John Kerry eRumors during the 2003/2004 Presidential Run-Truth! & Unproven!
Summary of eRumor:
A collection of various eRumors about John Kerry during the 2004 presidential season.
The Truth:
John Kerry is a Vietnam Veteran-Truth!
According to Kerry’s bio and published reports, he is a Yale grad who enlisted in the Navy and served in Vietnam earning the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.
John Kerry was in Vietnam for only four months-Truth!
The eRumor, as indicated, is taken from a guest editorial by Vietnam veteran Terry Garlock that was published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on January 29, 2004.
Kerry became a vocal critic of the Vietnam war and his image as a boat commander who became a protester made him an anti-war celebrity.
He joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War
His 1971 book The New Soldier was a collection of his and other anti-war Vietnam veterans writings and pictures.
The book became best known, however, because of its cover.
It pictured an anti-Vietnam war protest with a American flag flying upside down.
Some felt it was mocking the famous picture of the raising of the flag my Marines at Iwo Jima during World War II.
During his unsuccessful run for Congress in 1972, critics accused him of having desecrated the flag with the book cover
Regarding Kerry’s medals, there was an emotional ceremony on 23, 1971, in which about one thousand veterans who were against the Vietnam war shed their military medals by throwing them over a fence barricade onto the steps of the capitol building in Washington D.C.
One of them was John Kerry and it was thought that he had forsaken his Vietnam medals.
The 1988 issue of Current Biography Yearbook says that Kerry explained that the medals were not his but those of another veteran who asked him to throw them on his behalf.
Critics of John Kerry say he either created a false impression by throwing the borrowed medals or spent a long time letting a false impression remain before he admitted that he still had his medals.
Defenders say Kerry never misrepresented the medals because he did not claim that they were his and openly displays them in his office.
Regarding Kerry’s allegedly publicly supporting the POWs in Vietnam being used as bargaining chips, we have not been able to find that reference.
If anybody knows what that is in reference to, let us know.
Last updated 2/4/04