SwiftVets.com

[DerbyRed]

I cx’d around and didn’t see this posted anywhere else.

This item was included in this week’s “Inside the Ring” feature of The Washington Times:


http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm

Kerry's star

There has been much Internet blogging about one of John Kerry's medal citations for combat in Vietnam. The Democratic presidential nominee was awarded a Silver Star for gallantry during his four-month tour. But some 15 years later, he received another citation for the same action, this time signed by then-Navy Secretary John Lehman.

Asked recently about the citation, Mr. Lehman said he could not recall signing it, leading to speculation it was somehow bogus.

We think we know what happened.

Navy officials tell us that sometime in the mid-1980s Mr. Kerry or his staff asked for another "original" citation, possibly to display in a second office or replace a lost one. The Navy gets scores of such requests a year, if not hundreds. The original citation was retyped, with a few nonessential changes, and then put through the Navy secretary's signature machine. This is why Mr. Lehman could not remember signing it. He didn't.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but this surely doesn’t come near answering the problem. The verbiage appearing on the tricked up citations certainly didn’t seem like “nonessential changes” to me. The changed the whole scope of the action . . . not to mention, expanding on the stock closing statement.

I’m kinda surprised at Bill Gertz -- the co-writer of this column -- he usually doesn’t settle for such an incomplete answer as this seems to be. > > > GBA/cul/dmm
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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams "

[drjohn]

Tom Lipscomb said those medals were re-issued- which means someone took them away (and not just thrown away). The questions is, why were they taken away (dishonorable discharge?). It is almost certainly related to the gap between the time Kerry SHOULD have gottne a discharge and when he actually got it.

[JROTC]

This seems like "reporting" while not reporting. When I read, and re-read it, I think he seems to be referring to the changes from Version # 2 to Version # 3 - indeed, there are not many changes.

What he isn't "reporting" on though, is the changes from # 1 to # 2 and as importantly, the reason(s) why.

Many times we have to watch not only what they "report", but what they do not include.
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"It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it" - General Douglas MacArthur