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May 04, 2004

Kerry's Doctor Speaks

It's official. The doctor has spoken. Kerry's wound, for which Kerry was awarded his first Purple Heart, did indeed get a Band-Aid™.

Kerry was treated for the wound at a medical facility in Cam Ranh Bay. The doctor who treated Kerry, Louis Letson, is today a retired general practitioner in Alabama. Letson says he remembers his brief encounter with Kerry 35 years ago because "some of his crewmen related that Lt. Kerry had told them that he would be the next JFK from Massachusetts."

Now isn't that telling? John Kerry out there telling his crew he would be another JFK, which would fit the idea that he only went into the military to get some quick medals as a PT boat skipper, just like JFK. After all, prior to the war protests that would've been the model for how a Massachusetts Democrat can achieve high political office. It looked like you needed a record as a war hero. And as Kerry's own war diary shows, he was already plagued with overblown self-aggrandizement, which was apparently obvious to the men around him, since 18 of 23 of the officers that served with him said he's not fit to be President. You see, the real JFK, through screwing up and leaving his boat in neutral while sitting in a fog bank patrolled by Japanese destroyers, at least pulled some of them to an island. In contrast, Kerry's ENTIRE chain of command has sign a letter saying he's unfit for office. As they said

Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann, USN (retired), Commander of Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam (Commander Task Force 115) and chair of the group said, “I signed this letter because I do not believe John Kerry is fit to be the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. This is not a political issue. It is a matter of his judgment, truthfulness, reliability, loyalty and trust - all absolute tenets of command.”

Not exactly a stellar performance recommendation, is it?

The Swift Boat Vets for Truth include the entire chain of command above Kerry: Lt. Commander Grant Hibbard, Lt. Commander Elliott, Captain Charles Plumly, Captain Adrian Lonsdale USCG (retired) and Rear Admiral Hoffmann (retired), as well as enlisted men, officers, men who served with Mr. Kerry, men who served in the same group of Swift boats and men intimately familiar with the operations and conduct of Swift boat operations during the war. The group also includes James Zumwalt, Lt. Colonel, U.S.M.C. (retired), representing his father, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, and brother, Lt. Elmo Zumwalt III, both deceased.

Admiral Zumwalt was also on record saying that John Kerry needed to be put in a straight jacket. The Kerry campaign has already tried to dismiss the group as a bunch of Bush operatives, but there's one little problem. It's statistically unlikely that eighteen out of twenty-three people (78%), who served in the armed forces back in the days of the military draft, are now conservatives. And getting back to the issue of Kerry's first Purple Heart, the one that he still hasn't released the records on, Dr. Leston says this.

I have a very clear memory of an incident which occurred while I was the Medical Officer at Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay.

John Kerry was a (jg), the OinC or skipper of a Swift boat, newly arrived in Vietnam. On the night of December 2, he was on patrol north of Cam Ranh, up near Nha Trang area. The next day he came to sick bay, the medical facility, for treatment of a wound that had occurred that night.

The story he told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.

Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.

So John Kerry's crew denies they were being shot at, and they would have absolutely no reason to lie to a doctor about such a thing. So only one person's account is out of sync, and that person happens to want a medal to be just like JFK. Either the whole crew was lying or John Kerry was, and the one thing a military can't tolerate is liars. So I'd say the crew is correct and Kerry got hit with a piece of a round he fired at some rocks. He must've gotten bored or something.

That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.

What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.

That's what I call a small metal splinter. I get stuck with such splinters from time-to-time when I'm machining strange parts. I yank it out and go on, since they quit bleeding pretty quickly anyway, and failing that I just squeeze it with a shop rag. I didn't know you could get military decorations for such ouchies.

I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.

The wound was covered with a bandaid.

And there we have it, a wound that merited a friggin' bandaid. Is it any wonder Kerry didn't release the record of that particular incident?

Not [sic] other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any reported damage to the boat.

And so the whole firefight story pretty much goes out the window, doesn't it. If a bullet never even hit your boat then it's more than likely that nobody ever shot at you. Crews talk, so I'm sure word of such shenanigans circulated through the whole command. Another of his crewmen has called him a coward who was afraid to engage the enemy, so John Kerry's military service is looking very bad indeed. They say that in combat a person's true character comes out. It look's like Kerry's was AWOL, because at this point I have more respect for Howard Dean's fake back injury.

May 4, 2004 in Politics | Permalink

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Comments

Once again, thanks Sir George.
Kerry's crap is not gonna hold much water with vets already. This is how not to run for president.

I wonder if the Klintoons are rethinking 2008.

Posted by: Mikenchi at May 4, 2004 11:48:24 PM

Oh Lord God Almighty, please let Kerry drop out of the race. Even Al Fucking Sharpton would be a trillion times better than Kerry.

Posted by: Battedelune at May 5, 2004 12:47:13 AM

Aaahahahahahahaha!

A friggin' Band-Aid™! Oh, that's just priceless!

Hahahahaha! "Small arms fire." Hahaha!

Oh, I'd give almost anything to be able to ask him myself…

Do you enjoy having the TRUTH thrown in your lying face, Mr. Kerry? How does it feel to EAT YOUR LIES?

I hope the bastard chokes on them. Karma's a bitch, ain't it?

HAHAHAHAHA!

Posted by: Tao Libra at May 5, 2004 1:52:12 AM

I seem to remember that Zumwalt line came as some hearsay from an ex-CIA professor writing an opinion piece, after Zumwalt was dead and therefore unavailable for further comment. While I would love it to be true that the admiral accused Kerry of having killed so many civilians that they had to hush it up, I'd have to file that particular line under "uncorroborated and somewhat dubious".

Posted by: Mitch H. at May 5, 2004 10:03:37 AM

He got a Purple Heart for a frigging SPLINTER????

Dammit, I've shed more blood on an FTX! What a worthless slimebag!

Posted by: Raging Dave at May 5, 2004 11:06:57 AM

Somebody wake me when the "implosion" is over.

Posted by: Jim G. at May 5, 2004 1:01:16 PM

Scary thing is he still is getting even marks with George w. Do not forget the pow mia committe debacale also. oh the liberal media is keeping him alive the most liberal senator in the senate

Posted by: ret sarge at May 14, 2004 5:05:58 PM