I dont understand how everything worked back then, but Kerry's honorable discharge certificate is dated 1978. He enlisted in 1968, thats a ten year difference. OK he received a dd214 from training, and one from active duty(presumably from vietnam service) those encompass appx 3 years of service. Which is a normal enlistmenet period for today, I do not know about the vietnam era. But I have never heard about a ten year initial enlistment, even for a officer generally its 8 years which means assuming it was an 8 year enlistment there was a period of 2 years before he receive an honorable discharge, that just does not smell right. He should have received one immediately at the end of his initial contract period.
ps. I forgot to mention he should have received a dd214 at the end of his initial enlistment also, which is why this smells funny.
Maybe Kerry was discarged from the Navy before he wasn't discharged from the Navy or something like that. The fact that Kerry has the ability to flip flop on anything would explain the different discharges and when he was in and out of the navy.
The explaination would be as simple as that.
During Vietnam all enlistments were for 6 years. You enlisted for active duty depending on the branch or whether you were drafted, but you never got a discharge till 6 years later. THe balance of active and reserve, whether active or inactive totalled 6 years.
Naval officers must formally and proactively request a release from their commission from the Secretary Of The Navy. There is no such thing as an "automatic termination" of a commission.
Sorry for yelling, just so many innacuracies on this thread.
Those officers who do not formally request a release from their Naval commission are effectively in the inactive reserves forever.
Kerry evidently waited until 1977/78 to make that request. There's nothing mysterious about it at all.