Kerry's turning point came March 13, when he was ordered with four other Swift boat officers to transport Vietnamese mercenaries and U.S. officers on a series of sweeps along the Bay Hap River. After a long day of shore skirmishes, the gunboats chugged directly into a gantlet of machine-gun fire and mines.
A blast rocked PCF-94, pitching Kerry against the bulkhead and wrenching his arm. Another charge blew Army Lt. James Rassman into the river from another boat. Rassman bobbed under a wild spray of Vietcong gunfire. His arm bleeding, Kerry ordered Sandusky to swing the boat around.
"Here comes Kerry charging up to the bow," Rassman recalled. "He kneeled down and grabbed my arm and pulled me over. What a dummy. It was miraculous neither of us were hit."
Kerry was awarded the Bronze Star and his third Purple Heart. With three decorated wounds, an obscure regulation allowed him to request reassignment -- even back to the U.S. Kerry recalled one commander, Chuck Horne, telling him: "You've got a ticket home."
He had had enough. A strip of shrapnel was buried in his thigh. On the dock, he had counted 180 holes and dents in PCF-94's scarred hull. "I was convinced I'd probably be killed, the way we were going," Kerry recalled. "I didn't want to participate in something I thought was fundamentally screwed up."
The day he left, Kerry said few farewells. In the officers' barracks, he ran into fellow Swift boat officer Galvin and told him about his "three Purple Hearts" exit. Later wounded a third time, Galvin also used the rule to transfer out of the Mekong war zone several months early -- though he stayed in Vietnam for the full year tour.
In the cramped hallway, Kerry told Galvin he was leaving because his fiancee, Julia Thorne, was worried about him and her two brothers, who were also serving in Vietnam. "He told me she was stressed out," Galvin recalled.
"She was very concerned," Kerry said. But his explanation was also likely politic, he said, "a silver lining of how I actually felt," glossing over the antiwar disillusionment that would fuel the next stage of his public life.
The two men spoke for a few more moments before parting. When Galvin glanced back, Kerry was already gone.
Times researcher John Beckham in Chicago contributed to this report.
