Posted on 09/29/2004 9:19:32 PM PDT by TomVan
Kerry's Military Records
This is more than an eye opener. Unlike McCain, Bush, and Gore... Kerry has adamantly refused to authorize the release of his military records. Most think it's because of his phony battle medals. I think the real reason is below. He was not granted an Honorable Discharge until March 2001, almost 30 years after his ostensible service term had ended! This is very much out of the ordinary, and highly suspect.
There are 5 classes of Discharge: Honorable, General, Other Than Honorable, Bad Conduct, and Dishonorable.
My guess is that he was Discharged in the '70s, but not Honorably. He appealed this sometime while Clinton was doing trouser-tricks in the Oval Office. Political pressure was applied, and the Honorable Discharge was then granted. His file is probably rife with reports of this, submissions and hearings on the appeal, reports of his "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy, along with protests that were filed with respect to his alleged valor under fire.
This will blow up in his face before October 15th.
================================================================
On 18 Feb. 1966 John Kerry signed a 6 year enlistment contract with the Navy (plus a 6-month extension during wartime).
On 18 Feb. 1966 John Kerry also signed an Officer Candidate contract for 6 years -- 5 years of ACTIVE duty &ACTIVE Naval Reserves, and 1 year of inactive standby reserves (See items #4 &$5).
Because John Kerry was discharged from TOTAL ACTIVE DUTY of only 3 years and 18 days on 3 Jan. 1970, he was then required to attend 48 drills per year, and not more than 17 days active duty for training. Kerry was also subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Additionally, Kerry, as a commissioned officer, was prohibited from making adverse statements against his chain of command or statements against his country, especially during time of war. It is also interesting to note that Kerry did not obtain an honorable discharge until Mar. 12, 2001 even though his service obligation should have ended July 1, 1972.
Lt. John Kerry's letter of 21 Nov. 1969 asking for an early release from active US Navy duty falsely states "My current regular period of obligated service would be completed in December of this year."
On Jan. 3, 1970 Lt. John Kerry was transferred to the Naval Reserve Manpower Center in Bainridge, Maryland.
Where are Kerry's Performance Records for 2 years of obligated Ready Reserve, the 48 drills per year required and his 17 days of active duty per year training while Kerry was in the Ready Reserves? Have these records been released?
Has anyone ever talked to Kerry's Commanding Officer at the Naval Reserve Center where Kerry drilled?
On 1 July 1972 Lt. John Kerry was transferred to Standby Reserve - Inactive.
On 16 February 1978 Lt. John Kerry was discharged from US Naval Reserve.
Below are some of the crimes Lt. Kerry USNR committed as a Ready Reservist, while he was acting as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War:
1. Lt. Kerry attended many rallies where the Vietcong flag was displayed while our flag was desecrated, defiled, and mocked, thereby giving aid and comfort to the enemy. 2. Lt. Kerry was involved in a meeting that voted on assassinating members of the US Senate. 3. Lt. Kerry lied under oath against fellow soldiers before the US Senate about crimes committed in Vietnam. 4. Lt. Kerry professed to being a war criminal on national television, and condemned the military and the USA. 5. Lt. Kerry met with NVA and Vietcong communist leaders in Paris, in direct violation of the UCMJ and the U.S. Constitution.
Lt. Kerry by his own words &actions violated the UCMJ and the U.S. Code while serving as a Navy officer. Lt. Kerry stands in violation of Article 3, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Lt. Kerry's 1970 meeting with NVA Communists in Paris is in direct violation of the UCMJ's Article 104 part 904, and U.S. Code 18 U.S.C. 953. That meeting, and Kerry's subsequent support of the communists while leading mass protests against our military in the year that followed, also place him in direct violation of our Constitution's Article 3, Section 3, which defines treason as "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy in time of warfare.
The Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, states, "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President ... having previously taken an oath . to support the Constitution of the United States, [who has] engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
A. L. "Steve" Nash, MAC Ret, UDT/SEAL SEAL Authentication Team -Director AuthentiSEAL Phone 707 438 0120 "The only service where all investigators are US Navy SEALs" www.authentiseal.org __________________________________________________
FWIW. I'm a 22-year Navy Chief. Ten of that as a Personnelman, the last 12 as a Master-at-Arms. I've no love lost for Kerry, but I don't think this will hold up to scrutiny.
