Thursday, August 26, 2004
ELECTION 2004
Questions
swirl around Kerry's Silver Star
Researchers
say 'unheard of' multiple citations 'sanitize' record
Posted: August 26, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
� 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Raising questions about John Kerry's Silver Star medal won in Vietnam,
two researchers say its accompanying citation was reissued twice, an
"unheard of" occurrence serving to expunge from the record the shooting of
an enemy solider in the back and upgrade the signer from an admiral to the
secretary of the Navy.
To reissue a citation, regulations would have required Kerry to prove
there was an error in the previous citation or that the existence of the
citation somehow constituted an "injustice," say Henry Mark Holzer and
Erika Holzer, writing in Front
Page magazine.
Henry Mark Holzer, professor emeritus at Brooklyn Law School, and Erika
Holzer, a lawyer and novelist, are co-authors of "Fake Warriors:
Identifying, Exposing and Punishing Those Who Falsify Their Military
Service." They plan a second edition of their book with a new preface
entitled "John Kerry: The Ultimate Fake Warrior."
The authors, who want Kerry to release all documents related to the
citations, have noted another peculiarity about Kerry's Silver Star -- its
unauthorized "V" for valor which "makes it facially false, they say, and
at variance with official government records." That's because Silver Stars
are given for gallantry and never are accompanied with a combat "V," which
would be redundant. But Kerry's DD 214, or "Report of Transfer and
Separation," displayed on his website, shows the "V."
The researchers are not affiliated with Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth,
the group of 254 men who served with Kerry in Vietnam and now assert he is
unfit to be commander in chief of the United States.
But Jerome Corsi, co-author of the swiftboat vets' book, "Unfit
for Command," told WorldNetDaily the group has a lot of respect for
their work.
"They've done some groundbreaking research ... examining the
documentary evidence in order to come up with the truth," he said.
Corsi noted the swiftboat vets also have raised questions about
multiple versions of Kerry's citations.
"Some subsequent citations appear to be embellished by personnel not
there at the time, raising questions about which one is accurate and who
asked for them to be revised and reissued," he said.
In "Unfit for Command," Corsi and co-author John O'Neill, a former
swiftboat skipper, write Kerry was
awarded his Silver Star "by killing a lone, fleeing, teenage Viet Cong in
a loincloth."
The Silver Star, they write, "would never have been awarded had his
actions been reviewed through normal channels. In his case, he was awarded
the medal two days after the incident with no review. The medal was
arranged to boost the morale of Coastal Division 11, but it was based on
false and incomplete information provided by Kerry himself."
The swiftboat vets also assert two of Kerry's three Purple Hearts were
a result of accidental, self-inflicted wounds.
Kerry's most recent Silver Star citation, nearly two decades older than
the first, was signed by then-Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, who did
not hold that position when Kerry was in Vietnam.
None of the three citations refer to the combat "V" that appears on the
DD 214 on Kerry's website.
The first citation, signed by Vice Adm. E.R. Zumwalt Jr., commander of
U.S. Naval Forces in Vietnam, is significantly different from the latter
two in this section:
" ... Patrol Craft Fast 23 and 94 moved upstream to
investigate an area from which gunshots were coming. Arriving at the
area, Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY's craft received a B-40 rocket
close aboard. Once again Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY ordered his
units to charge the enemy positions and summoned Patrol Craft Fast 43 to
the area to provide additional firepower. 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 Fast 94 and fled.
Without hesitation Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY leaped ashore,
pursued the man behind a hootch and killed him, capturing a B-40 rocket
launcher with a round in the chamber. Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY
then led an assault party and conducted a sweep of the area while the
Patrol Craft Fast continued to provide fire support. After the enemy had
been completely routed, all personnel returned to the Patrol Craft Fast
to withdraw from the area.�
Citation No. 2, however, signed by Adm. John J. Hyland, commander in
chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, gives this account:
"On a request from U.S. Army advisors on shore, Lieutenant
(junior grade) KERRY ordered PCF�s 94 and 23 further up river to
suppress enemy sniper fire. After proceeding approximately eight hundred
yards, the boats were again taken under fire from a heavily foliated
area and a B-40 rocket exploded close aboard PCF 94. With utter
disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a
charge on the enemy, beached his own boat only ten feet from the VC
rocket position, and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of
the enemy. Upon sweeping the area, an immediate search uncovered an
enemy rest and supply area which was destroyed.�
The second citation was issued sometime between Feb. 29, 1969, and Dec.
5, 1970, when Hyland no longer was commander in chief of the Pacific
Fleet.
Citation No. 3, signed by Lehman, who recently headed the 9-11
commission, reads this way:
"After proceeding approximately eight hundred yards, the
boats were again taken under fire from a heavily foliated area and a
B-40 rocket exploded close aboard PCF 94: with utter disregard for his
own safety and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge on the
enemy, beached his boat only ten feet from the VC rocket position, and
personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy. Upon
sweeping the area an immediate search uncovered an enemy rest and supply
area which was destroyed.
To obtain Citation No. 2, the authors say, Kerry would have had to
prove that there was an error in Citation No. 1 and/or that the existence
of that citation somehow constituted an "injustice."
The Holzers state: "While it is not difficult to understand why Kerry
apparently sought and obtained a sanitized second version of his Silver
Star citation, at first glance it is not so easy to surmise why Kerry went
after yet a third citation, this time from Lehman (especially because the
third citation is word-for-word, in every important respect, the same as
the second)."
They speculate that in the 1980s, Kerry, by then a senator, may have
been trying to upgrade his award, issued by a couple of "mere" admirals,
to one issued by the secretary of the Navy.
Whatever the reason, they say, Hyland's Citation 2 and Lehman's
Citation 3 would have had to satisfy the United States Code, which
provides that the "Secretary of a military department may correct any
military record of the Secretary's department when the Secretary considers
it necessary to correct an error or remove an injustice."
The code provides that, "No correction may be made ... unless the
claimant ... files a request for the correction within three years after
he discovers the error or injustice. However, a board ... may excuse a
failure to file within three years after discovery if it finds it to be in
the interest of justice."
"Was the error in Citation 1 that he had shot the enemy soldier in the
back, or that it was somehow an injustice to Kerry for the citation to say
so?" the authors ask.
The problem for Kerry, they say, is that since Citation No. 3 is
virtually identical to the second, there could be no error or injustice.
Another problem is that since the three-year statute of limitations had
passed by the time Lehman was in office, in order for Kerry to obtain the
correction, he would have had to prove that correcting Citation 2 was "in
the interest of justice."
They conclude that changes based on any other reason than "for
correcting misspellings or transpositions of service numbers or erroneous
grades" would call into question the original decision to make the award.
That is why changing or correcting a citation is almost never done,
they say.
The authors want Kerry to provide relevant records surrounding the
issuance of the citations, contending that the questions they raise place
him in a dilemma.
"If he stalls, or obfuscates, or refuses to answer, continuing a
pattern he has employed about some of his more important records, the only
reasonable conclusion is that he has something to hide," they write. "If
he does answer, it is difficult to believe, given what is already known,
that he will answer fully and truthfully.
Related offer:
"Unfit
for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry"
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