The Globe reporters noted that upon the group's return to base, Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard, Kerry's superior officer in Coastal Division 14, was skeptical about the injury....

When the authors interviewed Hibbard on June 17, he was emphatic that Kerry's slight injury, in his opinion, could not possibly merit the Purple Heart....

Kerry requested permission to go on a skimmer operation with Lieutenant Schachte, my most senior and trusted lieutenant, using a Boston whaler to try to interdict a Viet Cong movement of arms and munitions.

The next morning at the briefing, I was informed that no enemy fire had been received on that mission. Our units had fired on some VC units running on the beach. We were all in my office, some of the crew members, I remember Schachte being there.

This was 36 years ago; it really didn't seem all that important at the time. Here was this lieutenant, junior grade, who was saying, "I got wounded," and everybody else, the crew that were present were saying, "We didn't get any fire. We don't know how he got the scratch."

Kerry showed me the scratch on his arm. I hadn't been informed that he had any medical treatment. The scratch didn't look like much to me; I've seen worse injuries from a rose thorn.

Q: Did Kerry want you to recommend him for a Purple Heart?

Hibbard: Yes, that was his whole point. He had this little piece of shrapnel in his hand. It was tiny. I was told later that Kerry had fired an M-79 grenade and that he had misjudged it. He fired it too close to the shore, and it exploded on a rock or something. He got hit by a piece of shrapnel from a grenade that he had fired himself.

The injury was self-inflicted, that's what made sense to me. I told Kerry to "forget it." There was no hostile fire, the injury was self-inflicted for all I knew. Besides, it was nothing really more than a scratch. Kerry wasn't getting any Purple Heart recommendation from me.

Q: How did Kerry get a Purple Heart from the incident, then?

Hibbard: I don't know. It beats me. I know I didn't recommend him for a Purple Heart. Kerry probably wrote up the paperwork and recommended himself, that's all I can figure out. If it ever came across my desk, I don't have any recollection of it. Kerry didn't get my signature. I said "no way" and told him to get out of my office....

How he obtained the award is unknown, since his continued refusal to execute Standard Form 180 means that whatever other documents exist are known only to Kerry, the Department of Defense and God.

Only a treatment record reflecting a scratch and a certificate signed three months later have been produced. There is no "after-action" hostile fire or casualty report. This is because there was no hostile fire, casualty, or action on this "most frightening night" of Kerry's Vietnam experience.