Their advice may have been: Just lie about it. It worked for Clinton, and maybe even Teddy.

Three Purple Hearts, all for minor wounds. (Though any wound, even minor ones, qualify for purple hearts, writing yourself up for at least one of them does make it questionable...)

One Silver Star, for pulling off a John Wayne (of which his C.O. said he didn't know whether to put JFK2 in for a Silver Star or a court-martial).

One Bronze Star, for an undisputed act of personal courage (rescuing the crew of another stricken swift boat under enemy fire).

Another Candidate Who Inspired a Movie

John Kerry commanded the first nuclear powered swift boat - it was also the only one, because John Forbes Kerry(JFK) was the only human who could handle the task(of course.) The claim about entry into off limits Cambodia is a diversion - - JFK was actually sent on a SECRET mission. This secret mission in mid-January, 1969 led to the film "Predator." So the movie character named "Dutch Schaefer"[actor Arnold Schwarzenegger] was used in place of the actual John Kerry. And Central America was a diversion from the actual Southeast Asia.

That nuclear explosion at the end of the movie was false: there were actually two detonations. Kerry had to backpack a 175-lb containment vessel containing his walnut-sized nuclear reactor core(perhaps everyone recalls that the nuclear reactor core in today's standard attack submarine is the size of a baseball.) Hero Kerry(please pardon the redundant use of those two words) had to sequence his detonation perfectly(of course) because the predator's power unit core would have otherwise obliterated - - and therefore sterilized - - the surface of planet earth. So John Kerry is the ULTIMATE environmentalist, saving not just the species homo sapiens sapiens, but gazillons of other species as well. (cue the music)

Those right wingers who bust a gut about JFK's "frequent" mentioning of Vietnam, are trying to goad him - TAUNT him -- into violating secrecy. If Kerry ever mentions that he SAVED ALL mankind, the planned right wing response is to harp "whoa, there he goes again" ... "he's showing that save-the-spotted-owl nutjob attitude!" They have no shame.

Prediction: Ahhnold will hide under his desk in Scaramento and never acknowledge the "real" Dutch Schaefer.

The right-wingers make millions from his death-defying secret mission, then prevent showing THE TRUTH about Kerry's slightly less risky activities. How can anybody sleep at night knowing what's being done to John and Teresa? boo hoo (cue the music)

Some astute readers might question John Forbes Kerry's use of a REACTOR core instead of an atomic bomb core. After all, a reactor core simply CANNOT detonate: it can overheat and melt, and can generate a neutron pulse - - but not detonate.

The military in 1969 thought that they could only provide JFK with three hours preparation before sending him in. After two hours, JFK showed them the pitfalls in using a standard kiloton or megaton weapon.

At Yale, John Forbes Kerry had access to three secret chambers within the Directoire Skull & Bones complex, known only to the top-one-percent of S&B members (naturally Dubya plus his dad and grandfather would have absolutely not imagined that such things existed there.) So JFK was well versed in nuclear science; so well that he could teach his "instructors" in a half hour how his walnut could deal with an intergalactic force, which surely was at least a century more advanced than us(from a strictly technological standpoint) and which therefore could negate our use of first generation nuclear weapons.

So a hollow plutonium sphere spiked with lithium deuteride was removed, and the walnut sized JFK-modified( !! ) reactor core went instead. Consequently we are not dead or unborn ©. When the scientists and military brass realized that JFK was an even MORE astounding, seemingly superman-quality young man, they wanted to not risk such a stupendous asset. The backup, Oliver North, never knew he was slated to be called up(how's that for abominable, perhaps death-wish judgement by the DoD!) But Kerry's words .... "send me" ..... were too compelling, too true, and today we know ... JFK was our planet's only hope of survival.

Actually, the predator was not a disgusting bipedal quasi-cephalopod chimera ; it exhibited extreme fetching beauty, understandable for such an advanced deceitful cerebral predator. But JFK asked it the crucial question: "What are your present and future assets worth?" - - and its unsuitable answer led to our NOT being dead or unborn ©.

Note how the selection of actors was meant to oh-so-effectively throw us off.

A few years later, JFK realized that the predator did not have to die. If JFK had raised both arms and smelled his armpits, the predator would have been so grossed out it would have departed our solar system. So PEACE was at hand, if only the incessant brainwashing of the right had not distracted JFK from seeing this certainty of peace.

JFK is the only candidate with such first-hand dealing with an alien. He realizes that the multilateralism of the UN will be a brief stepping stone to our membership in the multilateral intergalactic community. (cue the music) Then the clouds will clear, angels will blow lovely notes from on high, the honey will flow, and earthlings will be in friendly union as never before("an enemy of my enemy is a friend".)

"Dead or unborn" is a copyrighted phrase of Planned Parenthood.

I know a guy who says one of his co-workers in Vietnam was awarded a Purple Heart for gashing himself on a nail in the doorway of their bomb shelter, as they dove for cover from a mortar attack.

A nail gash would have at least required some stitches, unlike Kerry's grain-of-rice scratch, which barely required a Band-Aid. And the gash was a result of enemy action, unlike Kerry shooting grenades at the river bank with no enemy action. The nail gash sounds legit to me, albeit lesser in severity than losing a limb.

I had a buddy earn a PH forr breaking his collar bone after the guard tower he was in was hit by an RPG and it fell over, "F Troop" style. It doesn't sound like much, but he was out of commission for a month.