ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
The autopsy photos show that the wound from behind JFK was in his back, but WC defenders keep saying neck. Or is it possible that the WC defenders don't know the difference between the back and the neck.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Why are you stating that LNers "keep saying neck"? They do no such thing. LNers know the wound was in JFK's upper "back" (14 centimeters below the mastoid process), not in the "neck".
Can you, Tony, post some messages of LNers saying "neck" repeatedly, in order to back up your statement that LNers "keep saying neck"? (I doubt you can.)
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
WTF are you talking about? We had this long discussion about how Gerald Ford had changed it from Upper Back to NECK. Didn't you see the document?
Or maybe you never read the WC.
[Quoting from Page 87 of the Warren Report....]
"The President's Neck Wounds ---- During the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital another bullet wound was observed near the base of the back of President Kennedy's neck slightly to the right of his spine which provides further enlightenment as to the source of the shots."
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I thought you were implying that "WC defenders" ON THE INTERNET "keep saying neck", which is not true at all (of course).
Yes, I know the Warren Commission kept calling it a "NECK" wound (as did Arlen Specter for years in his TV interviews and debates).
But mostly the WC (and Specter) were referring to the COMBINATION of the BACK and NECK (THROAT) wounds when they used the word "neck" (and the bullet did, in fact, pass through an area that would qualify as the NECK, so in that regard, the Warren Commission was correct to say "neck" when they talked about the entry and exit holes as a UNIT).
I think the Warren Commission should have used the words "upper back" more often (to differentiate between the entry wound in the upper back and the exit wound in the neck/throat), but regardless of the words utilized, the Commission knew the entry wound was "14 cm. below the mastoid process", and that's not the neck, it's the upper back.
If it makes you happy to think the Warren Commission lied when it constantly said "NECK" in the Warren Report when "upper back" is probably technically more appropriate for the entry wound ALONE, go ahead and do cartwheels. But the entry wound never moved—it was always "14 cm. below the mastoid" (just like it says it the autopsy report)—and the Warren Commission knew this full well.
In my opinion, it's been a 50-year debate over semantics for the most part.
David Von Pein
January 5-13, 2018
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IN A 2015 DISCUSSION....
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Dr. Cyril Wecht has always maintained that measurements at an autopsy should be taken from "the mid-point of the body" and "from the top of the head".
OK, that sounds totally reasonable to me. But given those standards, it would still elicit the same basic concerns that a measurement from the "mastoid" would elicit. Why? Because the head is a movable part of the body. Therefore, the "TOP of the head" can be moved. It's not really "fixed", is it?
So the same concerns about the starting point for measurements can still easily be debated even when utilizing Dr. Wecht's "from the top of the head" recommendation. Unless, that is, the body is placed in a standard position, such as the autopsy or "anatomical" position. And the last time I checked, it's not possible for a dead body to STAND UP, and yet we still hear about the "anatomical position" being described in relation to autopsies on human bodies. (Go figure.)
And if the body is in the anatomical (autopsy) position, then a measurement from the mastoid process is probably just as reliable and accurate as measuring downward "from the top of the head".
[...]
The truth is, of course, that ANY "body landmark" is going to be FIXED (i.e., immobile) during a post-mortem examination---because wounds are being located from landmarks while the body is in the anatomic ("autopsy") position---rigid and straight. And that's true for the mastoid process or any other body landmark.
Do you, Martin [Hay], think that President Kennedy's mastoid process was moving all over the place while it was being used as a measuring landmark while JFK was lying flat on a table in an anatomic position? (And I have no reason to believe that the autopsy doctors were so stupid that they chose to measure distances on JFK's body while his body was in some position OTHER than the standard "autopsy" position. If the doctors started measuring distances while Kennedy's body was in some contorted or "bent over" position, then those doctors would, of course, deserve all the criticism I could blast them with. But I have no reason to believe they were THAT idiotic. Do you, Martin?)
While most pathologists might very well have measured the wounds from different body landmarks than those utilized by Dr. Humes in November 1963, it makes very little difference, because we DO have a SPECIFIC and PRECISE measurement for the back wound as it relates to a known body landmark on John F. Kennedy's body. You know it. I know it. The HSCA knew it.
So, once again, a huge useless mountain is being made out of total nothingness by a conspiracy theorist. And Martin Hay is dead wrong when he said this:
"The autopsy doctors did not record the precise location of the back wound. That is, was, and always will be a FACT no matter what David Von Pein says."
The above statement is a blatant falsehood and always will be for as long as Hay continues to spout such tommyrot. The precise location of JFK's back wound was most certainly located and all sensible people know it.
David Von Pein
March/April 2015
