Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry has lived for 35 years with a small piece of shrapnel in his left thigh, a remnant of one of three wounds he suffered during his 41/2-month tour in Vietnam, his personal physician said yesterday.
Kerry's campaign allowed reporters to briefly review the military medical records from his Navy service in the 1960s, and it made the Boston internist who has been his physician since 1986 available by speaker phone for a news conference.
The partial disclosure was aimed at rebutting Republican suggestions that Kerry has something to hide in his medical records, or that Kerry may not have deserved the three Purple Hearts he received for combat wounds. Those medals allowed him to leave the Vietnam theater ahead of schedule and are often cited by campaign supporters as evidence of his valor.
The records, which reporters were allowed to examine for 30 minutes, seem to ratify the existing public record. None of Kerry's wounds was life-threatening or maiming, but this was partly a matter of good luck. If shrapnel that was forceful enough to "penetrate the skin" had hit him in the eye, physician Gerald Doyle said, Kerry almost certainly would have been blinded.
Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said the campaign regards military medical records as private. Kerry did not object to briefly lifting the veil on them but did not want to put them in full public view by releasing copies or posting them on his Web site, as he has done with other military records. Cutter noted that the 30-minute review time was 10 minutes longer than President Bush gave reporters to look at his military medical records.
The campaign did release Doyle's summary of the medical records. Thirty-six pages of records showed that Kerry also suffered from respiratory ailments, including a bout of pneumonia, a skin rash and a urinary tract infection during his four years in the Navy.
Kerry was hit by shrapnel three times during his service on a PCF (patrol craft fast), known as a "swift boat," in late 1968 and early 1969. On Dec. 2, 1968, he was grazed on his left arm above the elbow. "Shrapnel removed and appl bacitracin dressing. Ret To Duty," the person who treated him wrote. Bacitracin is an antibiotic.
On Feb. 20, 1969, Kerry was hit by what the records describe as a two- millimeter-square piece of "B-40 shrapnel." Faced with the difficulty of removing the metal, Navy physicians simply left it where it was, and the wound closed up without infection.
Three weeks later, Kerry was injured again. The record reads: "In firefight approx 3 hours ago, pt was a) thrown against bulkhead sustaining injury (contusion) to R forearm. b) sustained small piece of shrapnel in L upper buttock."
Doyle said that because he was not the attending physician for any of the injuries, he could not characterize their severity. But he said the third incident was "clearly life-threatening," given a blast strong enough to throw Kerry against a bulkhead, "and he was lucky to get out of that one alive."
Kerry contracted pneumonia in September 1966, which he also had both before and after his military service -- a total of four times, Doyle said. The physician said Kerry's allergies to pollen and mold may leave him predisposed to pneumonia, but that he always responds well to treatment with antibiotics.
The records do suggest Kerry was occasionally demanding with naval doctors. On Jan. 26, 1967, he complained of sickness and wanted a chest X-ray. "This is a very aggressive patient," the records said.
