I Can't Take It Anymore

All this arguing (about whether Kerry was fired on or not when he won the Bronze Star, whether the injuries for which he won the Purple Hearts were serious or not, whether he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968 or not) is a complete distraction and is intended to mire the discussion in unimportant details.

The basic facts are these:

• Kerry was in Vietnam, "in harm's way" (as my Dad used to like to say).
• He was decorated at least 5 times.
• Upon his return, he took advantage of his First Amendment right to speak out against the war.

Other than that, who cares? If I said to someone, "That man over there claims you shot him, stabbed him, and then spit on him," and that someone responded by saying "I didn't spit on him," we all can see that this answer is just misleading and distracting because it starts an argument about the least important charge.

Arguing about the details of John Kerry's service just distracts us from the larger issues affecting us now. Instead of talking about whether one of those Purple Hearts was undeserved, let's note that Kerry was there, Bush wasn't (for whatever reason), and move on.