# Posted 10:40 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

MEDALGATE:

You write:

"But if someone asked me whether or not I had thrown away my medals, I'm pretty sure that I would be brave enough to tell the truth."

I guess you haven't had a chance to keep up on this issue. Check out Thomas Oliphant's column yesterday in the Boston Globe.

Salient points: (1) Kerry didn't have his medals with him that day (or the entire week in Washington, as it happened), only his ribbons, so that's what he threw. (2) "Medals" is often used in the military to include ribbons. It didn't occur to Kerry during those early interviews to make a distinction. [Emphasis added. -ed.] (3) Later in the day he returned to throw the medals of two other vets who couldn't be at the demonstration, at their request.

See the Oliphant piece for context. He was there, right behind Kerry in the line of vets tossing their medals.

There is no evidence anywhere that Kerry ever lied about whether he had thrown away his medals. It's an utterly bogus issue, and you ought to stop perpetuating it. You might even think about explaining to your readers that it *is* a bogus issue.

JS

To my mind, the italicized words above are the most important. Oliphant writes was that "It was clear from our [Oliphant and Kerry's] conversations back then and ever since that Kerry made no distinction among his various decorations, though others have." Yet according to ABC,

Kerry was asked [in 1971] if he gave back the Bronze Star, Silver Star and three Purple Hearts he was awarded for combat duty as a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam. "Well, and above that, [I] gave back the others," he said.

The statement directly contradicts Kerry's most recent claims on the disputed subject to the Los Angeles Times last Friday. "I never ever implied that I did it, " Kerry told the newspaper, responding to the question of whether he threw away his medals in protest.

If ABC has its story right, then Kerry didn't make a public distinction between medals and ribbons back in 1971 because he claimed to have given back both of them. But privately, Kerry understood the distinction, which is why kept the medals and gave back the ribbons. Anyhow, ABC also reports that

In 1984, when he first ran for the U.S. Senate, Kerry revealed he still had his medals. According to a Boston Globe report on April 15, 1984, union officials had expressed uneasiness with Kerry's candidacy because he had thrown his medals away. Kerry acknowledged the medals he threw away were, in fact, another soldier's medals. He reportedly invited a union official home to personally inspect his Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, awarded for his combat duty as a Navy lieutenant.

In the 1971 Viewpoints interview, he made no mention of the ribbons or the medals belonging to another veteran.

And in 1988, Kerry again clarified his statement by saying he threw out ribbons he had been awarded for three combat wounds, but not his medals. "I was proud of my personal service and remain so," he told the National Journal.

Eight years later in 1996, Kerry said while he did throw out his ribbons, he didn't throw out his own medals because he "didn't have time to go home [to New York] and get them," he told The Boston Globe.

So what's really going on here? My guess is that Kerry himself forgot about the 1971 interview and was just as surprised as anyone else to see it broadcast on ABC. Thus, I don't think that Kerry was lying to Peter Jennings when he said he never even implied that he had thrown away the medals. But it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Kerry was consciously lying in 1971 if he claimed to have thrown away his medals after intentionally leaving them at home. I'd even speculate that Kerry was intentionally taking out insurance on his political future, since he knew that he was going to run on his war-hero image and couldn't do that if he'd thrown his medals away.

As for Kerry's inconsistent comments about the medals during his various Senate races, those aren't really worth bothering with. What really gets me is that on Good Morning America, Kerry tried to pin all the blame for this controversy on the GOP attack machine rather than recognize that his own questionable behavior was responsible for it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion