Reply #127: 130 days in Vietnam? There were guys killed on their first DAY there.

[Zen Democrat]

How immaterial can you get.

The casualty rate on Swift Boats was 75% according to Adm. Zumwalt.

Check out Col. David Hackworth remarking on John Kerry's service and his purple hearts:

"Since it was always my standard drill as a commander to stay in close touch with what was going down, I spent a lot of time in the boonies with the troops under my control. But during that year, I did the small-boat thing only twice. Why? Because as an infantry grunt, I simply didn't like the odds. And since those hair-raising trips, my steel pot has always been off to those sailors.

Now a number of war veterans have picked the campaign-stumping season to question the first Purple Heart that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry received during his four months as a small-boat skipper — where one day out on Vietnam's rivers and canals was a lifetime, and four months had to have been an eternity."

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