By Monica Showalter
In today’s ridiculous news, I present this picture:
Kerry is famous for tossing his Vietnam war medals over a fence, or at least, saying he did, before he later said it was just his ribbons, and then later still saying it some other guy’s medals.
Here’s the New York Post report from 2004:
Presumed Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry said in an interview more than 30 years ago that he threw away some of his Vietnam combat medals – contradicting statements he has made as a candidate, it was reported yesterday.
“I gave back, I can’t remember, six, seven, eight, nine medals,” Kerry said in an interview with WRC-TV, a Washington, D.C., station on Nov. 6, 1971, ABC News reported. Kerry previously had told the network that stories about him tossing medals were a “myth.”
In the 1971 interview, for a program called “Viewpoints,” Kerry – who had not yet been elected to the Senate – said that war veterans who threw away their medals “decided to give them back to their country.”
When asked if he disposed of his Bronze Star, Silver Star and three Purple Hearts received as a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam, he replied, “Well, and above that. [I] gave back the others.”
Earlier this year, Kerry was asked by syndicated columnist Robert Novak, if he regretted throwing his medals away, and responded, “There was no regret,” but he added, “I threw away my ribbons, not my medals.”
…and this…
But in 1984, he told the Globe he still had his own medals but had tossed away another soldiers’ medal.
Here he is, droning on about how he protested the war:
Here he is in 1971, talking about tossing his Vietnam War medals:
And the medals themselves have somewhat suspect and politicized origins, according to many Vietnam combat vets.
According to Wikipedia:
The military career of John Kerry occurred during the Vietnam War. Kerry served as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy during the period from 1966 to 1970. His only tour in Vietnam was four months as officer in charge of a Swift boat in 1969. Kerry received several combat medals during this tour, including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. Kerry’s military record received considerable attention during his political career, especially during his unsuccessful 2004 bid for the presidency.
However they were obtained, Kerry says he tossed at least some to protest the Vietnam War and pontificate about Zhayyynghis Khan before Congress in the days before he launched his own political career.
Now he’s suddenly found them — and found a use for them, wearing them over his suit, the way Soviet apparachiks and third-world dictators do, in order to participate in the British coronation pageantry.
Can you say with Jeff Jacoby ‘phony’? Americans historically are supposed to be plain, simple yeomen who shake hands rather than bow to British kings and who don’t put on crowns or recognize titles. Well, not anymore. Kerry seems to have wanted a big ermine robe and sash, but the medals would have to do.
First, how the heck did that guy cadge an invitation to this rather exclusive and prestigious event? He’s hardly an important person from the U.S., serving as Joe Biden’s global warming czar and basically flying to conferences on a trail of private jet exhaust fuel, and focusing on buffet tables. Maybe he’s a social contact of King Charles III, who has a bit too much interest in global warming nonsense, but we haven’t heard anything about him being a social contact, and you can bet that Kerry, who’s a social climber, would have gotten that out there earlier.
Kerry is now in his dotage, focused on his yachts and social climbing, having married an heiress after searching explicitly for one, based on some other heiresses I’ve talked to, who said that once upon a time, Kerry the suitor came calling.
Heiresses were useful, and now he finds his Vietnam War medals suddenly useful, too — as ceremonial decorations in a bid to match the British in their ceremonial finery.
Shall we expect him to start wearing them in the states? Shall we expect him to curtsey? Why did those medal suddenly get so useful to him?