckles.

I had a bigger piece of metal stuck in my eye...and not removed with tweezers either......had my arm broken in 3 different places and my nose broken...all on duty....You don't know what you are talking about.....so don't get personal.

[350HP930]

Wow, what combat were you involved in fint? I didn't think you were at that much risk repairing equipment and sitting around in US nuke missle bunkers.

As far as your eye goes, any good tech should be smart enough to wear eye protection when working on equipment. Did you get written up for that?

[fintstone]

Once again, you only know a couple of jobs I had in the military. 26 years were a long time. You were wrong before and still are.

[350HP930]

Hey, with all your talk about others people records perhaps its best that you put up or shut up.

[CamB]

Fint for someone who stated in another post:

I have always said that I only question his service because you folks question GWs.

followed by a discussion of the subjective dubiousness of his medals, then:

My problems with Kerry have nothing to do with his military service. It is what he did after he came home that concerns me.

You seem awefully keen to go on the front foot and discredit Kerry's military service again. I refer to your starting this thread, rather than replying to an accusation against Bush.

[fintstone]

350 HP
I am tired of you making unfounded statements regarding me personally, and then expecting me to post personal info on the site. I had to prove, I was in the military, then I had to prove I had been a Missile Officer, then I had to prove I worked on aircraft...You have been wrong every time, but you have managed to change the subject. Now what do you want me to do..post medical records? I am not running for president of claiming to be a war hero and certainly don't want my records on the web. Why can't you ever argue the topic intead of making personal attacks? I tell you what...Let's end it once and for all...bet me $5000 that I did not work in Special Ops or have the injuries I posted...and I will post proof of both. Put up or shut up. Otherwise quit calling me a liar and quit bringing up my military service.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by CamB
Fint for someone who stated in another post:

I have always said that I only question his service because you folks question GWs.

followed by a discussion of the subjective dubiousness of his medals, then:

My problems with Kerry have nothing to do with his military service. It is what he did after he came home that concerns me.

You seem awefully keen to go on the front foot and discredit Kerry's military service again. I refer to your starting this thread, rather than replying to an accusation against Bush.

Once again, just last week on national television, Kerry questioned Bush's service. Bush has not questioned Kerry's.

I did not post an opinion when posting the article...I was only providing additional info. make up your own mind. The two folks that determine when a person gets a Purple Heart...his doctor and his commander have stated for the record he should not have received the medal...yet he has it. I find that quite interesting. It doesn't cast a bad light on his service to me..only shows he was opportunistic. I still don't question his service...he served honorably by his country's definition...as did GW. I personally will never know whether he earned his other medals or not, since they were all based on reports he wrote himself.. they could as easily be true as not...I would certainly give him the benefit of the doubt absent other info. I am still more concerned with he returned home as I previously stated.

[350HP930]

Hey, for a guy who loves to badmouth the injuries of a combat veteran you sure are quick to get your panties in a bunch when the tables are turned on ya.

I am not doubting that you broke your arm or got metal in your eye, but suffereing a nasty fall or being slack with the safety equipment while turning wrenches and pushing buttons just don't seem to put you in a position to criticise kerry's war wounds.

[nostatic]

sorry Flint, but Cam is spot on. You claimed you didn't care, but now you do.

So I'll play along...injury #1 seems wimpy. What about the other two?

And if you want to pursue this aspect of Kerry (which as Cam pointed out, you said you didn't), I'll offer that his trip to the medic was in Vietnam instead of Texas or Alabama...

[fintstone]

150HP930
For a whining punk that never served anywhere but McDonalds, you sure talk big. Vietnam is not the only place where people in the military performed dangerous duty. Kerry's doctor is the one critical of his wound...not me. I did not see it. Put up or shut up!

[fintstone]

Originally posted by nostatic
sorry Flint, but Cam is spot on. You claimed you didn't care, but now you do.

So I'll play along...injury #1 seems wimpy. What about the other two?

And if you want to pursue this aspect of Kerry (which as Cam pointed out, you said you didn't), I'll offer that his trip to the medic was in Vietnam instead of Texas or Alabama...

As you, I find the first whimpy and don't have a problem with the other two, but do find it interesting that everyone seems to fault the first one. Apparently there are witnesses that discredit that one. I don't see it as an election issue...only interesting in light of previous discussion on the board. It seems to me that Kerry is causing his problems in this regard by continuing to bring up Bush's military record. Bush has never questioned Kerry's.

[350HP930]

Originally posted by fintstone
For a whining punk that never served anywhere but McDonalds, you sure talk big. Vietnam is not the only place where people in the military performed dangerous duty. Kerry's doctor is the one critical of his wound...not me. I did not see it. Put up or shut up!

I didn't know that calling you out as a motor pool megalomaniac was 'talking big'. I would think that after all your derision of kerry's meritorious acts that you would be willing to have your own 'service' exposed to a little scrutiny and derision.

Despite all your talk of a 'combat crewmember badge' and 'dangerous duty' I still don't get the impression that your component repair and missle station duties ever put in the line of enemy fire.

If I am wrong I sure would like to know where and when it occured. Then again you could just claim its another one of those 'top secret' things that you are not allowed to talk about.

[speeder]

Originally posted by speeder
Knock yourself out, dude.

I heard that Cheney caught the clap from a frat brother in '68, but a simple dose of anti-biotics and a couple of group spankings made everything like new.

This is not changing the subject. My point, (and the only relevent point in this whole stupid discussion), is that Kerry went, Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz/etc. didn't!

Throw in Karl Rove, that fat, roly-poly pile of ***** that makes these character assasinations against Kerry, and you have 1/2 the weakest softball team the world has ever seen.

"Bush never questioned Kerry's" (military service)?? Of course not, he has hatchet people to do that for him. Like "tough guy" Karl Rove, who would be someone's wife in a womens' prison.

I had dinner on Friday night w/ one of my oldest and closest friends, I wish that you could have been there. He was an 18 y.o. Marine in Viet Nam in 1969, he's a moderate/independent voter who supports Kerry this time around. I asked him about some of the BS that you post on this board, he just shook his head and said that, "the Republicans are making a huge mistake even mentioning Kerry's war record. That's their (Bush campaign's) weakest point. Kerry went, Bush didn't. Nobody can even say WTF Bush even did in the Texas ANG. A Purple Heart is any wound that requires medical treatment, period. You cannot give yourself a Purple Heart."

He said some other things, but I really wish that you could have been there. I had no idea what he was going to say about Kerry, and he said that he really likes him. So do I.

[CamB]

Originally posted by fintstone
...It seems to me that Kerry is causing his problems in this regard by continuing to bring up Bush's military record. Bush has never questioned Kerry's.

Well, probably technically correct because Bush never says much of anything.

I understand that "I like the dirty work" Cheney on the hand has been rather scathing of Kerry in this regard. (edit - Denis beat me to it).

Related laugh:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64390-2004May3.html

I guess the real question is, does the dubiousness of one purple heart invalidate the other FIVE medals.