What Is The Truth About Murtha’s Medals

Murtha’s Mangled Medal Stories
Found here at Media Research Center
by L. Brent Bozell III
January 17, 2006

Since November, the media have carried Rep. John Murtha around on their shoulders like a conquering hero for his opposition to the war in Iraq. They’ve thrown around the words “war hero” like clowns throwing candy at a parade. Murtha was broadcast far and wide attacking Vice President Cheney for his five deferments from Vietnam, suggesting these chicken hawks don’t like any suggestions about how to fight a war.
If Murtha were a Republican accusing a Democrat like this, we know what would happen. The so-called nonpartisan, objective, “mainstream” media would either (a) totally ignore him as an irrelevant, obscure House wacko, or (b) investigate his own military record to see if he earned all the “war hero” talk. And if discrepancies were found, all hell would break loose. And if you don’t believe me, just ask John O’Neill and the Swift Boat Vets for Truth, who underwent first (a) and then (b) when they challenged John Kerry.
But Murtha is a Democrat accusing a Republican. So it fell to the Cybercast News Service, (CNSNews.com, which I founded), and reporters Marc Morano and Randy Hall to look into the Murtha military record. What they found were a lot of similarities to the military record of John Kerry.
Like Kerry, Murtha’s medals came for surface wounds that never caused his evacuation from the battlefield, and like Kerry, he attempted to get his medals by political manipulation, in Murtha’s case, through then-Rep. John Saylor. But Saylor’s office felt it was odd for Murtha to seek medals for “superficial lacerations.”
Murtha also told differing stories about when and where he was wounded in action. A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story reported in 2002 that Murtha had facial lacerations. In 1994, the Uniontown (Pa.) Herald-Standard quoted Murtha saying he was “wounded in the arm” for one medal and “my knee was banged up and my arm was banged up when a helicopter was shot down” for the other. Then, Morano and Hall uncovered a June 1, 1967 report in the Johnstown (Pa.) Tribune-Democrat quoting from a letter from Murtha to his wife describing his injuries as being “struck in the ankle” by a “shot that ricocheted off the helicopter.”
Since there were so many similarities to Kerry – including the fact that author Morano was also one of the first reporters on the Swift Boat Veterans story – the left predictably threw an ugly fit. It was not long, then, for Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne to load his air-rifle for rhetorical battle. “I underestimated the viciousness of the right wing,” he began.
Even before he gets started, we know where he’s going, don’t we?. Liberals want to insist when they tout a “war hero” making their anti-liberation of Iraq talking points, it’s 100 percent beyond the pale of decency to investigate him. They want the world to know that when a “war hero” acceptable to them disagrees with President Bush, everyone must stop, shut up, and listen like an old E.F. Hutton commercial.
Dionne sounds just like his hero Bill Clinton as he proclaims to be maddened by “the unblushing hypocrisy of the right wing and the way it circulates…personal vilification to abort honest political debate.” As if that weren’t enough, there’s also this: “Moreover, the right has demonstrated that its attitude toward military service is entirely opportunistic.”
Now here is where we should all acknowledge our partisanship – I oppose the Clintons and the Kerrys, and Dionne favors them. But can Dionne honestly state that the left wing (and “objective” smearers like CBS) have not resorted to “personal vilification” on the military record of George W. Bush? Can he honestly ignore that the left has vilified the World War II military service of Bob Dole in 1996 (Robert Ellis in The Nation) and George H. W. Bush in 1992 (Sidney Blumenthal in the New Republic)?
More importantly, how dare anyone on the left accuse any conservative of attitudinal opportunism where military service is involved. Military service didn’t matter a bit to them when Bill Clinton was running, but was vitally important when Kerry was their man in 2004. They felt George W. Bush’s National Guard record was a scandal in 2000, but also didn’t want the media poring over Al Gore’s Vietnam service as a journalist. Four years later, there they were again, poring over Bush’s Vietnam-era service record.
It’s fair to state that on some investigative stories, only conservatives want the tough, thorough report, and on others, only liberals are really jazzed about it. But what about the public interest? A media revering the words “objective,” “nonpartisan,” and “mainstream” would investigate both Republicans and Democrats when politicians start dragging out their war records.

And here is another article on the same topic………….
Murtha’s War Hero Status Called Into Question
Found at CNSNews.com
Wild Thing’s comment……….
Like Kerry, Murtha has made a big political issue out of his Vietnam service. He should sign his form 180 and release his military records. If he were a Republican, the media would be screaming their heads off demanding that he make his records public.
How many times have you heard that Murtha was a “hero” and deserved respect….at the SAME time as he is behaving like a traitor and under suspicion by the ethics committee? Murtha has used his war service as his “blood earned right” to criticize the war and the President and the war. There would be only one way to end the questioning…..
Please note that Kerry has still failed to fully release his records, too. Murtha, like Kerry — ran on his military record….. He made a freaking career of his “military service”, his sacrifice recognized by his TWO Purple Hearts……..
I don’t think it’s asking too much.
Murtha is not honorable! Once ANYONE attacks his fellow brother in arms, no matter what his heroics; no matter what his medals, he looses all rights to that brotherhood of men! He is fair game, and if found to be a liar like John Kerry, then he needs to be exposed and forced to prove he earned the medals. Otherwise they have no meaning!
A May 12, 2002, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article reported that “Marine Corps casualty records show that Murtha was injured in ‘hostile’ actions near Danang, Vietnam, on March 22, 1967 and May 7, 1967. In the first incident, his right cheek was lacerated, and in the second he was lacerated above his left eye. Neither injury required evacuation.”
Yet on Murtha’s web site he claims he received all his Vietnam decorations in 1966 Helluva combat intel guy…got his medals before he was wounded????
If we do nothing and say nothing as some want to do, Muthra gets re-elected almost unopposed for the next two years Muthra gets to continue to destroy the moral of our troops from the floor of the house. Murtha expects us to respect his “present” based on his “past” (as did Kerry). Besides, if he is one of the people questioning others’ ethics, then his should be open for scrutiny as well. We have 160,000 troops over in Iraq that Murfa has made every hour more dangerous for them. Then there is the message of weakness and division that Iran and our other enemies hear. Murfa’s military service allows him to stake out the high moral ground and shriek his unamerican BS! If he misrepresented his service record he needs to be knocked off the hill.
It will be interesting to see where this goes.
If Col Murtha wanted to quash this, he could release the records.
As President Reagan said, “Trust, but verify”.