I agree you don't leave your men, and when Eben jumps ship I'll probably still be in the boat
I don't know if you can really say Kerry "abandoned" his men though. At what point is enough enough? Unless you were there, I don't see how anyone can argue his wounds weren't really that bad etc...and of the limited people who do have firsthand experience the comments seem to go both ways.
The net of it all is that it doesn't really make much sense to be bickering over Kerry's purple hearts in a near Monty Python fashion when the coutry has real issues to solve.
You mention trust as being so important, and I agree it is one of the most important qualities in a leader.
So what you're saying is that you feel less trust in Kerry based on the behavior of a very young man fighting in a very nasty war...
...than you do in our current President, when (by current polls) almost half the country believes he misled the country on Iraq?
Something to ponder.
-spence