Quote:
Originally posted by honeychile
As for Kerry's one Purple Heart, please remember that his commanding officer was against him receiving it, but they were given fairly liberally at the time.
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I don't really want to nitpick and this isn't an attack but from what I understand, Kerry received three purple hearts, not one. One for each "wound" that was inflicted on Kerry. Whether these were "life threatening wounds" or not, I can not say because I was not there. But I do understand that in this era there was a lot of frustration from officers in regards to soldiers receiving the purple heart. I read an article where Kerry's commanding officer at the time said that purple hearts were "coming down in boxes." Yet, no matter how minor or how serious these wounds were, he received purple hearts for them.
My grandfather told me a story about how he was first wounded in Korea (a leg wound that put him out of service for a few weeks) and he was told he wouldn't receive a purple heart for it, and I guess it was no big deal to him. But not long after that he was shot through the mouth (knocking out all of his teeth) as well as taking a bullet to his spinalcord (paralyzing him), he found out that he was going to receive two purple hearts for those wounds as well as another for when he was wounded in the leg.
Service is service, wounded or not, purple heart or not.