Kerry claims 4th Purple Heart

Pittsburg Post-Gazette:

Kerry recently recalled suffering a paper cut while reading Stars and Stripes in a Kwan Gai latrine. Paperwork for his 4th Purple Heart is forthcoming. . .

Now for the real story -
"According to Kerry, his first taste of combat came on his first mission, on the night of Dec. 2, 1968. He was with two sailors in a Boston whaler on a night patrol. They saw sampans, presumably crewed by Viet Cong, unloading on a peninsula. They opened fire, and the Vietnamese ran for cover. In the 'engagement,' Kerry suffered a scratch on his arm from a piece of metal.

Kerry's account to his biographer, Douglas Brinkley, gives the impression that he was in command of the whaler. This was not so. Lt. William Schachte, later an admiral, was the officer in charge. Shachte said the Vietnamese never fired on the boat, and the sailors who were with Schachte and Kerry said they couldn't remember any return fire.

Shachte said Kerry's scratch was self-inflicted. He had fired an M-79 grenade launcher too close to the shore. It struck a rock, and a fragment of metal ricocheted and struck Kerry. Louis Letson, the doctor who treated Kerry (he put a Band-Aid on the cut) said the metal fragment looked like a piece from an M-79 grenade.

The Kerry campaign has charged that Letson didn't treat Kerry, because the log recording his treatment was signed by J.C. Carreon. But Letson was the only physician assigned to Cam Ranh Bay at the time. If you've ever been to a doctor's office, you may have noticed that the doctors themselves rarely do the paperwork. Carreon (who died in 1992) was Letson's corpsman."

Self-inflicted wound, treated with a band-aid. 4 months in country, and leaves at the suggestion of his own unit.

Loser.