User:JamesMLane/John Kerry Silver Star

Note: This is a proposal for sections of the main article concerning Kerry's Silver Star and related issues. With reference to the section numbers in the version protected by Mirv (02:16, 13 Aug 2004), this proposal would:

1. replace the main section on the Silver Star with the new text below;
2. replace the top-level (two equal signs) heading "Criticism of military service and awards" with a new heading "Controversies over military service and awards" and return that heading to being a subheading (three equal signs) under "Military Service";
3. under the "Controversies" subheading, leave the first subsubsection, on "First Purple Heart", as it is now, but replace the next two subsubsectons with new text below.

Ignore the Table of Contents on this version. I've set the headings up so that they'll look right if plugged into the John Kerry article, even though it makes the ToC look wrong here.

New text to replace "Silver Star", protected as 2.2.4:

Silver Star

Eight days later, on February 28, the incident for which Kerry was awarded the Silver Star occurred. On this occasion, Kerry was in tactical command of his Swift boat and two others. Their mission included bringing a demolition team and dozens of South Vietnamese soldiers to destroy enemy sampans, structures and bunkers. Along the Bay Hap River, they ran into an ambush. Kerry directed the boats “to turn to the beach and charge the Viet Cong positions,” and he “expertly directed” his boat’s fire and coordinated the deployment of the South Vietnamese troops, according to the Navy’s medal citation to Kerry. When Kerry heard that another Swift boat had been ambushed, he and his crew rushed to assist them. Kerry’s boat came under fire from several Viet Cong B-40 rockets, with one hitting and shattering the crew cabin windows. The normal procedure would have been to fire to shore and then retreat to an off-shore location. Instead, Kerry ordered the navigator to take the boat ashore, directly towards the enemy's position. A Viet Cong soldier with a rocket launcher appeared and, though wounded by the Swift boat’s machine gun, was still alive and holding a weapon that could have seriously damaged or destroyed the boat. The boat’s machine gun had jammed. Kerry leaped ashore and, followed by one of his crew members, pursued the man and killed him. The medal citation notes that Kerry “then led an assault party and conducted a sweep of the area” until the enemy had “been completely routed”. As the Swift boats returned from the mission they again came under fire, but Kerry “maneuvered his craft through several strafing runs which completely silenced the enemy.”

The mission was judged highly successful for having destroyed numerous targets and confiscated substantial combat supplies while sustaining no casualties. Kerry's commanding officer, Capt. George Elliott, joked that he didn't know whether to court-martial him for beaching the boat without orders or give him a medal for saving the crew. He chose to recommend that Kerry be decorated. Admiral Zumwalt flew in to personally award the Silver Star to Kerry.

In one of his very few public comments about the incident, Kerry said, "It is a matter of record, what I did in Vietnam. And over the months that I was in combat, yes, we know that we were responsible for the loss of enemy lives. But that's war."

Sources close to Kerry say the incident had a profound effect on him: "It's the reason he gets so angry when his patriotism is challenged. It was a traumatic experience that's still with him, and he went through it for his country." It affects the way Kerry lives his life every day, the source said, since "he knows he very well would not be alive today had he not taken the life of another man [he] never ever met." [1]

New text to replace current "Criticism of military service and awards" section, which would become a subsection:

Controversies over military service and awards

First Purple Heart

(unchanged from language in protected version)

Silver Star

The details surrounding Kerry's Silver Star have become controversial in the course of the Presidential election. In 1996, when Kerry was criticized about it during his Senate campaign, Elliott, the commander who had recommended the award, came to his defense. As recently as June 2003, Elliott was quoted as saying the award was "well deserved" and that he had "no regrets or second thoughts at all about that." [2]

In July 2004, however, Elliott signed an affidavit that stated in part, "When Kerry came back to the United States, he lied about what occurred in Vietnam..." Thereafter, the Boston Globe quoted Elliott as having said, "It was a terrible mistake probably for me to sign the affidavit with those words. I'm the one in trouble here ... I knew it was wrong ..In a hurry I signed it and faxed it back. That was a mistake." [3]. In August 2004, however, Elliott contended that the newspaper had substantially misquoted him. He signed a new affidavit that stated, "Had I known the facts, I would not have recommended Kerry for the Silver Star for simply pursuing and dispatching a single wounded, fleeing Viet Cong" [4]. Yet to be clarified is whether Elliott would still recommend the award in consideration of the other factors recounted in the citation. Elliot also avers in the second affidavit that he has no personal knowledge of the circumstances of the shooting, but rather relied on passages from Kerry's biography for his initial statement that Kerry had been dishonest.

On the specific issue of the death of the lone Viet Cong soldier with a rocket launcher, Kerry’s crew members who were there that day do not agree with Elliott’s characterization of the event. They contend that the enemy soldier, although wounded, was still a threat. Fred Short said that the Viet Cong had only been “winged” by the boat’s .50 caliber M-60 machine gun. "But the guy didn't miss stride. I mean, he did not break stride." The Viet Cong had passed up a chance for an initial shot at the boat, possibly fearing that he was too close and would be injured himself. As the Swift boat reached the shore, he was running away, but still had a loaded rocket launcher and could have turned and fired. "If this guy would have got up, and he had a clear shot at us, we would have been history," crewmember Gene Thorson said. "Wouldn't have been no doubt about it." Short said, "The guy was getting ready to stand up with a rocket on his shoulder, coming up. And Mr. Kerry took him out …… he would have been about a 30-yard shot. ... [T]here's no way he could miss us." Del Sandusky, Kerry’s second in command, described the consequences to the lightly armored Swift boat: "Charlie would have lit us up like a Roman candle because we're full of fuel, we're full of ammunition." It is the crew members’ opinion that Kerry had to kill the Viet Cong soldier to save his boat and crew.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

Also criticizing Kerry are over 200 other Vietnam Era veterans. As the presidential campaign of 2004 developed, they formed the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT). They have questioned Kerry's service record and his medals. Several SBVT members were in the same unit with Kerry, but of Kerry's direct former crewmates, all of them except one [5] support his presidential bid.