# How did John Kerry earn his medals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 10, 2004, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-john-kerry-earn-his-medals/228486 "2004-02-10T18:11:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-john-kerry-earn-his-medals/228486/1 "2004-02-10T18:11:20Z")
Three purple hearts, one bronze star, one silver star. What is the story behind each of these medals? Haj ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-john-kerry-earn-his-medals/228486/2 "2004-02-10T20:44:53Z")
[John Kerry Vietnam War Timeline](http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20040208-2301-vietnamechoes.html) > [@](#): > > 1968 – First trip to Southeast Asia aboard Gridley, supporting aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Returns to California in June for training on 50-foot swift boats used for Vietnam coastal patrol, later for inland waterways. Returns to Vietnam war zone, slightly wounded on left arm when swift boat engages in firefight. > > 1969 – Shrapnel wound in thigh during firefight in February. Wins Silver Star for gallantry in another engagement, landing his swift boat in the thick of an enemy position, and chasing down and killing a sniper. Wounded in right arm in March when mine explodes near his boat, earning his third Purple Heart. There is probably a more detailed account in the recently released biography by Douglas Brinkley, _[Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060565233/ref=pm_dp_ln_b_6/103-1874487-8641442?v=glance&s=books&n=507846&vi=reviews)_, but I didn’t find any excerpts specifically about his medal worthy actions. There are some riveting excerpts [here](http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/12/brinkley.htm) though. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-john-kerry-earn-his-medals/228486/3 "2004-02-11T00:59:09Z")
He was involved in many many days of heavy fighting in a short period, but the specific action for which he was awarded the Silver Star is detailed below, exerpts from the [Boston Globe](http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061603.shtml). > [@](#): > > This exhausting and harrowing week was only the beginning for Kerry. On Feb. 28, 1969, Kerry’s boat received word that a swift boat was being ambushed. As Kerry raced to the scene, his boat became another target, as a Viet Cong B-40 rocket blast shattered a window. Kerry could have ordered his crew to hit the enemy and run. But the skipper had a more aggressive reaction in mind. Beach the boat, Kerry ordered, and the craft’s bow was quickly rammed upon the shoreline. Out of the bush appeared a teenager in a loin cloth, clutching a grenade launcher. > > An enemy was just feet away, holding a weapon with enough firepower to blow up the boat. Kerry’s forward gunner, Belodeau, shot and clipped the Viet Cong in the leg. Then Belodeau’s gun jammed, according to other crewmates (Belodeau died in 1997). Medeiros tried to fire at the Viet Cong, but he couldn’t get a shot off. > > In an interview, Kerry added a chilling detail. > > “This guy could have dispatched us in a second, but for … I’ll never be able to explain, we were literally face to face, he with his B-40 rocket and us in our boat, and he didn’t pull the trigger. I would not be here today talking to you if he had,” Kerry recalled. “And Tommy clipped him, and he started going [down.] I thought it was over.” > > Instead, the guerrilla got up and started running. “We’ve got to get him, make sure he doesn’t get behind the hut, and then we’re in trouble,” Kerry recalled. > > So Kerry shot and killed the guerrilla. “I don’t have a second’s question about that, nor does anybody who was with me,” he said. “He was running away with a live B-40, and, I thought, poised to turn around and fire it.” Asked whether that meant Kerry shot the guerrilla in the back, Kerry said, “No, absolutely not. He was hurt, other guys were shooting from back, side, back. There is no, there is not a scintilla of question in any person’s mind who was there [that] this guy was dangerous, he was a combatant, he had an armed weapon.” > > \ > > When Kerry returned to his base, his commanding officer, George Elliott, raised an issue with Kerry: the fine line between whether the action merited a medal or a court-martial. > > “When [Kerry] came back from the well-publicized action where he beached his boat in middle of ambush and chased a VC around a hootch and ended his life, when [Kerry] came back and I heard his debrief, I said, `John, I don’t know whether you should be court-martialed or given a medal, court-martialed for leaving your ship, your post,”’ Elliott recalled in an interview. > > “But I ended up writing it up for a Silver Star, which is well deserved, and I have no regrets or second thoughts at all about that,” Elliott said. A Silver Star, which the Navy said is its fifth-highest medal, commends distinctive gallantry in action. There are those who say he shot a wounded, escaping man in the back. There are those who say he violated procedure and put his boat and men needlessly at risk. I have no doubt he acted with heroism. Apologies for the longish snip.