The Silver Star....

The Silver Star is awarded for gallantry in action, and as the regulation states, "The required gallantry, while of a lesser degree than that required for the Distinguished Service Cross, must nevertheless have been performed with marked distinction." I know many fine individuals who wear the Silver Star, and from what I know of their actions they certainly were deeds of marked distinction. John Kerry wears the Silver Star and asks voters to believe that he is worthy of the office of The President because his deeds were of a marked distinction also. I ask you to compare his deeds against another Silver Star recepient, my good friend Will Parish.

John Kerry's Silver Star:

While in command of a three-boat mission, his Swift boat was ambushed; he ordered his men to beach the boat so he could pursue the attacking Vietcong; a teenager with a grenade launcher popped out of a hole a few feet away; one of Kerry's men shot and wounded him in the leg, but he ran; Kerry, fearing the youth was trying to get far enough away to fire a grenade, chased him and shot him dead. Kery was awarded the Silver Star for valor.

Will Parish's Silver Star:

Specialist 4 Willard Parish, 24, of Bristow, Okla., was a Charlie Company mortarman, but this morning [at LZ Xray] he manned a machine gun. "I looked to the front, and it seemed like the North Vietnamese were growing out of the weeds," he remembers. "The training took over. I just fired that weapon, totally unaware of the time, the conditions. I remember a lot of noise, a lot of yelling, air strikes. Then quiet." When he ran out of machine-gun ammunition Parish stood up with a .45-caliber automatic pistol in each hand and kept shooting. Later, they counted more than 100 enemy dead in front of his machine gun. Parish was awarded the Silver Star for valor***.

Which of the two awards do you think should be called a "deed of marked distinction"? Just asking.

***Account from "We Were Soldiers Once...and Young" by Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway