Even when one considers the rate of peacetime training accidents alone, military aviation is a somewhat risky endeavor; doing it in a wartime theater even moreso. Quite admittedly, getting into a car, a boat or a plane with a Kennedy seems to somehow multiply the hazard, and while I'm not a Kennedy fan by any stretch, I also believe that credit should be given where it is due.
I'm not sure what a “disservice” means, but the truth is this:
Joe Sr controlled and directed everything. And his directions were very simple: get Joe jr. something he can create a war record to run for President on, but is not likely to get him hurt. Numerous possibilities were considered. When the Navy was given B-24s to hunt subs with in the Atlantic, this was selected. A four engine plane was considered less likely to suffer a mechanical. His training was also delayed until it was certain the German Air Force had been swept from the skies over the Atlantic so there would be no chance of being shot down.
Unfortunately, by the time Joe Sr allowed Jr into combat, there were also no subs to hunt either. Compounding the issue was his brother's libido getting him sent to the Pacific, where he had become somewhat of a hero. Sr’s long term plan was that Jr would be President and JFK would be a historian. The plans were going seriously wrong as the historian would have a better war record than the President?
About that time the ‘flying bomb program’ came along. It was perfect. There was a lot of concern about sending unmanned aircraft crashing into cities, since the V-1 program was already known and being condemned as cowardly. How would it look to be essentially doing the same thing? The solution was to classify the program ultra top secret and seal the records for 30 years. And indeed, it was the 1970s before you could even find anyone that would admit it existed.
It was a Godsend for Joe Jr's required war record. He could say he had participated in a program so top secret that he still couldn't talk about it. And it was believed to be of minimal risk. Unfortunately his copilot didn't trust a portion of the system that was radio controlled. He jammed a wooden block into the mechanism to keep it from being actuated accidentally. That unfortunately let to an overheating that set off the bombs prematurely and killed both of them.
That's the truth. Service it how you will. I find very little of it to be even the least bit heroic. Especially when your consider what other people that served in the World War II, like my Dad, experienced.
I despise the Kennedys, but the mission Joe Jr died on seems to have been pretty high risk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aphrodite#Mission_theory