Posted on 08/27/2004 4:41:58 AM PDT by kristinn
In the midst of the controversy between the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and Kerry campaign representatives about Kerry's service in Vietnam, new questions have arisen.
The Kerry campaign has repeatedly stated that the official naval records prove the truth of Kerry's assertions about his service.
But the official records on Kerry's Web site only add to the confusion. The DD214 form, an official Defense Department document summarizing Kerry's military career posted on johnkerry.com, includes a "Silver Star with combat V."
But according to a U.S. Navy spokesman, "Kerry's record is incorrect. The Navy has never issued a 'combat V' to anyone for a Silver Star."
Naval regulations do not allow for the use of a "combat V" for the Silver Star, the third-highest decoration the Navy awards. None of the other services has ever granted a Silver Star "combat V," either.
Fake claims not uncommon
B.G. Burkett, a Vietnam veteran himself, received the highest award the Army gives to a civilian, the Distinguished Civilian Service Award, for his book Stolen Valor. Burkett pored through thousands of military service records, uncovering phony claims of awards and fake claims of military service. "I've run across several claims for Silver Stars with combat V's, but they were all in fake records," he said.
Burkett recently filed a complaint that led last month to the sentencing of Navy Capt. Roger D. Edwards to 115 days in the brig for falsification of his records.
Kerry's Web site also lists two different citations for the Silver Star. One was issued by the commander in chief of the Pacific Command (CINCPAC), Adm. John Hyland. The other, issued by Secretary of the Navy John Lehman during the Reagan administration, contained some revisions and additional language. "By his brave actions, bold initiative, and unwavering devotion to duty, Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry reflected great credit upon himself... ."
One award, three citations
But a third citation exists that appears to be the earliest. And it is not on the Kerry campaign Web site. It was issued by Vice Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, commander of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam. This citation lacks the language in the Hyland citation or that added by the Lehman version, but includes another 170 words in a detailed description of Kerry's attack on a Viet Cong ambush, his killing of an enemy soldier carrying a loaded rocket launcher, as well as military equipment captured and a body count of dead enemy.
Maj. Anthony Milavic, a retired Marine Vietnam veteran, calls the issuance of three citations for the same medal "bizarre." Milavic hosts Milinet, an Internet forum popular with the military community that is intended "to provide a forum in military/political affairs."
Normally in the case of a lost citation, Milavec points out, the awardee simply asked for a copy to be sent to him from his service personnel records office where it remains on file. "I have never heard of multi-citations from three different people for the same medal award," he said. Nor has Burkett: "It is even stranger to have three different descriptions of the awardee's conduct in the citations for the same award."
So far, there are also two varying citations for Kerry's Bronze Star, one by Zumwalt and the other by Lehman as secretary of the Navy, both posted on johnkerry.com.
Kerry's Web site also carries a DD215 form revising his DD214, issued March 12, 2001, which adds four bronze campaign stars to his Vietnam service medal. The campaign stars are issued for participation in any of the 17 Department of Defense named campaigns that extended from 1962 to the cease-fire in 1973.
However, according to the Navy spokesman, Kerry should only have two campaign stars: one for "Counteroffensive, Phase VI," and one for "Tet69, Counteroffensive."
94 pages of records unreleased?
Reporting by the Washington Post's Michael Dobbs points out that although the Kerry campaign insists that it has released Kerry's full military records, the Post was only able to get six pages of records under its Freedom of Information Act request out of the "at least a hundred pages" a Naval Personnel Office spokesman called the "full file."
What could that more than 100 pages contain? Questions have been raised about President Bush's drill attendance in the reserves, but Bush received his honorable discharge on schedule. Kerry, who should have been discharged from the Navy about the same time -- July 1, 1972 -- wasn't given the discharge he has on his campaign Web site until July 13, 1978. What delayed the discharge for six years? This raises serious questions about Kerry's performance while in the reserves that are far more potentially damaging than those raised against Bush.
Experts point out that even the official military records get screwed up. Milavic is trying to get mistakes in his own DD214 file corrected. In his opinion, "these entries are not prima facie evidence of lying or unethical behavior on the part of Kerry or anyone else with screwed-up DD214s."
Burkett, who has spent years working with the FBI, Department of Justice and all of the military services uncovering fraudulent files in the official records, is less charitable: "The multiple citations and variations in the official record are reason for suspicion in itself, even disregarding the current swift boat veterans' controversy."
* bump *
All this, and we haven't even gotten to the part about the VVAW yet. :-)
Is this guy a staff writer? Or a columnist?
What could the rest of the documents contain? The Kerry 'rope a dope strategy'?
I love the smell of TRUTH in the morning! it smells like French toast.
Woohoo!!! The best part of this story is that it is published in the MSM. Liberals in Chicago will be getting nauseous over breakfast reading this one.
OOOOPS!
Kerry's Record: The gift that keeps on giving.
It doesn't look like he is a staff writer from the end of the article. This was in the paper's news section-not the columnists' section.
Didn't some Navy officer, Admiral, I think, commit suicide over something like this a few years ago? Not to worry, though; no need to put Kerry on suicide watch. He has no shame.
All this and we haven't gotten to the Paris meetings yet. All this and we haven't gotten to the denial of any American POW's still in VietNam and the shredding of records in order to hurry normalization of relations with Hanoi yet. :^)
Prairie
The Clinton Administration was crippled by his lies.
Gore lost in 2000, in part because people saw him as unprincipled.
Kerry is both a liar and unprincipled.
And Hillary wants to run in 2008? Can the Dems take another scoundrel as their Presidential Nominee? I think her hopes are actually sinking now too.
The truth is poison to John Kerry.
Kerry is a fraud who has no record of accomplishment in the Senate that he willing to even discuss with the American people and apparently his war record is, at the very least, questionable. He continues to run on a record of 4 months as a junior grade officer on a Swift boat in Vietnam and insists these 4 months have made him more qualified to lead the nation than a President who has lead us through 3 years of a worldwide war on terror.
I think Maureen Dowd wrote the wrong book. Kerryworld: Enter at Your Own Risk would have been a super seller.
Yes, Admiral Boorda. For -wearing- a medal with a combat "V" that others had said was unearned. I suspect Admiral Boorda had more going on his life, but the impending press scrutiny "pushed him over the edge."
Drip... drip.... drip...
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