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What bothered me about this article saying Kerry "only served" four months on a tour is that he had a cushy job on the big ship and opted to volunteer for his second tour of duty on a swift boat. In other words he took himself off the easy duty and into the harder combat seeing duty. That has to count for something.
That is what Kerry and the Democrats want us to believe and that is the version they are putting out. However, that version is pure Bravo Sierra and is not supported by the facts or by Kerry's own statements.
It would indeed be extremely admirable if Kerry had knowingly taken "himself off the easy duty and into the harder combat seeing duty".
However, Kerry never volunteered for combat or any duty he dreamed would get him into combat.
Kerry was the First Division Officer when he served on the USS Gridley.
What is "First Division"?
First Division is one of the "Deck Divisions" on a ship. In Navy slang, the "Deck Apes". They swab the decks. They chip paint. They paint the areas they finished chipping. After that, they swab, they chip and they paint some more. The bottom of the class at Navy Boot Camp ends up in a Deck Division.
In the Ward Room, the First Division Officer is the lowest guy in the ship's officers pecking order. When the XO or the CO need an S.L.J.O. (Shitty Little Jobs Officer), the First Division Officer is the guy that gets the job.
Kerry was in charge of the least skilled sailors in the lowest prestige division on his ship and, apparently, his C.O., Captain Slifer, was not making life very pleasant for our Boston Blue Blood who was more used to sailing on John F. Kennedy's yacht.
What to do?
Swift boats!
At the time, swift boats merely patrolled the coastline or ferried sailors between ships.
Most importantly, a lowly Lt.(j.g.) was the Officer in Charge (OIC).
Instead of being the SLJO on the USS Gridley, in charge of Deck Ape Division, with Captain Slifer making his life miserable, Kerry pictured himself as the OIC of his own boat, roaring up and down the South China Sea out of the war and with no Captain Slifer anywhere in sight.
But, don't take my word for it.
Let's hear it from John F. Kerry himself:
Two weeks after Kerry assumed command of his swift boat, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt put into effect his idea of getting those swift boats out of glorified water skiing duty........
.......into the shooting war in the rivers of the Mekong Delta.
Oooooops.
As Robert Burns once wrote, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."
Kerry signed up for being OIC of his own water skiing boat and here he was in the middle of a friggin war!!
What does Kerry do now after he has gone from glorified water skier straight into deep kim-chee?
Well, Kerry then proceeds to rack up three Purple Hearts for "injuries" that kept him off duty for a grand total of.....drum roll, please..... two days of duty by his own admission and zero days according to his swift boat squadron C.O.
Kerry then sea-lawyered himself out of combat after only four months and requested a transfer as an "Admiral's aide", preferably in "Boston, New York or Washington".
When the Boston Globe asked Kerry to give permission for the release of his Navy medical records so that the Boston Globe could document what sort of injuries earned Kerry three Purple Hearts and a ticket out of combat after 4 months.........Kerry refused.
Every decision and/or request John F. Kerry ever made; from First Division Officer to swift boat OIC; from swift boat OIC to early termination of his combat tour; from early termination of his combat tour to Admiral's aide; from Admiral's aide to early discharge from active duty; from early discharge from active duty to politically-popular-in-Massachusets American-G.I.'s-are-war-criminals anti-war protestor.....
Every decision and/or request John F. Kerry ever made in his Navy career was made to further the comfort, safety and political ambitions of John F. Kerry.