Questions about Kerry's vets

I'm doing research into Kerry's Vietnam service. In order to keep all the details straight, I've started building a spreadsheet and documenting the various sites where the information is catalogued. (So far I've looked at the Boston Globe story by Kranish, a number of documents at the Kerry site, and a Nightline interview with Kerry's shipmates.) I'm not nearly done, but I can tell you there are some real doozies being told by Kerry's crewmates. For example, in the Nightline story both David Alston and Fred Short told the story of the night of February 28, 1968, when Kerry won the Silver Star.

Alston says, "I know when John Kerry told Del to beach that damn boat, this was a brand-new ball game. We wasn't running. We took it to Charlie."

Only one problem. Fred Short, the tub gunner that night, replaced David Alston two weeks earlier, when Alston was hospitalized for a serious head wound. Alston could not have been on the boat that night, and there's no way he could testify to what happened that night, because he wasn't there. He was in the hospital recuperating from his head wound. (Page 288, Tour of Duty)

Fred Short doesn't look much better. In a Scripps Howard article Short is quoted as saying, "I was there when Sen. Kerry got shot, and I've seen his blood on the deck of a swift boat. And I can assure you it's American red, and there's not a speck of blue in that blood,"

The only problem with this is Kerry was never shot. His three purple hearts came from shrapnel wounds, all of which were superficial and did not bleed enough to "hit the deck".

I'll have more as I put together more of the pieces, but this is not looking good for Kerry.