Kerry has posted most of his Service Record on his website, including his Fitness Reports and his discharge certificate. They look like just like the pdf version of my own service record I received from the Bureau of Naval Personnel in February of this year including the "OFFICIAL RECORD COPY" watermark. These are old microfiche records the Navy is capturing to pdf and issuing to us on CD-ROM.
The posted records show he received an Honorable Discharge in Feb 78 as shown on the NAVPERS 1926/2 from the Naval Reserve Personnel Center in New Orleans. His first DD214 shows Honorable Discharge from OCS and the second characterizes his service as honorable as well. The first discharges him from his status as an officer candidate (paygrade E-5) to accept a commission, the other releases him from active duty and transfers him to the Naval Reserve. Whereupon he had a three-year service obligation to the Naval Reserve. Drill obligations aside, he was bound to his contract until 17 Feb 72.
It's important to understand here the difference between crusty old enlisted guys like me and silver spoon patrician officers like Kerry. I have a contract of finite term. At its expiration I either reenlist or I am discharged. Prior to becoming an officer, a midshipman or officer candidate typically signs an enlistment contract with the Navy. This is to ensure that Uncle Sugar gets his payback if the middie/candidate bilges out of training prior to commissioning. They are enlisted as officer candidates in paygrade E-5 and, if they've progressed far enough in their training when they bilge, they come to us in the fleet as enlisted Sailors to repay the Navy for its investment.
Kerry was honorably discharged in '66 and received his commission. Note that he had an initial active duty service obligation through 17 February 72. Further note that he was released from active duty on 03 Jan 70 at the convenience of the government (drawn down). But he still had a service obligation until 17 Feb 72.
So why no discharge in '72, Chief? Well, its because an officer, once commissioned, holds that commission (in Kerry's case a reserve commission) "at the pleasure of the President" until he resigns it or the government takes it away. It looks like Kerry was attrited by the Navy in '78. Nothing remarkable at all -- just the Navy pruning of dead wood.
Unless the posted records are a very, very good fakes (which we know the loyal opposition has not the wherewithal to create) or they're the genuine article. I don't think there's any shoaling water here for Kerry.
Ack! The link to the Kerry document didn't appear. Trying again...
http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/lit/election2004/docs.html
I'm rather confused, but the consensus has been 1978.
The honorable discharge looks like a form and only his name and the date are typed in.
After Rathergate, I sure don't want to assume these are real.
Unless Kerry signs Standard Form 180 and someone can examine certified copies or the originals, I wouldn't trust any form on his site. We've all been using the forms on Kerry's web site as our source, but I've never trusted them.
On the other hand, I've never seen any form with the date of 2001, so I think that is hogwash.
See link in #42
I've just gone back for a more careful gander, and will agree with your observation -- both dates are probably 1978. I still wonder why the discharges are described differently. The document that says only "Discharged..." was apparently prepared in 1985. I don't know when the other was prepared. The following link shows the history parts of the two documents (but clips the top and bottom, so no preparaton dates are visible):
http://www.tinyvital.com/BlogArchives/000802.html
Thanks Poly!
Can someone put a stake through the heart of this Nash crap. This keeps coming back. There is no factual basis to these allegations. We have official documents that prove otherwise. We give the Kerry camp a big softball down the middle of the plate to hit out of the park when we make such charges.
I call bulls--t! on this story
Well, thankfully we found some document to shed some light on it. I tell you, the IRR is a great deal. Once you finish up your active duty, you can pick and choose what you want to do and where you want to do your annual training. No weekend warrior stuff, and you don't have to be going with a whole unit (with all the assorted PITA stuff you have to do before deploying). You just pick up and leave. It's the military's greatest secret.
Welcome aboard, Chief.
The power of FreeRepublic is that, far from being "amateurs in pajamas", we are a vast collection of experience in almost any career in pajamas. When incorrect information is posted, as in this thread, several Freepers with years of experience in that particular field will set the record straight.
Contrast that to the FUBAR investigative methods at CBS News where rank amatuers on, say, 1970's typing technology and military terminology ask self-proclaimed "handwriting experts" with no formal training to authenticate a photocopy of an alleged typed military document from the 1970's.
As a Personnelman, you might enjoy how Kerry took the news media for a snipe hunt in regards to when he was "discharged" from the Navy in order to hide the fact that he was still a commissioned officer during his Vietnam Veterans Against the War days.
The Associated Press, all the newspapers that rely on the Associated Press and even John Kerry's own biographer in Tour of Duty fell for the lie that, in January 1970, Kerry "was honorably discharged and later joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War".
