Medals Medals Medals!!!

I really wish I didn't have to post anything with regards to this issue because it's absolute hogwash, but in an effort to clarify some of the media attention surrounding these allegations I present the following,

"Bush supporters have tried to turn Kerry's service in Vietnam -- a centerpiece of his Democratic campaign -- against him even as they say they honor his service to his country. Kerry released his medical records when questioned about the extent of his war wounds, including a report showing he still carries shrapnel in one leg. That criticism silenced for the moment, Bush adviser Karen Hughes turned to what Kerry did after returning from Vietnam. Hughes said Sunday she was offended by Kerry's anti-war activities in 1971 and accused him of not throwing back his medals when he and other veterans protested in Washington.

"He only pretended to throw his," Hughes said in a CNN interview. "Now, I can understand if, out of conscience, you take a principled stand, and you would decide that you were so opposed to this that you would actually throw your medals. But to pretend to do so -- I think that's very revealing."

Kerry has never said he pretended to throw away his medals. For years, he has said that he threw his ribbons over a fence at the Capitol, not his three Purple Hearts, Bronze Star and Silver Star. He also has said that after the protest he threw the medals of two other veterans [...]

Kerry told ABC on Monday that the terms ribbons and medals were interchangeable. He accused Republicans of trying to discredit his presidential campaign with a "phony controversy."

"The U.S. Navy pamphlet calls them medals," he said. "We referred to them as the symbols, they were representing medals, ribbons. Countless veterans threw the ribbons back.""


The facts: Senator John Kerry has said for years that he threw away his ribbons, not his three Purple Hearts, Bronze Star and Silver Star medals during the April 1971 protest. This is nothing new. In a television interview shortly after the protest Senator Kerry stated that he threw medals over the fence. He was refering to the aformentioned ribbons which at the time we widley reffered to as medals. In an effort to be more precise he has since reffered to them as ribbons.

These very same ribbons are reffered to in Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine pamphlets as medals.

Don't believe me, look here.

HOW IS THIS EVEN NEWS WORTHY, THERE IS NO CONTROVERSEY!!!!! THE ARMY, NAVY, AIR FORCE, AND MARINES all refer to these ribbons as medals!!!!

As to the claim that he pretended to throw his medals, but really only threw his ribbons, why don't we get a first hand account of what really transpired, Thomas Oliphant a reporter for the Globe, was right next to Senator Kerry at the actual protest. Here's what he has to say,

"ON THE WAY to the fence where he threw some of his military decorations 33 years ago, I was 4 or 5 feet behind John Kerry.
As he neared the spot from which members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War were parting with a few of the trappings of their difficult past to help them face their future more squarely, I watched Kerry reach with his right hand into the breast pocket of his fatigue shirt. The hand emerged with several of the ribbons that most of the vets had been wearing that unique week of protest, much as they are worn on a uniform blouse.

There couldn't have been all that many decorations in his hand -- six or seven -- because he made a closed fist around his collection with ease as he waited his turn. I recall him getting stopped by one or two wounded vets in wheelchairs, clearly worried that they wouldn't be able to get their stuff over the looming fence, who gave him a few more decorations. Kerry says he doesn't remember this.

It is true that Kerry was one of the veterans group's "leaders," but in this eclectic, aggressively individualistic collection of people who had been through a pointless war, there were no privileges of rank. Kerry was in the middle of a line of perhaps 1,000 guys -- only a third or even less of the total who had assembled on the Washington Mall that astonishing week.

At the spot where the men were symbolically letting go of their participation in the war, the authorities had erected a wood and wire fence that prevented them from getting close to the front of the US Capitol, and Kerry paused for several seconds. We had been talking for days -- about the war, politics, the veterans' demonstration -- but I could tell Kerry was upset to the point of anguish, and I decided to leave him be; his head was down as he approached the fence quietly.

In a voice I doubt I would have heard had I not been so close to him, Kerry said, as I recall vividly, "There is no violent reason for this; I'm doing this for peace and justice and to try to help this country wake up once and for all."

With that, he didn't really throw his handful toward the statue of John Marshall, America's first chief justice. Nor did he drop the decorations. He sort of lobbed them, and then walked off the stage [...]

From what I could observe firsthand about Friday, April 23, 1971, Kerry did not make even the slightest effort to pretend that he was throwing all of his military decorations over that fence. He did what he did in plain view, and in my case in the view of someone close enough to kick him in the shins."