Well, just to keep things straight, I think he volunteered for the swiftboats. I remember when BUPERS sent out communications trying to get volunteers from the fleet for what the euphemistically referred to as "shore duty". I believe the "brown water navy" was made up of such volunteers.
I have the distinct feeling Kerry was aiming at becoming a Navy "lifer" until that moment. From then on his ambition was an early out!
Page 153 of Unfit For Command refers to Kerry's statements of April 18,1971 on Meet the Press......" yes, I committed the same kinds of atrocities as THOUSANDS of other soldiers" yada,yada. He will probably make a weak attempt at an "explanation" today in Tenn. Too little......33 years too late!
"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."
But two weeks after he arrived in Vietnam, the swift boat mission changed -- and Kerry went from having one of the safest assignments in the escalating conflict to one of the most dangerous. Under the newly launched Operation SEALORD, swift boats were charged with patrolling the narrow waterways of the Mekong Delta to draw fire and smoke out the enemy. Cruising inlets and coves and canals, swift boats were especially vulnerable targets.
Kerry - Boston Globe (Candidate Part 2)
http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061603.shtml