Are you expecting Senator John Kerry to release unaltered copies of his service and medical records? Santa entering your house via your chimney has a better chance of happening.
Big money Boone Pickens has given Senator Kerry yet another opportunity to clear the fog concerning the discrepancies surrounding the senator’s service in Vietnam by offering a $1 million gift if he can do it. Kerry says he’s willing and able. So far so good but now Mr. Pickens is requiring, among other things, that Senator Kerry release unaltered copies of his service and military records. Trust me, that won’t happen.
Why? If those records somehow exonerated Senator Kerry, he would have released them during the presidential campaign of 2004 when the Swift Boat Veterans first start attacking him with ads. The Swift Boaters believed then, and still think now, that the records will prove their contention that Senator Kerry lied about what he experienced in Vietnam and will confirm that he should never have received some of the medals awarded to him.
I believe that if John Kerry had just gotten the medals, whether rightly or wrongly, and then returned to the United States and lived quietly ever after he wouldn’t have riled up the folks he served with in Vietnam. However, to come back and talk about atrocities that he had apparently witnessed and go on to insist that his superiors knew what was going on and did nothing, really stirred up some that he had served with. To many he was, and still is, just as evil as Jane Fonda is when it comes to the Vietnam War aftermath.
When John Kerry decided to run for President a golden opportunity for revenge presented itself to the Swift Boaters. Through organization and significant financing, Senator Kerry’s military career began to come under attack through a series of advertisements.
The Swift Boaters produced evidence, and eyewitnesses agreed that two of Senator Kerry’s three Purple Hearts shouldn’t have been given to him. They also raised serious doubts about the Bronze Star he was awarded.
If you look at the information that the Swift Boaters offer about those two questionable Purple Hearts you have to wonder if the senator wasn’t trying out for the part of Ensign Chuck Parker in McHale’s Navy.
In one episode, that ends with a Purple Heart, the senator fires a grenade launcher and ends up with shrapnel in his own arm. Later a doctor pulls out the shrapnel with tweezers and puts on a band-aid.
In another Purple Heart episode, the senator tosses a grenade onto a pile of rice. The resulting explosion sends out shrapnel, which makes unpleasant acquaintances with his left buttocks and right arm. Now injured he earns a Bronze Star by taking part in a rescue after first abandoning others who had been thrown overboard from a nearby swift boat.
If people were tossing around this sort of information about your military career, wouldn’t you want to prove that they’re wrong as quickly as possible? Not our senator. He writes his own version and has a few eyewitnesses as well.
John Kerry knows what is in his military and service records. He has disparaged the eyewitness accounts against him and can thus expect the Swift Boaters to treat his eyewitness accounts the same way.
What must he do to clear this whole thing up? It seems obvious to me.
Will he do it? Not if it contains damaging (embarrassing) information.
What will most likely happen? He’ll offer “proof” that can’t be substantiated and insist that he’s proven his point.
(Appeared in Newburyport Daily News on December 6, 2007)
McClelland Miscellanea 