(2004-08-23) -- Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry today donated several of his own medals to South Korean gymnast Yang Tae-young, who fell short of an Olympic gold medal this week due to a judging error.

"That young man's uneven parallel bar routine is seared...seared in my memory," said Mr. Kerry, who is also a U.S. Senator. "Since I had these medals just lying around the house--the ones I earned in Vietnam--I thought it would cheer him up."

The Democrat candidate said he personally delivered the decorations to the South Korean Embassy in Washington.

"The embassy was closed, so I tossed them over the fence," he said. "There were some ribbons or some medals...I don't remember. Anyway, ribbons and medals were absolutely interchangeable in the Navy."

A spokesman for the Kerry-Edwards campaign said the altruistic act demonstrates that Mr. Kerry is not the kind of man described in the new book by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.