People may better grasp the controversy that surrounds John Kerry’s medals by paying attention to the story of Sgt. Jared Myers, the young soldier from Lawrence who recently was awarded a Bronze Star for valor.

Myers was driving a Humvee in Iraq. He was injured by the explosion of a roadside mine. The captain sitting beside Myers was killed. Sgt. Chuck Bartels, a Kansas University student riding in the back seat, was severely wounded. Sgt. Myers, despite fractures in his arm, drove out of the enemy’s “kill zone” to get himself and Sgt. Bartels to friendly lines and medical aid.

What does this have to do with Kerry? In Vietnam, Lt. Kerry commanded a swift boat in the Mekong Delta. A mine exploded. Like Myers, Kerry sped out of the enemy’s “kill zone.” However, a Green Beret passenger was blown overboard. As soon as Lt. Kerry became aware that a man had been left behind, he turned his craft around. He received his Bronze Star for valor after personally pulling the Special Forces officer out of the water while under enemy fire.

If Chuck Bartels had been thrown from that Humvee, Sgt. Myers would undoubtedly have turned back, just as Lt. Kerry did, to pull his fellow Kansan to safety. His commanding officer would surely have had even higher praise for his bravery.

For the sake of understanding the present attacks on Kerry, imagine for a moment that Jared Myers at some point came to believe that the war in which he was injured was a tragic miscalculation by our leaders and said so publicly. He enters politics. Now it is the year 2038. Kansas Sen. Myers is seeking higher office. Angry at his anti-war stand more than three decades earlier, a group of Iraq War vets organize “Humvee Veterans for Truth.”

They claim in anti-Myers ads that there were no insurgents anywhere around after the mine exploded! Some insinuate Myers actually risked the lives of everyone in his Humvee, not to mention innocent Iraqis along the road, by violating the speed limit and driving recklessly, all so he could put himself in for a medal! What if that same commanding officer who showered praise on Myers in 2004 now signs affidavits and makes ads saying he did not deserve his Bronze Star after all?

This kind of malicious slander is precisely what was done to John Kerry. The legitimate media has exposed gross distortions and inconsistencies in the anti-Kerry group’s claims. The Special Forces officer he saved, a lifelong Republican, says the Swift boat allegations are lies.

How would Sgt. Myers feel if the media printed vile, baseless assertions that his wound was “self-inflicted”? After the passage of 35 years, who is left to prove he did not complicate his own injury by recklessly driving over potholes at high speeds? The point is that no matter how blatantly false and demonstrably unfair the accusations, merely printing such garbage would be sufficient to cast doubt in some minds. Maybe enough to turn a close election.

Most people in Lawrence can imagine how Jared Myers and his family would suffer if such a dastardly deed happened to him.

Politics can be unmercifully dirty. Perhaps anyone running for office today or decades from now must expect to be smeared by the opposition.

Those who attack Kerry’s war record are forcing many of us to live that war all over again. I suppose, to be fair, we should concede that all the so-called “527” ads are equally hurtful. After all, George W. Bush is also forced to relive the nightmare of his trip to a military dentist, which is the only proof he offers that he ever showed up for “duty” with the Alabama National Guard.

— Michael Caron, a Lawrence resident, received two Bronze Stars and other combat decorations for his service as an Army Special Forces medic in Vietnam. His period of service during 1968-1969 overlapped John Kerry’s.