Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[mlsoft]

"His 3 Purple Heart citations are listed. What more do you want? BTW does Cheney have a link at his website to his deferments? lol."
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bnb...

Yes, his three Purple Hearts are listed, but what does that mean when at least one (the first) by his own admission was the result of his own grenade launcher and happened with no enemy fire. His own journal 9 days later says that he had yet to experience hostile fire. The third was from not getting out of the way quick enough when setting off a grenade in a pile of rice -- again, no enemy fire and a self inflicted wound. The other Purple Heart was the only one that had anything to do with hostile fire, and was described as a "contusion", a bruise.

Yet even though he knew for certain that only one of his Purple Hearts was even remotely legitimate, he quickly submitted to be taken out of Vietnam after only 4 months (one of which was for training, and far short of a normal tour of duty there) using as his grounds the "three Purple Heart rule" -- remember that two of the three were bogus. Yep, that speaks volumes about his "character".

Kerry has attacked Cheney again and again over the past week for seeking deferments from the draft (and also has frequently criticized Bush for entering the reserves) instead of volunteering for duty as Kerry had done. The problem is that Kerry himself applied for a deferment so he could go study in France. When his deferment was denied, and he was draft status 1A, he applied to join the Naval reserves and enter OCS. When that did not work out, he then joined the Navy, which was then considered (rightly so) the safest branch of the service to be in. I fail to understand the moral difference between Bush, who served as a pilot in the Texas ANG, or Cheney, who was granted deferments, and Kerry, who tried both, but was denied (btw, Dean also was granted a deferment for the war). To his credit (as opposed to Clinton, for example, who spent the war in Britain and Russia) he did report and serve. His post-service record was deplorable, and erased any kudos that his service might have earned him in the minds of many who experienced the war.

mlsoft