[techweenie]

Mul, there's a treatment record; there was a doctor visit. the wound was to put it mildly, superficial.

But he got a purple heart for it.

Here's a bulletin: wounds requiring medical attention in the theater of combat are sufficient for purple heart awards. In fact, a purple heart award is automatically triggered by medical treatment.

Just as a person killed by 'friendly' fire is still dead, a person wounded from an unknown source is still wounded.

The same people who are saying there was no enemy fire are also misrepresenting the wound (see Hibbard).

I don't know about the enemy fire issue. The alleged journal entry is puzzling, but it's all hearsay to date.

Here's a guy with a bit of credibility speaking on the issue:

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The awards system has always been fraught with abuse, but for anyone who has ever served in combat, the difference between earning a Purple Heart and death is, indeed, very slim.

Former Navy doctor Louis Letson clearly recalls treating Kerry and removing a small piece of metal from his arm with forceps, bandaging that wound and returning him to duty. And when Kerry was hit, he was certainly engaged with the enemy and in harm's way.

In fact, if the fragment Letson removed had been slightly larger and struck the lieutenant between the eyes, Kerry's award would no longer be a current-events issue — since he'd be planted in Arlington National Cemetery instead of campaigning to be the next occupant of the Oval Office nearby.

Medals were prized

Reports say Kerry was an aloof, gung-ho, super-ambitious, young stud whose eye was already on the White House and whose role model was Navy war hero Jack Kennedy. Like a lot of soldiers and sailors who valiantly served in Vietnam, he was eager to come home, but probably just as eager to scoop up the golden gongs that came his way. It's also worth noting that medals for officers were especially prized as magic steppingstones that could help propel the recipients onward and upward.

Under the circumstances, it wouldn't have made sense for Kerry to ask his commander to rescind the automatic orders for a Purple Heart — our country's first decoration. (It was instituted in 1782 and awarded originally only for bravery in combat. Subsequently, it was changed to honor our wounded and dead.)

On an earlier tour in Vietnam, one of my gallant soldiers, a draftee named Don Wallace, picked up seven Purple Hearts in less than a year without ever being hospitalized. Most of "Ole Magnet Butt's" wounds were easily patched up by "Doc" Holley, our battalion surgeon. But any one of them could have shut off his lights forever.

Jerry Sullivan, another trooper in the same "Hardcore Battalion," was wounded just once. He spent five years in hospitals and still lives in agony.

Whose Purple Hearts were more deserved? Should Wallace have measured his hits and turned down Purple Hearts for his smaller wounds? I don't think so.

But I do think that Kerry's Purple Heart wouldn't be considered problematic if he weren't a presidential candidate. The grousers, to a man, seem to be simply passing on secondhand bilge that they ought to stow in their sea bags and lay off.

David H. Hackworth