Kerry Deceives News Media About His Navy Discharge on JohnKerry.com
During the day I read through the comments again and note that I sorta said the same thing others have said in earlier posts. (It was early and I had a low-level alarm on the port coffee tank.)
When I saw the first post here about the possibility that Kerry earned himself something other than an Honorable Discharge because of his danse du traître with the enemy, I started digging. I knew it was just too good to be true. And so it is.
I'm not sure what the SF-180 would ever get us. It looks to me like most of his service record is on the website. I don't think the contents of officer service records of the late 60's early 70's were very much different from those I dealt with in the early 80's. A few standard/required documents and a separate "junk folder" of correspondence, letters of qualification, etc. Officer service records always seemed designed to "protect the guilty" whereas the enlisted records were the permanent repository for every misstep and shortcoming a Sailor ever had -- forever. (Which, IMHO, there'll never be a retired Navy Chief in any position which requires a clean slate back to womb... we'd never pass muster.)
What I did do with the documents was to "board" them just like I'd do for a Sailor up for promotion or special program. I looked for continuity of his fitness reports and the telltale marks of "being damned with faint praise." I those days the art of writing evaluations and fitness reports was predicated on the careful balance of hyperbole, exaggeration, and unverifiable qualitative statements... of which there seem to the jaundiced eye of this Old Hook more than a few. It was the product of ADM Rickover's "zero defect" culture. We started at perfect and did everything we would to ensure that our imperfections never made it to paper. A miserable system for identifying the hopeless, hapless, and mediocre.
What I found was, for that era, good continuity and the usual fluff. "LT(jg) Kerry is the best thing since nuclear power and flush toilets." Nothing damning and nothing spectacular either. It doesn't amount to a tinker's dam. He was just your average officer. Well-educated, not particularly thrilled to be in the Navy (or in service to anyone for that matter), biding his time while minimizing personal exposure to anything dangerous, and looking for the brow.
If he were my division officer, I suspect that he and I would have had some very... intense... conversations about leadership, loyalty, service, and the care and feeding of Sailors.
As he stands today, I wouldn't cross the street to urinate on him.
BTW, sent my absentee ballot back home today. That's at least one vote for W.
I was a short-termer in the Navy and took the middies on shakedown.
I received an Honorable Discharge from the Regular Navy and signed up for a six or nine-year period for Inactive Reserve.(Can't remember which.) Received another HD from the Reserve before that period expired when I joined the Air Force in the mid-50's.
My only point here being but to state that for enlisted personnel, real paper Honorable Discharges are given when a discrete service period has ended, and that you can't be a member of more than one branch of service at a time, (can't draw double pay) though aggregate time accrued can count towards retirement -- even reserve time. Is that correct?
Thank you for your kind words. Things are a helluva lot different now. Paint fumes, bad. "Human Capital Index Score", good. (Or so I'm told....)
Anyway, you're correct on discharge certificates. All us enlisted pukes get a nice little geedunk certificate at the close out of every hitch dated the day before we reenlist. Officers get one at the end of their officer candidate/service academy time, and, eventually, when they resign their commissions. Those of us who've endured the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune for 20 qualifying years of service are transferred to the Fleet Reserve until we reach age 60 when we are ultimately retired. The intervening years we are on retainer... and aggravating the hell out of docs at the clinic, the young ones in the exchange, and our wives (who generally aren't prepared for us to be on permanent shore duty).
And, no, one can't serve in more than one branch of service at a time. A good Personnelman will get into a fine lather if the dates of service for servicemember who's come from another service or the reserves are just so. E.g., "Shipmate, you just CAN'T have enlisted in the Navy on 01 Oct 2003 when you weren't discharged from the Air Force until 01 Oct 2003!" No gaps! No overlaps! Makes the pay guys even more apoplectic.
And, yes, all your time counts for pay and retirement. Except for delayed entry time (the waiting time from enlistment to boot camp) of most. Some of us got a few months credit for it. However, the active and reserve retirement systems are different and THAT is course of instruction all unto itself....
I agree who cares what happned 30 years ago. There is no way on GOD's green earth we would ever drag his sorry rear end into a court of law. But we sink his sorry swift boat hero image in the senate! Let us not forget he had voted aginst the will of the People everytime!
BTTT
Detailed analysis of Kerry discharge now online at
http://www.vetsforbush.net/kerry-oth-discharge.pdf
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.