Kerry's Purple Heart from a self-inflicted wound in the buttocks?

Democrats are zealous in their support of free speech when pTerry McAuliffe (DMC Party Chairman) calls George Bush a deserter and John Kerry mocking the President's National Guard service -- but anybody questioning Kerry's record in Vietnam is quickly met with a horde of lawyers, and the First Amendment is put on the back burner. Why is that?

John Kerry's campaign is seeking to muzzle the recent advertisement of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on grounds that they misprepresent the Senator.

The band of veterans has responded to the charges -- the source of which has been posted to the blog Captain's Quarters. The response of the Swift Boat Vet's legal team provides further background on each of the veterans speaking in the ad, as well as a factual account of his military exploits, including some curious (and comical) details on just how Kerry won one of his purple hearts:

Kerry's shrapnel wound "in the buttocks" came not from a mine at all as he falsely reported, but at his own hand. Larry Thurlow, an officer on shore with Kerry that day, recounts that Kerry's shrapnel wound came not from any mine, but from a self-inflicted wound when Kerry (with no enemy to be seen) threw a concussion grenade into a rice pile and stayed too close. . . .

Most surprisingly, John Kerry himself (while falsely reporting to the Navy and public that he suffered a shrapnel wound from a mine explosion so as to get a third Purple Heart and go home) reflected in his own journal that his buttocks' wound came, not from any mine but, rather, from a grenade tossed into a rice cache by himself or friendly troops (in the absence of any enemy fire). "I got a piece of small grenade in my ass from one of the rice bin explosions." Exhibit 15, Tour, at 313; see also Exhibit 15, Tour, at 317. "Kerry . . . also had the bits of shrapnel and rice extracted from his backside." See also the sworn statement of participants that there was no hostile fire (Exhibits 6, 7, and 10). It also should be noted that the rice extracted from Kerry's backside could hardly be the result of an underwater mine, as Kerry claimed in his operating report.

How's that for a display of military valor?