SwiftVets.com

[BrianC]

http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/news/html/5DFF3A46-31C3-48B4-9EB8-BFF13921FA71.shtml
(in part):

"The reports I got back the next morning from crew members was that they received no enemy fire," Hibbard said.

Hibbard, who was 34 at the time, said crew members reported they had spotted the Viet Cong fleeing on the beach and that Kerry fired a M-79, a small grenade launcher that struck some nearby rocks. Hibbard said Kerry was likely struck by a piece of shrapnel from the grenade.

The next day, Hibbard said Kerry approached him and said he had been wounded in combat and showed him a piece of shrapnel the thickness of a pencil lead that was less than a half-inch long.

"I described it as a fingernail scratch," Hibbard said. "He later received a Purple Heart for that scratch, but I have no information of how or from whom."

Scottsboro, Ala., resident Louis Letson, a retired general practitioner, was the physician at Cam Rahn Bay who treated Kerry's wound. Letson backed up Hibbard's account of what happened.

Letson said he removed a small sliver of metal from Kerry's arm that was consistent with the material in an M-79 grenade and covered it with a Band-Aid. Letson said he remembers the event well because he saw few injuries at Cam Ranh Bay and the ones he treated stood out.

"I probably would not have remembered Lt. Kerry's name had it not been for the comments that some of his crew made to the medics," Letson said. "They said Kerry told them he was the next JFK from Massachusetts and would some day be president. I found that sufficiently interesting and amusing that I remembered the event."

Shortly afterward, Kerry was reassigned to a swift boat division patrolling the more dangerous inland rivers, earning two more Purple Hearts and a reassignment stateside after four months in Vietnam. Kerry critics have questioned whether any of his injuries were serious enough to warrant Purple Hearts.

As to why Hibbard waited 35 years to come forward with his protests against Kerry.

"It didn't matter then," Hibbard said. "It matters now."

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