Kerry's first Purple Heart - Three Men in a Boat:
Was Kerry's wound accidentally self-inflicted? Where is the paperwork? And who was in the boat? Here is a good Weekly Standard article (and my thoughts on it), and a recent discussion.
And the dagger, from Newhouse News:
Purple Hearts, lesser awards given for wounds received under fire, are even more subjective. Anyone can fill in the paperwork and forward it to a supervisor, who checks it and sends it up to an "approving authority." This may be a battalion commander, ship's commanding officer, or a medical officer in a combat hospital.
...Purple Heart citations "should be" supported by eyewitness statements.
None of that has been released. Kerry was wounded on Dec. 2, 1968; he moved to a new unit on Dec. 6; the citation for his first Purple Heart came through on Feb 28, 1969, which is roughly three months later. For comparison, his second Purple Heart had a two week processing gap, his third a gap of one month.
Kerry's CO on Dec. 2 (Hibbard) and the officer who oversaw the mission (Schachte) both seem to know nothing about the paperwork supporting Kerry's award, and were at least initially opposed to his being awarded a Purple Heart.
Who filed the paperwork, who approved it, and what did the eyewitness statement say? Who knows? The records have not been released.
And Brinkley has not made available Kerry's War Notes for that incident. In "Tour of Duty", Brinkley does not mention Kerry's contemporaneous account, and instead relies on his own interview with Kerry in 2003. Kerry wrote nothing about his first combat, his first wound, his first award? Not even a letter home? How odd. Show us the Notes (Brinkley says that's fine, so it's up to the Kerry campaign).
My prediction - I have a somewhat lonely view that Kerry can defend the "accidentally self-inflicted" pretty well, but I don't know what surprises the records may hold, and he can be battered for the stonewalling.
Beyond that, there are plausible scenarios in which the eyewitness statement could be significant, or even decisive in this campaign. (We call this "burying the lede".)
Suppose, for example, that the eyewitness statement is signed by Lt. John Kerry, and says something to the effect of "Under the the direction of Lt. Schachte, Lt. Schachte, myself, and Seaman Smith engaged in a "skimmer op", engaged the enemy, and I was wounded".
Whoa. Remember, right now Zaledonis and Runyon, two of the Band of Brothers, claim to have been in the "skimmer" with Kerry. There is no documentation supporting their claim; Kerry did not remember their names when interviewed in 2003; and their role in this incident was unknown until both came forward when Kerry was being criticized for his first Purple Heart in April 2004.
If an eyewitness statement signed by John Kerry shows that these two are, uhh, confused about their involvement in that incident, what do we do with the Band of Brothers? C'mon, these two guys spoke at the Democratic Convention on Kerry's behalf!
And Kerry will have been stonewalling the release of the fatal docs since April. How can he duck this? By saying he was duped, that he didn't remember their names (probably true) and trusted them (probably true)? Fine, but why didn't he release the records last April, and what does it say about his judgement?
Conversely, an eyewitness statement signed by then Lt. Schachte saying "I waved good-bye to Lt. Kerry and sailor Zaledonis and Runyon as they sailed into the dark and stormy night, where Lt. Kerry performed heroically" would put a hole in the Swift Boats below the waterline (even though Schachte is not a Swiftee).
And who knows what is hiding in Brinkley's collection of Kerry's war Notes? What if Kerry has a diary entry noting that he sailed with Schachte and Smith, and Brinkley ignored it in 2003 as one more minor and seemingly irrelevant detail? If Brinkley remembers that he is a professional historian as well as a Kerry flack (and his memory may be jogged after the election), he might publish an article that will shatter the credibility of the Band of Brothers and, by extension, the quiescent press corps that made no effort to uncover the cover-up.
Or, the documents might be inconclusive. Is that a reason for the press not to pursue this?
UPDATE: Kranish follows up with Schachte. Inconclusive.
Yeah...they hand em out like M&Ms...everyone is dying to get one.
Posted by: Liberal AND Proud | December 30, 2004 at 07:49 PM