I don't think it is obvious at all that Kerry lied. Instead, I think it is clearly the absolute willful ignorance of mostly non-military commentators to what is actually being discussed. And those commentators are willing to paint their own ignorance as a lie or obfuscation on Kerry's part. And this is not something that can be explained or defended in a 30-second soundbite.

But I'm going to try here.

The essential problem is that some terms such as medal and ribbon are used interchangeably by the military and are being interpreted inaccurately by Kerry's opponents. To the general public, a medal is a shiny piece of metal on the end of a colorful ribbon i.e. an actual physical object. And a ribbon is a piece of cloth.

But to military people a medal has several related but distinct meanings. It is:

A) The award. A medal is an award received from the service that comes with the accompanying shiny piece of metal on a ribbon for full-dress wear and a piece of ribbon on a metal bracket to be inserted in the bank of ribbons or "fruit salad" worn on the chest for non-full-dress wear.

B) The physical object. The actual shiny piece of metal on a ribbon (which I am going to call a medallion for clarity's sake)

C) The type of award. A higher type of award, to be distinguished from ribbons which have only a ribbon and no corresponding medallion.

Similarly, a ribbon has several different meanings.

A) A type of low-end award.

B) A part of the uniform used in a "fruit salad" display on the breast of non-full dress uniforms to represent awards, both medals and ribbons. For example, I would wear a purple ribbon to represent a Purple Heart if I had in fact been awarded one.

C) A physical object, i.e. the piece of cloth used to hang the medallion from, or the pieces of cloth used in the "fruit salad" display.

I was in the Navy for seven years. All told, I received six awards when I was in the service -- three were of the type known as medals and three were of the type known as ribbons.

For full-dress occasions, such as a change of command ceremony, I wore the actual medallions on the left breast of my uniform to represent my medals and the three ribbons on the right breast to represent my ribbons.

But for non full-dress occasions such as standing a watch, I wore two rows of three ribbons on my left breast representing those same three medals and three ribbons. This is the familiar "fruit salad" configuration.

If I threw my fruit salad over a wall, it would be entirely consistent for me to refer to that as throwing my medals over the wall since there were both medals and ribbons represented in those pieces of cloth.

If I kept the actual medallions at home in a box, I could equally honestly say that I still have my medals (in the sense of the medallions) and never threw them over the wall.

I don't think Kerry lied, so much as he is using terms interchangeably that non-military people are completely