John Kerry has used his record in Vietnam as a weapon against that of President Bush, thus opening his own record to scrutiny. Unfortunately, the mainstream media seems to be willing to ignore Kerrys own testimony, in which he stated that while in command of a Swift Boat (44), he and his crew operated without prudence in a "free fire zone," negligently firing at targets of opportunity and racking up a number of enemy kills. His body count included a woman, her baby, a 12 year-old boy, an elderly man and several South Vietnamese soldiers.
"It is one of those terrible things, and I'll never forget, ever, the sight of that child," Kerry later said about the dead baby. "But there was nothing that anybody could have done about it. It was the only instance of that happening."
Kerry further abdicates personal responsibility by saying that the Navy was to blame for a ''free fire zone'' policy in Vietnam which put civilians at such high risk.
This from the same man who testified before congress that U.S. servicemen had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.
Kerry impugns the President for his service, and yet Kerry's own record indicates a lack of moral character that is almost unbelievable.
Kerry experienced his first combat action on Dec. 2, 1968. He received a slight wound to his arm and earned his first Purple Heart. He earned his second Purple Heart after sustaining a minor shrapnel wound to his left thigh on Feb. 20, 1969. He was awarded his third Purple Heart on March 13, 1969, when a mine detonated near his boat, slightly wounding him in the right arm. When asked about the severity of the wounds, Kerry said that "one of them cost him about two days of service, and that the other two did not interrupt his duty."
Upon receiving his third Purple Heart, Kerry asked to be sent home, using an obscure Navy rule which allowed any soldier wounded three times to return to the United States immediately. According to Commodore Charles F. Horne, the commander of the coastal squadron in which Kerry served, Kerry requested reassignment ... "as a personal aide in Boston, New York, or Wash., D.C. area."
