Absent information different from "fleeing VC with RPG launcher," get over it.

While the stuff coming up about the awards (especially Drudge's teaser about the campaign flopping around on that first PH - though that seems to have died out with a whimper) can we put one thing to bed?

Shooting the enemy soldier in the back. If Kerry did that, good on him. Why?

If, as everything I've seen says, the enemy soldier was fleeing with that RPG-2 launcher, he was a legitimate target, and Kerry damn well should have shot him, he would have been derelict not to.

As a fighter you only become a non-combatant when you throw down your arms and surrender, or are rendered unable to fight via wounds. Running away in a firefight does not make you a non-combatant. It just means you are re-positioning - whether tactically, or to fight another day.

You're a target. A legitimate target, and one that should be taken down, hard.

Hell, you can ask if it was it a good idea to beach the boat (losing your mobility) to pursue this guy... but shooting him? Perfectly legitimate thing to do. And proper, too. Just because a guy is running away doesn't mean he gets a pass.

People who are whining about 'shooting the guy in the back' like it's somehow unsporting are poseurs who probably have never been in a firefight.

There are plenty of other reasons in his record in and after Vietnam to help you make a choice about his fitness for the CinC job.

Shooting an armed bad guy in the back in a firefight isn't one of them. That's called prudence.

So get off that dead horse, please.

The genesis for this rant is this article in Front Page Mag, linked to by Dave Kopel in the Corner at NRO yesterday, just in case you are wondering whereinthehell did this come from?