I'm curious why Kerry can still have his "war" medals if he tossed them

[sleipnir]

over onto the White House lawn in protest. How can he still wear them in public? I've tried to find answers on if you can "replace" your war medals, but to no avail. I'd really like an honest answer, as this question has been troubling me for some time.

[Rowdyboy]

1. He tossed those of a fellow veteran who was unable to attend

the protest. He kept his own (they're framed on his office wall). He did throw his combat ribbons, though.

[sleipnir]

23. Thanks for the replys,

I understand now, thanks for clearing this up. It's ashame the post degraded towards the bottom, I was hoping to get a few more confirmations on the story, but it seems to be the truth. Thanks

[Virginian]

2. There are stores that sell the ribbons and medals.

They can get faded and frayed after time, so there are places where you can replace them. Besides, different formats of the ribbons are displayed on different types of uniforms, as in Dress Blues, a White Mess Jacket. You just aren't supposed to wear them if you haven't earned them.

I don't know the circumstances of Kerry's tossing his medals. Maybe he tossed the originals that were awarded to him, maybe he just symbolically tossed copies and kept the originals. That detail might be something to ask him.

[ConsAreLiars]

4. See post #1

He tossed the medals of friends who asked him to do this for them. He kept his own. My guess is that for him they memorialized the circumstances of the war, and served as a reminders of that tragedy.

[hlthe2b]

21. Yes, as long as you earned them, you can replace them...

Any branch of the uniformed services (e.g., including the Public Health Service) can do so through specialized military shops.

[Nicholas_J]

3. Nope

Nor has Kerry ever stated he threw his medals. He statted that he thre his combat award ribbon. He has repeatedly from the start stated that he didnt throw his own medals.

The event was totally unplanned, and decided on the day that it occurred, and Kerry as the leader of the VVAW, give the the task of throwing them over when several veterans decided on the spur of the moment (being tall enough to reach over the White House Fences didnt hurt either). That is one thing I can verify by personal experinece as was there at the time.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Kerry had to come clean when he was caught in the lie

John Kerry: The Chameleon Senator
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
October-December 1996 Issue

Kerry became even more of a press celebrity during a highly publicized "anti-war" protest when he threw medals the press reported were his over a barricade and onto the steps of the Capitol. Kerry never mentioned that the medals he so gloriously tossed were not his own. The 1988 issue of Current Biography Yearbook explained: " . . . the ones he had discarded were not his own but had belonged to another veteran who asked him to make the gesture for him. When a 'Washington Post' reporter asked Kerry about the incident, he said: 'They're my medals. I'll do what I want with them. And there shouldn't be any expectations about them.'" Kerry's medals have reappeared, today hanging in his Senate office, now that it is "politically correct" for a U.S. Senator to be portrayed as a Vietnam War hero. Alas, so much for integrity.

Recently, Kerry became extremely defensive when David Warsh, an economics columnist for The Boston Globe, questioned the circumstances for which Kerry was awarded the Silver Star. Kerry, who was in a close re-election battle with Gov. William F. Weld, a Republican, quickly gathered his former crew from his Swift boat days to rebuff the "assault on his integrity."

According to the official citation accompanying the Silver Star for Kerry's actions on the waters of the Mekong Delta on February 28, 1969: "Kerry's craft received a B-40 rocket close aboard. Once again Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry ordered his units to charge the enemy positions. . . Patrol Craft Fast 94 then beached in the center of the enemy positions and an enemy soldier sprang up from his position not ten feet from Patrol Craft 94 and fled. Without hesitation Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry leaped ashore, pursued the man behind a hootch and killed him, capturing a B-40 rocket launcher with a round in the chamber." In an article printed in the October 21st and 28th 1996 edition of The New Yorker, Kerry was asked about the man he had killed.

"It was either going to be him or it was going to be us. It was that simple. I don't know why it wasn't us--I mean, to this day. He had a rocket pointed right at our boat. He stood up out of the hole, and none of us saw him until he was standing in front of us, aiming a rocket right at us, and, for whatever reason, he didn't pull the trigger--he turned and ran. He was shocked to see our boat right in front of him. If he'd pulled the trigger, we'd all be dead . . . I just won't talk about all of it. I don't and I can't. The things that probably really turn me I've never told anybody. Nobody would understand," Kerry said. In the column, Warsh quoted the Swift boat's former gunner, Tom Belodeau, as saying the Viet Cong soldier who Kerry chased "behind a hootch" and "finished off" actually had already been wounded by the gunner.

http://www.usvetdsp.com/story10.htm

Mr. Both Ways
Mona Charen (archive)
September 5, 2003

Kerry is lapsing into incoherence on the Iraq War because Howard Dean, the unambiguous antiwar candidate, has been surging in early polls and fund raising. But Kerry has a long record of attempting to have things both ways.

Kerry's website notes that he served as "co-founder" of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. One of the other key figures was Al Hubbard, who spelled America with a "k." Kerry participated in one of VVAW's most famous protests, Dewey Canyon III, "a limited incursion into the country of Congress." Members of VVAW marched on Washington wearing tattered fatigues. They circled the Capitol and attempted to gain entry to Arlington National Cemetery. By nightfall, they had settled in front of the White House. While one of their number played taps, veterans -- including Kerry -- stood up one by one to throw the medals they had earned in Vietnam over the White House fence.

