More Kerry Military Stuff

Looking further on his Military Records page, I see

These are his ribbons (in official order), as can be seen here (or here)

• Silver Star
• Bronze Star
• Purple Heart, 3 awards
• National Defense Service Medal
• Vietnam Service Medal , 4 stars
• Presidential Unit Citation

and, in DD215 he received two awards from 'Nam:

• MUC Gallantry Cross with Palm
• MUC Civil Action Medal with Palm.

The Presidenial Unit Citation is the highest unit award, "for service in a unit cited in the name of the president for extraordinary heroism in action" and, according to the free online dictionary (I take what I can get): "The degree of heroism required is the same as that which would warrant award of a Distinguished Service Cross." The award is for Task Force 115, a.k.a. Operation Swift Raider.

According to this official looking webpage only two Navy swiftboat units received that award, Task Group 194.0 - Operation Sea Lords - and Task Force 115 - Units participating in Operation Swift Raider.

Pursuant to that, see Kerry's: "Request For Swiftboat Duty" - which means he purposefully put himself into duty that by definition demanded the highest gallantry.

Finally there's something called Bupers Orders to Gridley which is relatively unimportant but it sounds funny.