Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard writes on the Swift Boat controversy generally, and pays special attention to the controversy about Kerry's first Purple Heart (three men in a boat). We will score this as a "Good job, but...".
Let's use his summary:
Watch the first Swift Boat advertisement, and you are told Kerry "is lying" about his first Purple Heart. The lie, according to the anti-Kerry veterans, involves how Kerry was injured. For the last thirty years, Kerry has said he earned his Purple Heart during a firefight on December 2, 1968, in which a piece of shrapnel burrowed into his arm. Not so, write O'Neill and Corsi. Not so because, they write, that night in December, Kerry "picked up an M-79 grenade launcher and fired a grenade too close, causing a tiny piece of shrapnel (one or two centimeters) to barely stick in his arm." What's more, the anti-Kerry vets say there was no enemy fire that night. And a Purple Heart earned when there was no enemy fire is a Purple Heart earned under false pretense.
There are two separate charges here, then: First, that there was no enemy fire on December 2, 1968, and, second, that Kerry's wound that night was self-inflicted, caused by a wayward grenade. We'll examine each.
And so he does. He notes that none of the eyewitness accounts state definitively that Kerry was under fire; he also notes that the "wayward grenade" theory can not be proven or disproven. Which means that the Swiftees claim that "Kerry lied" is left up in the air. Part of his Big Finish:
MAYBE SOMEONE should tell the Kerry campaign that. Because when discussion turns to how Kerry won his first Purple Heart, campaign surrogates have done little to bolster their candidate's case. They simply reject all the Swift boat vets' claims as "smears." And the senator isn't helping any, either. Kerry refuses to talk about the issue of his Vietnam service with journalists--including even comedian Jon Stewart. He refuses to clear the release of all his military service records. And he refuses to make his war diaries and other materials available to journalists and scholars who aren't named Douglas Brinkley.
Well. I happen to think that the Kerry side can present an even stronger case than is presented here. As I noted when puzzling over the Purple Heart regs a few weeks ago, being fired upon is not a requirement; it is simply impressive evidence in satisfaction of the actual requirement, which is that the wound must have occurred while engaging the enemy.
Let me illustrate by slightly modifying the Kerry story - suppose he fired off his M-79, took self-inflicted shrapnel in his arm, and two Viet Cong threw down their weapons and surrendered on the beach without firing a shot. Would anyone argue that he had not engaged the enemy, and that a Purple Heart was not merited? Please.
With that in mind, the Kerry side should argue that Kerry was wounded in a good faith attempt to engage the enemy, and therefore qualifies. Put another way, Kerry was wounded while he and his crew fired suppressing fire, which succeeded in suppressing return fire from the enemy. Mission accomplished!
The Swift rebuttal, would be, (I expect, based on other comments in other posts), that lacking any solid evidence that an enemy was engaged, the question of engagement hinges on the subjective judgement of the officers on the scene. Schachte (in his Lisa Meyers interview) and Hibbard (Kerry's CO, but not on the scene) seemed to think that there was no engagement (although Hibbard was clearly influenced by the triviality of the wound, and presumably by Schachte's oral report).
I should take a moment to thank the many commenters who have kicked these Purple Heart arguments around on this site and others, in various posts. I have a bit of a lonely position on the "engaging the enemy" question, and have found myself in something of an unlikely alliance with the ubiquitous "GT". The rest of the Brain Trust (and I won't embarass them by naming names) is just going to have to try and lure me back to the reservation on this one.
And despite the availability of what I think is a plausible defense for Kerry, the Weekly Standard closes with the point that Kerry has not released the records that might satisfy the critics. I continue to marvel that this incident, which Kerry described to Tim Russert as one of the most frightening of his nights in Vietnam, was not mentioned in Kerry's voluminous War Notes. Or was it? Brinkley's account of the incident in "Tour of Duty" is based on a 2003 interview with Kerry (Brinkley also credits the 2003 Boston Globe article in the chapter notes). What, if anything did Kerry write at the time? The world wonders - release the War Notes (Brinkley says its OK with him).
This Newhouse News article gives us a lot more to wonder about:
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.
Army regulations specify that medals must not be given for such "wounds" as frostbite, battle fatigue, accidents or food poisoning (unless "caused by enemy agent"). Purple Heart citations "should be" supported by eyewitness statements.
None of those documents have been made available. Kerry moved to a different unit a few days after the Dec. 2 incident - Did Hibbard or Schachte provide approval, or an eyewitness statement? Was it Kerry's new CO, relying on Kerry's version of events? Who dunnit? Who knows? Release the records.
There's life in this one, and it is Kerry's stonewalling that is keeping it alive.
The article missed this point in the discussion of Letson and whether he treated Kerry.
"2) A wound is defined as an injury to any part of the body from an outside force or agent sustained under one or more of the conditions listed above A physical lesion is not required, however, the wound for which the award is made must have required treatment by a medical officer and records of medical treatment for wounds or injuries received in action must have been made a matter of official record."
Who was the doctor (medical officer) that treated Kerry? The orderly who signed the report was not a medical officer. If the orderly treated the wound then it did not meet the requirement of "must have required treatment by a medical officer."
A doctor from Vietman wrote this column.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040825-085753-2062r.htm
Who was the medical officer that verified the wound was eligible for the purple heart? The wound that is described sounds like something every mother has done for her children. Pull a splinter and put a bandage on it if needed.
The controversy over whether there was enemy fire and whether it was self-inflicted doesn't matter if the wound did not "require treatment by a medical officer."
Who was the doctor? The paperwork release so far does not support the minimum requirements for a purple heart.
Posted by: Doug | September 05, 2004 at 12:57 PM
Doug's comment reflects the thoughts I have had since reading the regs several weeks ago. Does "medical officer" mean doctor? If it does, then Kerry's own defense of this issue (a medic's signature, not Letson's, on the medical report) has proven a PH wasn't merited.
Posted by: Dan | September 05, 2004 at 04:47 PM