Years later, Kerry's medals turned up, framed, on his office wall in Washington, D.C. A reporter asked him if these were the same medals he had so theatrically thrown over the White House fence. Kerry was forced to acknowledge that he had thrown some other sailor's medals and kept his own. Mr. Both Ways. Some days he said America needed to feel ashamed of what it had done in Vietnam. On other days, when other winds were blowing, he claimed to be proud of his service.

How does that make sense? If America did something fundamentally "wrong" in Vietnam, as Kerry again insisted in his announcement speech, can any serviceman look back with pride on his participation? Kerry doesn't appear to have worked this out morally as, say, a Japanese soldier might need to do after World War II. The Japanese could reason: "I did my duty. That's the best I can say of my participation in an aggressive war." But Kerry's Vietnam War changes as his current political needs change. His moral reasoning is as shallow as yesterday's poll.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20030905.shtml

[oasis]

6. Mona Charen is a right wing hack.

[JohnKleeb]

7. Wrote a book called Useful Idiots about Liberals

Saw the book when I worked at the airport this summer.

[IndianaGreen]

8. And Kerry lied about his medals

and he shot a wounded VC in the back of the head in order to get a rocket launcher as a souvenir (and got a medal for valor for it).

[oasis]

10. I wasn't there. Is that Kerry's version of what happened? Since when

did disarming the enemy merit such contempt by those not having first hand knowledge?

[IndianaGreen]

13. Shooting a wounded enemy soldier for a souvenir

is not the sort of stuff I would be giving medals for.

[oasis]

14. And what is your "reliable" source for that story?

[IndianaGreen]

16. Post #5

more reliable than Kerry's campaign!

[oasis]

17. I prefer Kerry's account of events. I missed any mention of a souvenir

but I'll re-read the story the next time you post it.

ciao :hi:

[IndianaGreen]

19. "Kerry returned with the B-40 rocket and launcher"

The boat's machine gunner hit and wounded the fleeing Viet Cong as he darted behind a hootch. The twin .50s gunner also fired at the Viet Cong. He said he "laid 50 rounds" into the hootch before Kerry leaped from the boat and dashed in to administer a "coup de grace" to the wounded Viet Cong. Kerry returned with the B-40 rocket and launcher.

http://www.usvetdsp.com/jf_kerry.htm

[Michael Harrington]

15. Mona is a Right Wing hack with a bad haircut.

Just to add a little salt...

[IndianaGreen]

9. The Worst of John Kerry

Nominate Kerry, and you are going to spend all your time defending Kerry's record and nuances rather than stay on message. Kerry is unelectable!

The Worst of John Kerry
A troubling tale from his past. Is it true?
By William Saletan and Ben Jacobs
Posted Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2003, at 8:27 AM PT

Charge: "Kerry, who understood well the importance that the media placed on imagery, put an exclamation mark on by lining up with veterans to return their medals to the military on April 23. Kerry said he suggested that veterans place their medals and ribbons on a table and return them. But he said other members of the antiwar veterans group wanted to throw the medals and ribbons over a fence in front of the Capitol, and Kerry went along with the idea. … Some press reports say that Kerry 'threw his medals.' But Kerry has long maintained he threw his own ribbons but someone else's medals. In an interview, he said that he had previously met two veterans … who had asked Kerry to return their medals to the military. Kerry said he stuffed them into his jacket. He said that when he prepared to throw his ribbons over the fence, he reached into his jacket and pulled out the medals from those two veterans. He said his own medals remained in safekeeping" (Boston Globe, June 17, 2003).

<snip>

Defense:

In 1984, the Post reported that Kerry said "he had disagreed with the decision to throw away medals but agreed to toss those of another veteran at the man's request." In 1985, Kerry told the Post, "It's such a personal thing. They're my medals. I'll do what I want with them. … People say, 'You didn't throw your medals away.' Who said I had to? And why should I? It's my business. I did not want to throw my medals away."

In sum, Kerry seems innocent of duplicity but guilty of an extremely nuanced moral code, according to which it's OK to throw away your ribbons and somebody else's medals, but not your medals. As to the broader question of Vietnam, there's no dispute that Kerry fought honorably in the war and spoke out clearly against it upon his return.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2087554/

[Old and In the Way]

11. Priceless

"Nominate Kerry, and you are going to spend all your time defending Kerry's record and nuances rather than stay on message. Kerry is unelectable!"

There won't be a peep by the Chickenhawk flock on this issue. Now Howard Dean, big problem. A famous VietNam era Air Force Pilot against a draft evader who skipped out to ski? Big Problem.

I'll take my chances with a real American hero...thanks.

[IndianaGreen]

12. Wes Clark is the hero we need!

And there are no nuances about him!

[frustrated_lefty]

18. It seems like

you're looking for a reason to criticize Kerry. That might be more productively be pointed at Bush. Kerry, Dean, Edwards, Clark, they're NOT the bad guy.

[CWebster]

20. He allowed the illusion that they were his medals

Until someone saw them hanging on his wall.

In the same way he let the misperception stand that he was Irish to attract the big Boston Irish vote.

[JPJones]

22. This will play well

in the Midwest and South.

You can tell that medal-tossing, flag-inverting, ketchup-selling, billionaire-marrying, Irish-pretending Yankee to go back to where he came from.