At My Alma Mater

Terry McAuliffe spoke to my alma mater yesterday. Here's something from his speech:

"You go to Kerry's office, you've got [a flag] from his swift boat hanging on the wall and it is riddled with bullets," McAuliffe said.

Here's something from the Kerry website, talking about where he keeps his medals*:

He walked across his study to a secondary desk with clutter on top, mainly books, and opened the top right drawer. This is where he keeps all of his war medals.

"Nothing too fancy," he said as he pointed to the various boxes in which his medals were kept. "They don't bring back good memories." After glancing at them briefly we went back to our taped interview.

I'm confused. Does he proudly display memorabilia from his time in Vietnam or does he keep it in the drawer of an unused desk? If he does both, why would a bullet-riddled flag have better memories than medals he earned?

Unfortunately, the only answers I can think of are rather unkind things to think about a veteran (or the DNC Chairman) so maybe one of my readers can think of a good explanation.


*If this quote looks familiar, it is because I previously wrote an entry about this article.