"Purple Heart" qualifications

[wyldwolf]

The next time a Repub or well-meaning relative says one of Kerry's purple hearts isn't legit because it was "self inflicted," remind them of these qualifications of recieving a Purple Heart:

Individuals wounded or killed as a result of "friendly fire" in the "heat of battle" will be awarded the Purple Heart as long as the "friendly" projectile or agent was released with the full intent of inflicting damage or destroying enemy troops or equipment.

(From AR 600-8-22, 25 February 1995 and Public Law 104-106 - Feb. 10, 1996, http://www.purpleheart.org/Awd_of_PH.htm)

[RoeBear]

1. What now?

Are the repubs claiming that Kerry shot himself to get out of the service?

[wyldwolf]

2. some have...

..others say that the shrapnel was a richochet from either his bullit or from a grenade he through and, thus, the Purple Heart isn't legitimate.

But the law says differently.

[the Kelly Gang]

3. one qualification is you have to BE there instead of AWOL

[StClone]

4. You do not give yourself a medal

You must have it given to you.

[OKNancy]

5. Great editorial by Col. Hackworth

about this Purple Heart business

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-06-15-hackman_x.htm

[DinahMoeHum]

6. Salon brought out this issue in April 2004. Check out this letter. . .

"The assholes who talk trash about Kerry's Purple Hearts are playing a dangerous, self-destructive game."

Link:
http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2004/04/17/kerry_purple/

Link:
http://archive.salon.com/opinion/letters/2004/04/22/purple_mercenary/

(snip)
Folks, three things:

1. I don't recall anyone putting himself in for a Purple Heart. Mine arrived via shopping cart while I was bed-bound at a Quang Tre MASH. I didn't know that guys could ask for them. I did turn down two additional PHs once I got back to the States. (Or maybe they tried to give me the first medal two more times.) That pissed people off; the brass like to give out medals. So on that score alone, Hibbard's got shit in his mouth. He would have been a mighty proud lifer to have one of his boys rack a PH.

2. Concerning fakes: If any fuckhead is stupid enough to claim ownership of a PH that does not belong to him, there's a big cottage industry of really nasty people who will take pleasure in making his life one definitive hell. These would be the folks who actually earned Purple Hearts. Fakers get confronted in public, in front of their families, their co-workers, their Boy Scout troops, wherever it's possible to inflict the most humiliation. There's no sympathy for these people. So if Kerry had worked some kind of game on a Purple Heart, he would have been hideously outed long before this. There's an army of war vets (and the widows of war vets) with nothing better to do than to hunt down fakes and frauds. Kerry would have been toast in the '70s, courtesy of his work with the VVAW.

3. Regardless of politics, those who have PHs tend to be clannish. They're not nearly as exclusive as the CMH crowd but their ties go well beyond Bill Mauldin's club "of them what's been shot at." (Mauldin was actually sheepish about his PH.) So when a drug addicted coward like Limbaugh, or any of those other vermin, talks trash about a guy's Purple Heart, he's insulting the rest of us. It's like taking on a biker gang that graduated from grenades and machine guns to lawsuits, Web sites and political campaigns. Same attitude, different toys.

-- Dave Dike

(snip)

much more...

:nuke: