Re-enacting History in Real Time.

Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson writes of Kerry as a soldier in Reckless Disregard:

"On February 28, 1969, now in charge of PCF 94, Kerry came under fire from an enemy location on the shore. The crew's gunner returned fire, hitting and wounding the lone gunman. Kerry directed the boat to charge the enemy position. Beaching his boat, Kerry jumped off, chased the wounded insurgent behind a thatched hutch, and killed him. Beaching the boat was foolish; leaving the boat as the commander was stupid. Killing a wounded man ran counter to the Geneva Conventions and naval regulations. Yet his killing of the wounded man behind the hutch earned Kerry the Silver Star.

"With an amazing and unbelievable agenda, Kerry and his crew returned within days, armed with a Super 8 video camera he had purchased at the post exchange at Cam Ranh Bay, and reenacted the skirmish on film. He wanted to document the incident upon which he would stake his military, national security, and political bona fides for years to come. In a bizarre, utterly outlandish sense, he was already running for political office: He was already staging campaign commercials." (pp 43-44)

Many times an isolated episode is more pathetic than the person. When the person becomes a series of similar episodes, the rest of us should hold an intervention for him. Time to go to the nervous hospital, John. It'll be OK ...