This was posted as a link on the Goatlocker. I read it and thought some of you may.
Jim Hampton BTCM-USN-RET
Kerry's qualifications for the presidency
By James F. Kelly Jr.
August 12, 2004
I've been receiving a lot of queries lately about things that did or did not happen during the time John Kerry and I served together in the Navy. I've also received large quantities of reading material, mostly e-mail and mostly unpersuasive, from people attempting to trash, for political purposes, his relatively brief combat service in Swift Boats. I have also declined offers to join groups attempting to discredit him on the basis of his naval service.
Kerry and I served together on the Gridley in 1967 and 1968. The Gridley was a new guided missile frigate, later reclassified with the rest of the ships in her class as a guided missile cruiser. Ensign Kerry was first lieutenant, the division officer in charge of the deck force consisting of about 30 sailors. I was a commander serving as executive officer, or second in command.
The officers reporting directly to me were the department heads, mostly lieutenant commanders. Kerry reported to the weapons officer, one of the department heads, but had daily direct contact with me because of his responsibilities for deck seamanship, the ship's four boats and the external appearance of the ship and also because of his collateral duty as public affairs officer, a position I had previously filled in an aircraft carrier.
Kerry was a fine junior officer – intelligent, responsible and hardworking. Moreover, he possessed these qualities in degrees not common in inexperienced ensigns. His fitness reports (evaluations) that I drafted for the captain's signature reflected those qualities and more. He earned them.
We first received orders for Kerry to report while we were still deployed to the South China Sea and the Tonkin Gulf area. We had a rescue helicopter detachment on board, berthing was tight and we had no immediate need for another junior officer, so we decided that the best use of his services was to remain stateside filling required school quotas until we returned to Long Beach.
After a turnaround of less than eight months, the Gridley deployed again in February 1968 with Ensign Kerry on board. Much of that tour was, like the previous one, spent on search-and-rescue duty, providing support to the carrier and assistance to downed aviators and aircraft in distress.
We returned to Long Beach in June 1968, and Kerry left shortly after for Swift Boat training. He spent a little over four months on combat duty in the rivers of South Vietnam and was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. He left the Navy after his obligated service tour, joined the anti-war protest movement, entered politics and the rest, as they say, is history.
Kerry refers to his approximately one-year tour on the Gridley as tedious and monotonous. He has little to say about that one-third of his naval career because, he says, not much happened. You could have fooled me. I thought it was rather exciting. I have spoken with many of our former shipmates, and they seemed to feel that we were actually doing something important back then. I'm sure, however, that it seemed tame in retrospect compared to his four months on the rivers with the brown water Navy.
After much urging by former shipmates, I read Douglas Brinkley's account of Kerry's service in "Tour of Duty" (William Morrow: New York, 2004). In a chapter entitled "High Seas Adventures" (perhaps "adventures" is a bit strong, considering the boredom and monotony), Brinkley describes, in near heroic terms, Kerry's duties onboard the Gridley. I may have forgotten some of the awesome responsibilities that we heaped upon Ensign Kerry, but I'm sure that he handled those well, also. There's a good deal of hyperbole in that chapter, but then a little exaggeration is normal, I guess, when it comes to describing the past exploits of presidential candidates.
Be all that as it may, Kerry was a fine junior officer – one of the best I've served with. I can't comment on the four months or so on the rivers of Vietnam because I wasn't there. Others who weren't there shouldn't comment on them either. Nor will I second-guess his awards nor should anyone else unless they can prove for certain that the citations misstated the facts and that somebody lied. Thirty-five years later is no time to be questioning them. And besides, what does all of this have to do with his qualifications for president?
Kerry spent less than a year and a half on sea duty, much less than that in the combat zone. Most of the rest of his service obligation was spent in school. His service to his country is commendable, and his decorations attest to the quality of that service and to his bravery. To make this service the centerpiece of his presidential campaign 35 years later, however, is ludicrous.
Kerry's credentials to be commander in chief of the armed forces are flawed by his anti-war protest activities while his comrades were still fighting and dying. They are further soiled by his outrageous accusations of atrocities committed by his comrades in a war in which belligerents posed as civilians.
A three-year tour of service, even heroic service, does not qualify one to be president. Of far more relevance is his 19 years in the Senate, becoming its most liberal member and opposing most defense legislation. On this, his campaign is virtually silent and for very good reason: His record in public life has little to commend it to voters concerned about the defense of the United States against international terrorism.
Most of the rest of his service obligation was spent in school.
And yet NO SCHOOLS are listed on his DD-214???