Tuesday, August 3, 2004



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ELECTION 2004
Kerry's wounds
self-inflicted?
More blockbuster charges leaked from new book by Vietnam comrades

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Posted: August 3, 2004
11:59 p.m. Eastern




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© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – Two of John Kerry's Purple Hearts were for self-inflicted wounds, charges a new book by two of the presidential candidate's Vietnam comrades.




In "Unfit for Command," scheduled for release Aug. 15, John O'Neill, who took over Kerry's swift-boat command, and his co-author Jerome Corsi say two of Kerry's three Purple Heart decorations resulted from self-inflicted wounds, not suffered under enemy fire, according to the DrudgeReport.

All three of Kerry's Purple Hearts were for minor injuries, not requiring a single hour of hospitalization, as O'Neill has previously explained.

The book reportedly relates how Kerry turned the tragic death of a father and small child in a Vietnamese fishing boat into an act of "heroism" by filing a false report on the incident.


During the Vietnam War, a searing image in the anti-war movement was one of American GIs torching huts with cigarette lighters. It turns out, according to "Unfit for Command," that Kerry did just that – entering an abandoned Vietnamese village, slaughtering domestic animals and burning down their homes with his Zippo lighter.

As O'Neill has reported on Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily Radioactive in several appearances recently, it was Kerry's reckless behavior that convinced his colleagues he had to go – becoming the only Swift Boat veteran to serve just four months.

O'Neill tells of a joke circulated among his colleagues that Kerry "left Vietnam early not because he received three Purple Hearts, but because he had recorded enough film of himself to take home for his planned political campaigns."

The book charges "Kerry would revisit ambush locations for re-enacting combat scenes where he would portray the hero."

Kerry ended up playing some of that film at the Democratic National Convention last week.

O'Neill, an attorney, is spokesman for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a coalition of more than 200 vets familiar with Kerry's service who oppose his candidacy for president based on their judgment of his character. As WorldNetDaily reported, O'Neill's organization stated last month Kerry was a "loose cannon" in Vietnam and is unfit to be commander in chief.


Most of the veterans in this 1969 photo don't want John Kerry to use it in his presidential campaign.


The group includes the entire chain of command above Kerry during his tenure in Southeast Asia, as well as enlisted men.

The group has called on Kerry to stop unauthorized use of their images in national campaign advertising.

Only two of 20 officers in one photo Kerry has used support him, they say.