One of many right-wing media propagandists who, in the runup to the last American presidential elections, said Democrat Senator John Kerry had shot himself during the Vietnam War. Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, engineered and put in commercials by Karl Rove and the Republican Party, was the sole source of this 'fact'.

Reality check:

"February 18, 1966:
A senior at Yale, Kerry commits to enlist in the Navy.

December, 1967:
Kerry is assigned as an Ensign to the guided-missile frigate USS Gridley. After five-months aboard, he returns to San Diego to undergo training to command a Swift boat, used by the Navy for patrols in Vietnam.

June, 1968:
Kerry is promoted to Lieutenant.

November 17, 1968:
Kerry arrives in Vietnam, where he is given command of Swift boat No. 44, operating in the Mekong Delta.

December 2, 1968:
Kerry gets his first taste of intense combat, and is wounded in the arm. He is awarded a Purple Heart.

January, 1969:
Kerry takes command of a new Swift boat, completing 18 missions over 48 days, almost all in the Mekong Delta area.

February 20, 1969:
Kerry is wounded again, taking shrapnel in the left thigh, after a gunboat battle. He is awarded a second Purple Heart.

February 28, 1969:
Kerry and his boat crew, coming under attack while patroling in the Mekong Delta, decide to counterattack. In the middle of the ensuing firefight, Kerry leaves his boat, pursues a Viet Cong fighter into a small hut, kills him, and retreives a rocket launcher. He is awarded a Silver Star.

March 13, 1969:
A mine detonates near Kerry's boat, wounding him in the right arm. He is awarded a third Purple Heart. He is also awarded a Bronze Star for pulling a crew member, who had fallen overboard, back on the boat amidst a firefight.

April, 1969:
According to Navy rules, sailors that have been wounded three times in combat are eligible to be transfered to the U.S. for noncombat duty. Kerry is transferred to desk duty in Brooklyn, NY.

January 3, 1970:
Kerry requests that he be discharged early from the Navy so that he can run for Congress in Massachusetts' Third District. The request is granted, and Kerry begins his first political campaign.

February 1970:
Kerry drops his bid for the Democratic nomination and supports Robert F. Drinan. Drinan, a staunch opponent of the war, wins the race and goes on to serve in Congress for ten years.

June 1970:
Kerry joins Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and becomes one of the group's unofficial spokespeople.

April 23, 1971:
Kerry helps to organize a huge anti-war protest outside Congress, earning a place on president Richard Nixon's "enemies' list." He joins a group of Vietnam veterans who throw medals and campaign ribbons over a fence in front of the Capitol.

April 23, 1971:
Kerry testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He tells lawmakers: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

November 10, 1971:
Kerry quits Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

April 1972:
Kerry moves to Massachusetts' 5th District to run for Congress again. He wins the Democratic nomination but loses to Republican Paul Cronin, in part because of his anti-war views.

November 1972:
After losing the election, Kerry is hired as a regional coordinator for Cooperative for American Relief to Everywhere(CARE).

September, 1973:
Kerry enrolls at Boston College Law School.

read George Bush's Timeline regarding his academic and military service

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related information:

Who is Karl Rove and how does he destroy George Bush's opponents' chances of winning campaigns? "What happened was, you begin first to see the emergence of a so-called military group on the stairs of an event where Bush attended that [would] attack John McCain on the issue of Vietnam. In fact, what they did was suggest that John McCain was not good on the issues of prisoners of war, that he was not really the war hero that he seemed to be. It was sort of the beginning chink in the armor of John McCain among these very conservative, patriotic, Republican South Carolinians. The other message of this early surrogate group was that John McCain might be crazy, that the experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam might actually work against McCain because it had left him psychologically with a short fuse and maybe not the kind of person that we want to have in office.

It was followed up by ... some surrogates sending virulent telephone calls against John McCain and his wife, leaving messages that suggested that John McCain's wife had a drug problem -- she had battled it [Editor's Note: a dependency on prescriptive drugs] and was fighting that -- and also that he and his wife had a black child, which was a dynamite message, especially among some racist voters in this conservative state. In fact, what McCain and his wife had was an adopted child from a Mother Theresa orphanage. But it didn't make any difference, because the surrogates were out there turning the screws on John McCain as a person whose personal life made him unacceptable as a candidate, at the same time that the candidate George Bush was attacking McCain on the perfectly appropriate policy issues that you would see in the campaign.

McCain believed that Bush was behind it. The model was exactly the same that you saw again and again and again in a campaign run by Karl Rove. And although Rove denied any involvement, the outcome was the same: surrogates and groups who supported Bush attacking the opponent in his personal life. Bush was successful and ultimately won that campaign. [But] the relationship between John McCain and George Bush was not very good for months, even years afterwards."

how Karl Rove uses false front groups to attack a legitimate candidate's character and win

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related links

Bush's Brain, how Karl Rove made Bush president, Part 1

Bush's Brain, how Karl Rove made Bush president, Part 2

Michelle Malkin vs. Foundation For Arab Leadership's Hussein Ibish

Michelle Malkin vs. porn site owner