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| The medical description of Kerry’s first wound. |
| 2004-05-05 |
| I would never criticize Monsuer Kerry’s service or the wounds he received. If this is accurate though, it does show how calculating he is and how far back his ambition has stretched. The medical description of his first wound. Some critics of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry have questioned the circumstances surrounding the first of three Purple Hearts Kerry won in Vietnam. Those critics, among them some of Kerry’s fellow veterans, have suggested that a wound suffered by Kerry in December 1968 may have made him technically eligible for a Purple Heart but was not severe enough to warrant serious consideration, even for a decoration that was handed out by the thousands. Whatever the case, Kerry was awarded the Purple Heart, and, along with two others he won later, it allowed him to request to leave Vietnam before his tour of duty was finished. 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." Letson says that last year, as the Democratic campaign began to heat up, he told friends that he remembered treating one of the candidates many years ago. In response to their questions, Letson says, he wrote down his recollections of the time. (Letson says he has had no contacts with anyone from the Bush campaign or the Republican party.) What follows is Letson’s memory, as he wrote it. 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. 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. 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. Not [sic] other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any reported damage to the boat. |
| Posted by:JerseyMike |
| #10 In the town of Huntington next to Fort Wayne is located teh Dan Quayle Museum of Vice Presidents. I'll have to check sometime and see whether Mr Potato-head or Murphy Brown are exhibitted. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-05-05 11:04:11 PM |
| #9 The sad part of the Quayle story is he had the answer in his hand, an answer prepared by someone else, and the answer was wrong. Even if I thought the answer was wrong, in front of cameras, etc, I think I would trust whomever prepared the answers. If the person who created the wrong-answer was on his staff they probably haven't worked in politics since. If not they're probably a big-wig on the left by now. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-05-05 5:20:53 PM |
| #8 Howard - You lucky rascal. If we were like you in Britain, we wouldn't worry about much of the campaign nonsense for several months. One could watch the Iraq situation, give moral support to the troops defending us there, but we could spend more time doing something less stressful; following Major League Baseball. This campaign is too damn long. PS I think Rasmussen must be playing with his daily tracking poll to keep people interested. |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-05 4:48:16 PM |
| #7 You say potato... |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-05-05 4:07:45 PM |
| #6 Jen - I voted for Ford in 1976 over Jimmy Crackpeanuts. But, He did have some unfortunate pratfalls. His helicopter had a notch put in the top of a doorway because he didn't duck enough and bumped his head a couple of times. And yes, Quayle unfairly got the bad end of jokes for mispelling potato. Oddly enough, potatoe is the alternate spelling. At the time I thought it was odd there was so much of a fuss. |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-05 3:47:24 PM |
| #5 The NY Times, of course, doesn't include the band-aid part in its "coverage" of the story. |
| Posted by: growler 2004-05-05 3:26:24 PM |
| #4 Gerald Ford wasn't a klutz--in fact, he was a star football player in college. Portraying him as a bumbling fool (which made SNL the show it is today and began their career of sucking the gravitas out of the office of the Presidency) was the way the Left got Americans to dismiss Ford as a capable chief executive. The Left used the same trick with Dan Quayle--Is he smart guy, with lots of experience and know-how such that he would've been a good VP? Sadly, we'll never know. But we do know he can't spell "tomato," ergo he's an "idiot." In Kerry's case, his klutziness is a "bonus." There's plenty about him to make him unfit to be President. |
| Posted by: Jen 2004-05-05 1:31:21 PM |
| #3 February 2004 - Kerry falls off snowboard. May 2004 - Kerry falls off bicycle. If he falls a third time, can he opt out of the campaign? |
| Posted by: Steve White 2004-05-05 1:24:18 PM |
| #2 On one hand,Kerry wouldn't be the first newcomer to combat to fire at something during the night that wasn't there.And filled w/tales of all the weird diseases in the river to want medical attention for a minor injury to make sure it didn't get infected.And if Kerry received Purple Heart for an insignificant injury,well Kerry didn't invent the system,he simply used it. OTOH,to say I got a splinter that was pulled out by tweezers is why I would make a better President,c'mon. |
| Posted by: Stephen 2004-05-05 12:50:26 PM |
| #1 1) December 1968 - 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. 2) February 2004 - Kerry calls Secret Service agent and "SOB" after falling off of a snowboard. 3) May 2004 - Kerry falls off bicycle. Lemee see - Hit by schrapnel from riccochet of gun he fired, falls of snowboard, and falls off bike. A bigger klutz then Gerald Ford! |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-05 10:44:21 AM |