Kerry's Medals

You may have noticed my silence on the recent twists in the Kerry Medal saga.

I know enough about the military decoration system to know that the 'senior signature' and many times the 'junior signature' on medal citations are not originals, but are either done by pantograph, or in the case of some of the relatively high volume awards, pre-printed.

I also know there is no such thing as a Silver Star with V. The V device is added to an award when it is an award that is most commonly awarded for routine performance recognition, such as Army Achievement Medals, Army Commendation Medals, and Meritorious Service Medals to distinguish them visually as heroism awards.

A Bronze Star, for example, without a V device, is essentially an MSM awarded for good general performance in a combat zone - meaning that you did your job well in a hostile fire zone. Put a V on it, and it changes to the 4th-highest award for valor.

As I have said before, I accept Kerry's medals at face value. But the weight of evidence is starting to change that.

Each and every thing laid out about his medals is explainable in an innocent sense (with the possible exception now of that 1st Purple Heart). If I were to lose a medal citation, I can ask the Army to issue a new one - and they will, after the requisite proofs are obtained, and it will have the signature of the current guy signing those particular medals. So, Kerry can have a Silver Star cite, for example, with Lehman's signature on it, and in and of itself it just means a replacement citation was issued, and Lehman wouldn't know about it. But what eats into that argument are the multiple wordings of the citations - that indicates at best record-keeping problems, to self-serving rewrites, to outright attempts to rewrite the record.

What it boils down to is this... just about every fault thus posited about Kerry's medals has an explanation. But the Job-like cluster of just about every fault in the system to reside in one guys record begins to gather a momentum to support the view that the record has been manipulated. And since Kerry is alive - all the requests for those changes had to have his signature on them.

If there is no chicanery, John Kerry just used up his statistical luck on being the one guy who's whose [I hate it when I do that, I really am literate] records contain virtually every form of goof there can be. Which doesn't bode well for his chances at the lottery - and hopefully for his chances at the Presidency with them.