"Jim" wrote in message news:OZxhc.2126

http://www.johnkerry.com/about/military_records.html

You know, the silly thing about all this records flap is that some of the
records are meaningless if you don't know how to interpret them.

Take the Fitness Reports, for example. In one article I read, the reporter
was absolutely atwitter over the fact that one or two of Kerry's superior
officers commented on his exemplary use of the English language, how
generally well spoken he was, and his overall bearing and demeanor. Here's
a guy who was raised in a home where English was properly spoken, and then
spent most of his life at a Swiss boarding school, St. Paul's, and Yale. In
the early sixties, he was for a while dating Jackie Kennedy's half sister,
and was a regular, with the Kennedys, at the Bouvier "cottage" in Newport.
And now you have a couple of naval officers in 1965-1966 who had spent the
fifties and half the sixties dealing with sailors, and they're fairly
impressed by a guy who can speak English properly, sounds like a Boston
Kennedy, and behaves like a gentleman. Maybe it is normal that the Navy
might be impressed, but the reporter should have known better -- the
reporter, at least, is supposed to be a professional wordsmith.

The other thing about FitReps that bears understanding is the fact that they
were not necessarily objective. In the military of the fifties and sixties,
and into the seventies, any evaluative mark less than "outstanding" was a
potential career breaker. A rating of Excellent to Outstanding could have
meant that you were Excellent to Outstanding, or it could have meant that,
while not particularly valuable, you were a nice guy to have around, and
were not a danger to anyone.

The Silver and Bronze Stars are there, and they speak for themselves. I
don't think any serious commentator belittles what Kerry did, or had to do,
to be awarded one of these.

I think it is the Purple Hearts that make people uneasy -- not the awards,
but the process. I don't think there's any question that the textbook
criteria for these were met, but I think most people have figured out that
Kerry was a very smart guy who read the rulebook, and then worked the rules
to his advantage. The circumstances make it *appear* that Kerry took one or
two band-aid Purple Hearts to puff his record for the purpose of
reassignment, while there were thousands upon thousands of guys there who
never bothered with (or had the chance for) official medical care for minor
stuff. (One Boston Globe columnist referred to the brouhaha tongue-in-cheek
as "Bacitracin-gate." I like that.) Although technically authorized, if
the suspicions are true it smacks of what the Brits used to call "bad form",
a notion, btw, with which Mr. Kerry ought to have been thoroughly familiar,
having spent his most formative years in the Prep School/Ivy league world of
the fifties and early sixties. His application for reassignment based upon
the so-called "thrice-wounded" standard was submitted just four days after
the engagement for which he was awarded the third PH. In fact, though the
copy dates are somewhat unclear, it appears that the re-assignment app may
have been submitted before the third PH was actually awarded.

The facts of his Silver and Bronze Stars speak to his valor under fire, and
these facts are incontrovertible.

The facts of his Purple Heart submittals speak to his character, and these
facts seem to be shady and unclear.

This, I think, is what bothers people.