The Boston Globe summarizes Kerry's medals mystery.
Take 1:
Q. Did Kerry throw his combat decorations away in an antiwar protest 33 years ago?
A. Yes. As The Boston Globe reported on April 24, 1971, "John Kerry . . . said before he threw his medals over the fence: `I'm not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try to make this country wake up once and for all.' "
Take 2:
Q. Did Kerry throw his decorations away 33 years ago?
A. Yes. In a Nov. 6, 1971, interview with WRC-TV, he recalled that the protesters had decided to "renounce the symbols which this country gives . . . the medals themselves." When the interviewer asked, "How many did you give back, John?" he answered: "I gave back, I can't remember, six, seven, eight, nine." The interviewer noted that Kerry had won the Bronze and Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts. Kerry: "Well, and above that, I gave back my others."
Take 3:
Q. Did Kerry throw his decorations away 33 years ago?
A. No. In 1984, running for the Senate against a World War II Air Force veteran, he claimed he had refused to do so. "After showing a reporter his medals and ribbons on display in his Back Bay apartment," The Boston Globe reported on Oct. 15, 1984, Kerry "said he had disagreed with other protest leaders on throwing away medals." The medals he was seen tossing, Kerry added, were those of a "veteran from Lincoln [Mass.], at his request."
Take 4:
Q. Did Kerry throw his decorations away 33 years ago?
A. Medals, no; ribbons, yes. During his 1996 reelection campaign, he told the Globe that he only threw the ribbons pinned to his uniform. "Asked why he didn't bring his own medals to throw since it was planned weeks in advance," the Globe reported on Oct. 6, 1996, "Kerry said it was because he didn't have time to go home [to New York] and get them." The medals he was seen tossing, he claimed, belonged to two other veterans -- the one from Lincoln and one from New York. "Kerry says he can't remember their names."
The variations don't end there. For example, his explanation that he "didn't have time to go home and get" the medals -- i.e., he would have trashed them if he could have -- is sharply at odds with his earlier "explanation" to the Boston Herald: "They're my medals. I can do goddam what I want with them."
On Monday's TV show, after being shown the tape of his younger self claiming to have thrown "six, seven, eight, nine" medals onto the trash heap, Kerry heatedly insisted that he had pitched only his ribbons, not his medals. Then he insisted even more heatedly that "ribbons, medals were absolutely interchangeable. . . . there was no distinction . . . I think, to this day, there's no distinction between the two."
Well, if ribbons and medals are identical, then by his own admission he did throw away his medals. So why does he angrily maintain that he didn't?
I would add this passage from the last Friday's Los Angeles Times:
Kerry says he never claimed to have thrown the medals as his own. But as his reputation grew as a shrewd political operator after his 1984 senate election, Kerry was dogged by a troubling political myth.
He was accused of discarding his ribbons and the medals of others in 1971 to appear as an antiwar hero, while keeping his own medals for use as political props years later — a charge echoing this election year.
[. . .]
"I never ever implied that I did it," Kerry says wearily, adding: "You know what? Medals and ribbons, there's almost no difference in distinction, fundamentally. They're symbols of the same thing. They are what they are."
I don't care what Kerry did with his decorations back in 1971. I don't think you do either. I am concerned that he does not deal with this "issue" in a straightforward manner. I am also concerned about his reaction to being questioned about his inconsistent statements about the decorations. Instead of addressing the questions he launches a personal, and unsubstantiated, attack against President Bush.
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