When John Kerry has been asked to define his own campaign for the presidency, he chose to emphasize two points – his Vietnam service record and his commitment to truth.
Thus, Kerry has no one to blame but himself that the truth of his Vietnam service record has become an issue – perhaps the central issue – in this campaign.
America watched Kerry’s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. He didn’t reference his years in the U.S. Senate. He didn’t talk about his voting record. He focused instead on his own character as demonstrated during his brief, 16-week tour of Vietnam more than 35 years earlier.
“John Kerry, reporting for duty,” he began after the nation watched a video documentary portraying him as a heroic young lieutenant in Vietnam.
Even before that, back on May 13, Kerry was asked in a TV interview by Alan Colmes of Fox News Channel’s “Hannity and Colmes” to define his campaign and his future presidency:
COLMES: When Bill Clinton was running, we heard, “It’s the economy, stupid.” When George Bush was running, it was “I’m going to bring honor and dignity back to the White House.” How do you define in such a nugget a John Kerry presidency?
KERRY: I’m going to bring truth and responsibility back to the White House, and I’m going to bring influence and respect in the world back to America.
Truth and responsibility – how does Kerry measure up?
- Kerry told us he wanted to go to Vietnam. But he first sought a deferment from military service. Failing to get it, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserves and served for a year on the USS Gridley, never getting near Vietnam. He then volunteered for the swiftboat duty, which, at the time, were performing offshore patrols and not involved in combat. In “Unfit for Command,” Kerry’s comrades say he was constantly complaining during his 16 weeks in Vietnam about being sent on combat missions.
- Kerry’s first Purple Heart, which made him eligible for leaving Vietnam after only 16 weeks, was not earned. The senior officer on the boat that day, now an admiral, says there was no hostile fire. The slight wound he received was probably self-inflicted, the result of a tiny piece of shrapnel from his own M-79 grenade misfired in a training mission. Nine days later, Kerry wrote in his journal: “We hadn’t been shot at yet.” The wound was a treated with a Band-Aid and the supervising doctor and his superior officer both denied Kerry’s request for a Purple Heart.
- Kerry’s account of his second Purple Heart has been challenged. His campaign website claimed the incident took place when Kerry was commander of the swiftboat. The campaign was forced to pull 20 pages of documents from the site when the man who actually served as commander of the boat at that time, Tedd Peck, set the record straight.
- Kerry’s Silver Star, the highest honor he received in Vietnam, is now the subject of a U.S. Navy investigation. A Kerry supporter, who commanded another boat involved in the incident, has confirmed that crew members of other boats first and primarily mopped up the encounter with Viet Cong. All agree that Kerry went ashore and killed a fleeing, wounded, armed Viet Cong. However, Kerry’s actions do not rise to the standards of the Silver Star. The other sailors and officers on the three boats involved did not receive the Silver Star. There are many unanswered questions about this award: Why does Kerry’s website display documents showing a “V” on the Silver Star, which is not normal practice? Why do three citations for the Silver Star contain varying accounts of its merits? Why do the three Silver Star citations contain differing accounts?
- Kerry’s Bronze Star is also in dispute. Most of those present on the day a swiftboat was crippled by a mine explosion say there was no enemy fire. Why Kerry’s boat left the scene of the explosion has not been explained.
- Kerry’s third Purple Heart is also in dispute. The wound for which he claimed to have been hit with shrapnel in the mine explosion was actually caused earlier in the day when Kerry blew up some Viet Cong food and was hit with the flying rice – again, a self-inflicted wound, not one sustained in combat. The slight bruise to Kerry’s arm during the Bronze Star episode probably does not rise to Purple Heart standards.
- Kerry lied repeatedly, in many venues over a period of 30 years, about being in Cambodia on Christmas 1968. There is no evidence, other than Kerry’s own imagination, that he was ever in Cambodia, though he still maintains he was ordered there on covert missions.
- In 1971, Kerry accused U.S. Vietnam veterans of committing a systematic series of war crimes on a daily and routine basis. He has never offered any evidence to support those allegations.
- Kerry attended a Vietnam Veterans Against the War executive committee meeting in November 1971 at which the assassination of U.S. senators was debated. At first Kerry denied he was there. When documents proved otherwise, he admitted he might have been there. Yet he never reported the threats to any authorities.
Even while making his Vietnam experience the cornerstone of his presidential campaign, and even while pledging to return “truth and responsibility” to the White House, Kerry has refused to release his medical records, his Vietnam service records and his journals.
He first explained he could not release the documents because of contractual obligations to his biographer, Douglas Brinkley. Brinkley has denied any such contractual requirements and has now urged Kerry to release the material.
In the interest of “truth and responsibility,” where are the documents?
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