The Right Coast

August 30, 2004
 
I want a purple heart
By Tom Smith

I seem to have done something to my rotator cuffs (that's in your shoulders to you aliens to the weight room) attempting to do more than my usual pathetic number of pull ups. It hurts, and I want a purple heart. Yes, I did it to myself and no, I was not in any real danger, but I still want a purple heart. But I am not in the military, you say. True, but on my side there is the fact the shoulder is a much less embarassing place to get wounded than the butt, and also, I promise to request only one such medal and to be duly modest about it, should one be given to me. Think it over.

In the alternative, I request to marry a billionairess. I don't want to give up my current spousal unit, so the best way to work this out is for you simply to give her a billion dollars. If this seems too much, a hundred million plus a Gulfstream V will do. In exchange, I will give really boring speeches, and ride around on my expensive toys clad in lycra, showing off my middle aged body.

Just some random observations: no one has mentioned that maybe the reason Kerry threw his medals, ribbons or whatever away is that (1) they just evoked embarrassing memories of butt wounds and/or (2) he knew they were a big fraud anyway, so what the heck? If you were the Richard Burton character from Where Eagles Dare and you got a Victoria Cross, would you toss it away? Not bloody likely. But if you knew it was just for, well, you get the picture. Moreover, nobody seems to have pointed out how rude it was for Kerry to throw away medals which he requested in the first place. If I ask somebody for tickets to the game, and somebody gives them to me, and then I throw them away, that's rude. He could at least have kept them and bartered them latter for a fancy haircut or something, assuming you could find a stylist who wanted a purple heart.