The television press was awash Monday night with video of a U.S. Marine entering a Fallujah terrorist nest filled with dead snipers who, moments earlier, had been shooting at his unit.
Upon discovering that one of the snipers is still breathing, the Marine shouts a warning to his buddies, the screen goes dark and a gunshot is heard - suggesting that the Marine finished off the wounded terrorist.
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Iraq war critics are already salivating at the prospects of another Abu Ghraib-like military fiasco.
Not so fast, say the folks at FreeRepublic.com, who point out that John Kerry got a Silver Star with Combat V [for valor] for committing the same sort of "atrocity."
In fact, the February 1969 incident was considered by Kerry supporters to be his finest hour.
Patrolling the Bay Hap River, Kerry and his crew discovered they were about to be ambushed by a Viet Cong soldier who had just popped up at the shoreline with a loaded rocket launcher in his hands. With the VC about to fire, Kerry crew mate Thomas Bellodeau shot and wounded the attacker, saving the entire boat.
Only then did Kerry leap to the shore to chase the wounded enemy down - finishing him off behind a hootch.
When critics suggested that Kerry's actions that day were something less than heroic, they were hooted down by the press.
Certainly the as-yet-unnamed Marine in Fallujah deserves, if not the Silver Star, the same slack the press cut Kerry.
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Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Media Bias
Saddam Hussein/Iraq
Sen. John Kerry
War on Terrorism
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