Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004 12:08 a.m. EDT
Navy Challenging Kerry's Medals
The United States Navy is challenging the authenticity of Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam War medals, in a development that could prove to be the most damaging yet to the embattled Democrat's presidential campaign.
A Navy spokesman is calling Kerry's Silver Star citation with Combat V "incorrect" as it appears on his campaign web site, explaining in an interview with Chicago Sun-Times reporter Thomas Lipscomb that the Navy has never issued a Combat V at any time for the Silver Star.
The Navy is also questioning the listing on Kerry’s web site for four bronze campaign stars for his service in Vietnam. The official naval record credits Kerry with just two Vietnam campaigns.
"That is sufficient for the wearing of the Vietnam Service Medal for one campaign bearing one campaign star for the additional campaign — not four," reports Lipscomb in today's New York Sun.
Kerry's campaign has repeatedly cited the Navy as the ultimate authority on the candidate's war record, saying they wouldn't have awarded him medals he didn't deserve.
But with the Navy now publicly challenging Kerry's decorations, that defense has been rendered inoperative.
Noting that Kerry has refused to authorize the release of his full military records, the legal watchdog group Judicial Watch called on Kerry this week to remove any questionable citations from his Web site pending a formal investigation by the Navy.
"It is to your best interest to have your record in good order," General Thomas Wilkerson, the president of the U.S. Naval Institute, told Lipscomb. "If it is wrong, you are accountable. And if you use it to advance your career, it is even more important.”
Silver Star citation (both of them )itself doesn't mention a "V". It's the DD214 that does, probably a bored clerk's typo.