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Posted on 08/10/2004 11:57:57 PM PDT by Tamzee
Senator John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate who is trading on his Vietnam war record to campaign against President George W Bush, tried to defer his military service for a year, according to a newly rediscovered article in a Harvard University newspaper.
He wrote to his local recruitment board seeking permission to spend a further 12 months studying in Paris, after completing his degree course at Yale University in the mid-1960s.
The revelation appears to undercut Sen Kerry's carefully-cultivated image as a man who willingly served his country in a dangerous war - in supposed contrast to President Bush, who served in the Texas National Guard and thus avoided being sent to Vietnam.
The Harvard Crimson newspaper followed a youthful Mr Kerry in Boston as he campaigned for Congress for the first time in 1970. In the course of a lengthy article, "John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress", published on February 18, the paper reported: "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."
Samuel Goldhaber, the article's author who is now a cardiologist attached to the Harvard School of Medicine, spent 11 hours trailing Mr Kerry and still remembers that the subject of the Paris deferment came up during long conversations about Vietnam.
"I stand by my story," he told The Telegraph. "It was a long time ago, and I was 19 at the time, so it is hard to remember every detail. But I do know this: at no point did Kerry contact either me or the Crimson to dispute anything I had written."
Sen Kerry's campaign headquarters in Washington refused an opportunity to deny the report. Despite repeated telephone calls from The Telegraph, a spokesman refused to comment. Another Democrat official said merely: "In Vietnam, John Kerry proved his patriotism beyond question. Everyone knows that."
A senior Republican strategist, who asked not to be named, said: "I've not heard this before. This undercuts Kerry's complaints about Bush and it continues to pose questions as to his credibility among ordinary Vietnam veterans."
He said it would fuel concerns over the way Sen Kerry made a name for himself by leading anti-war protests in Washington and Boston in the late 1960s and early 1970s after he had completed his service in the US Navy, even while his former comrades continued to fight and die.
A newly-published biography of Sen Kerry by Douglas Brinkley, A Tour of Duty, makes no mention of the requested deferment or planned year in Paris. At the time, it was still unclear just how long America would remain in Vietnam, and it might have seemed that a year's deferral of service could render enlistment unnecessary.
According to the Democratic Party's version of Sen Kerry's military history, he joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Harvard through eagerness to do his duty, and sailed with the Navy for combat as soon as he graduated in 1966.
Sen Kerry won a gallantry medal for his service as a gunboat captain on the Mekong Delta, and was honorably discharged with three "purple heart" medals after sustaining three wounds. He has consistently presented himself as a leader who argued against the war only after fulfilling his duty in the field. Supporters argue that his war record makes him a more trustworthy leader than President Bush, who served sporadically in the National Guard at home.
"This means that Kerry didn't jump into all that heroic service until he was pushed, and it is a very nice piece of information," said Lucianne Goldberg, a prominent Republican campaigner.
Republican strategists for President Bush were already investigating Sen Kerry's record of three wounds sustained in Vietnam. "We find that he had only one day off sick - with three wounds? What exactly were these wounds?" she asked.
Mr Goldhaber recalled that, during a day spent with Sen Kerry and one assistant during his congressional campaign, he had described his involvement, service and decision to oppose the war in great detail.
"I am not at all surprised that he wants to be president, because he exuded ambition from the word go," said Dr Goldhaber. "At the time, the idea that he tried to persuade the draft board to let him spend a year in Paris was just a detail."
A spokesman for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign declined to comment.
Hannity didn't seem to know on tonight's show.
Kerry's campaign representative was on Hannity and Colmes and kept repeating that Kerry was a hero who volunteered completely willingly to go to Vietnam and how DARE anyone challenge his service there... Hannity said not a word about Kerry's attempt to avoid Vietnam service.
Because when he first requested swift boat assignment, they were still only patrolling the coast.
Boston Globe, 6/16/2003: ........"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."
Bingo! Right on! There is nothing more potent in revealing a person's worthiness than how their current views/proclamations stand against their own prior statements.
IMPORTANT !!!!
31 - Thanks for finding that post from the old days - it appears Kerry hasn't changed, he wants to subordinate the US foreign policy to the UN. Look closely at this part of the article:
"Kerry said that the United Nations should have control over most of our foreign military operations. "I'm an internationalist. I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations."
On other issues, Kerry wants "to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care." He also favors a negative income tax and keeping unemployment at a very low level, "even if it means selective economic controls."
I have to agree. If this is an indictment of Kerry's character, than it is of a lot of guys who went on the serve honorably. Not many people were eager to go to Vietnam. Trying to buy a year is no great moral failing.
I sent the article to both Rush and Sean. I suggest others do the same. This guy only volunteered because his deferment was rejected. He wasn't a willing volunteer, he calculated that if he joined the Navy he wouldn't see combat. Others may say that this was normal behavior back in those days and you may be right. But the point is he's still not telling the truth about why and how he joined up.
Who is this Douglas Brinkley fellow? Is he any relation to Respected Historian Douglas Brinkley? I'm pretty sure that Respected Historian Douglas Brinkley would not miss so pertinent a fact when writing his complete, unbiased and authoritative biography of Vietnam Hero John F. Kerry.
They were at the time he did, but as in any war it was subject to change as the war heated up. It's probably the same reason he choose the Navy over the other branches too.
ping
And the unravelling continues.
What does matter is that they are lying when they pretend that he "chose" or "volunteered" to go to Vietnam. And it matters that he lying about his service there, and that he undermined the troops that were left behind in Vietnam when he came home.
Wow, i hadn't heard about this before. Sort of takes the shine off the shinola. I have nothing against someone wanting to get a draft deferment, but I do have something against them lying about it (or cultivating a false impression about how they were gung ho to get to the war zone, etc).
Dreams of PT-109, TAKE MY CAMERA!
He wrote his draft board and said (all together now) "DON'T SEND ME!!"
So he tried to avoid Vietnam by asking the draft board for a deferral
HUH? Thought he pulled out his trusty Zippo.
Shaking my head.
A flood of lies out of the mouth of JFKerry on his travels to become president.
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