Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Navy Discharge

New York Sun ^ | 10/13/2004 | BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB - Special to the Sun

[politicket]

Excerpt:

Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Navy Discharge

BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB - Special to the Sun
October 13, 2004
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/3107

An official Navy document on Senator Kerry's campaign Web site listed as Mr. Kerry's "Honorable Discharge from the Reserves" opens a door on a well kept secret about his military service.

The document is a form cover letter in the name of the Carter administration's secretary of the Navy, W. Graham Claytor. It describes Mr. Kerry's discharge as being subsequent to the review of "a board of officers." This in it self is unusual. There is nothing about an ordinary honorable discharge action in the Navy that requires a review by a board of officers.

According to the secretary of the Navy's document, the "authority of reference" this board was using in considering Mr. Kerry's record was "Title 10, U.S. Code Section 1162 and 1163. "This section refers to the grounds for involuntary separation from the service. What was being reviewed, then, was Mr. Kerry's involuntary separation from the service. And it couldn't have been an honorable discharge, or there would have been no point in any review at all. The review was likely held to improve Mr. Kerry's status of discharge from a less than honorable discharge to an honorable discharge.

A Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, was asked whether Mr. Kerry had ever been a victim of an attempt to deny him an honorable discharge. There has been no response to that inquiry.

The document is dated February 16, 1978. But Mr. Kerry's military commitment began with his six-year enlistment contract with the Navy on February 18, 1966. His commitment should have terminated in 1972. It is highly unlikely that either the man who at that time was a Vietnam Veterans Against the War leader, John Kerry, requested or the Navy accepted an additional six year reserve commitment. And the Claytor document indicates proceedings to reverse a less than honorable discharge that took place sometime prior to February 1978.

The most routine time for Mr. Kerry's discharge would have been at the end of his six-year obligation, in 1972. But how was it most likely to have come about?

[Flamenco Lady]

Does anyone have all of the Navy records saved that Kerry has had on his website to date?

I posted earlier on this thread that I remember reading in one of Kerry's records a brief reference to a JAG or Judicial something, when I first looked at the records Kerry had posted online. My hubby reminded me of it when I saw this article posted this a.m. I saw the document on his website before I signed up at FR, so it might not be there now. Every time I try to open up a PDF file today it is locking up my computer, so I haven't been able to check to see if it is still there or not.

I am racking my brain trying to remember which document it was on, but I can't remember for sure. It may have been a cover letter that went along with another document, that had a signature of someone from JAG.

Maybe an industrious person on the thread can take a look through and see if they can find anything. At the time my hubby and I both thought it was odd that there was a reference to JAG or judicial anything in his records.

(My gut tells me it may have been a response letter to a request by Kerry for some record, and that the record was with it. Maybe one of his DD214's, revised record or something, I just can't remember and its driving me nuts!!!!!)

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

Funny how the Senatrix predicted this:

Tuesday, March 30, 2004 12:36 p.m. EST
Hillary Predicts October Surprise

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is predicting that this year's presidential election will be very tight and the victor will win because of "something unforeseen."

"It will be very close," the former first lady tells the New York Post's Cindy Adams.

On how the contest will ultimately be decided, Clinton said, "It will be outside forces - something unforeseen that suddenly happens - that tilts the election one way or the other."

In 1992, Clinton's husband won the White House after Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted on Iran-Contra charges four days before the vote. Though the indictment was later overturned, the charges were enough to reverse President Bush 41's last-minute surge in the polls to within one point of Clinton.

In 2000 - again four days before the vote - a Democrat operative in Maine uncovered court records from Bush 43's then-24-year-old DUI stop. Bush's 5-point lead in Florida dwindled to a mere 537 votes, with the DUI news making Gore the popular vote winner nationwide.

[cajun scpo]

I agree 100% that sKerry should release his records like he said he would on Meet the Press and along with his surrogates has claimed he has 100 times since.

These are things worth looking into. I have. But as much as I despise sKerry, without facts, anything else is speculation [like claims by Bush haters that AFR forms meant he had been transferred to a disciplinary unit in Colorado - ANG by law is part of Air Force Reserve [AFR], AFR forms are the norm].

[Pharlap]

Actually, Kerry has put his approach into practice. Just compare his "two" Cambodian experiences (neither of which ever happened). First, his Christmas experience which supposedly resulted in his "seared-in me" memory that became a pivoted point in his life, an epiphany that turned him against the war and shaped his post Vietnam actions. Second, there is his, equally apocryphal, participation in a CIA mission in Cambodia, which Kerry fondly, even cavalierly, remembers. This experience is described by Laura Blumenfeld in a Washington Post article on Kerry. (See "Hunter, Dreamer, Realist", washingtonpost.com, June 1, 2003, at p. A01.) To add emphasis to this story, Kerry put on a camouflage hat he kept in a "secret compartment" in his attache case. He called it his "good luck hat" and said it was "given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia." The first experience is a completely negative account that supposedly changed his life and resulted in, among other things, his protesting of the Vietnam War, his appearance in Paris during the peace negotiations to meet with representatives of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong delegations, and, later, his support for Daniel Ortega. The second is a totally positive account, with souvenir and all, that is macho in import, resumable intended to show Kerry's dash and valor. One memory portrays his having "fought in Vietnam", the other memory shows that he "fought against the Vietnam War." These diametrically opposed recollections tell us a great deal about the psyche and character of John Kerry, the man who would be President and commander-in-Chief, They demonstrate not only how calculating (Broder's observation), even pathological, is Kerry's need to self-promote; but, more importantly, they provide first person evidence (his own statements) of how willfully Kerry has manipulated these "Cambodia's experiences" to advance his political ambitions.

[SisBoombah]

The second this was reported in the NYSun, it became Old News...

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I'm not surprised by any of this. My only question is: how much did he have to pay Klinton to get him to ramrod an honorable discharge through almost 30 years after the fact?

And, I still submit that all the people saying Kerry "served his country honorably" are full of crap.

[An American In Dairyland]

>>> eFing's discharge is here: http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Honorable_Discharge_From_Reserve.pdf <<<<

The document above is not Kerry's Honorable Discharge certificate. If you read through this document you will note that the Honorable Discharge certificate under #3 was enclosed with this transmittal document.

I don't know whether or not Kerry has scanned the actual Honorable Discharge certificate on his website but if it is there it would be a more "fancy" looking form something like a high school diploma looks.

[jschwartz]

There's only one woman in the world smart enough to get this information into the right hands at the right time and she isn't Craig Livingstone.

[An American In Dairyland]

His records might not be available, but what about Carters? Surely his library would have some records of pardons granted by him.

What about Kerry's FBI file? Possibly something about a dishonorable discharge might be there? Aren't those files available via the FOIA?

[rocksblues]

Dear John: Could you please sign form 180 to clear up this mis-conception among voters?

And then again, Pigs will fly before the MSM asks him this question!

[no more apples]

bookmarked

[RVN Airplane Driver]

This smells to high Heaven....Will anyone have the balls to run with this story......

[An American In Dairyland]

>> Kerry has not released lots of stuff:
He has not released his war documents
He has not released divorce documents
His wife has not released her financial records <<

He has not released his medical records. He had cancer a year or two ago.

[Alamo-Girl]

IMHO, if there is an October surprise from Hillary and the Clinton machine - the most logical would be to keep Kerry out of the White House so she can run in 2008.

[rdl6989]

Senator, what day in the next 20 are you going to sign the SF-180, thereby putting to rest the debate about the status of your discharge? Senator, here is a calendar and a pen so you can pick the date. Better yet I have an SF-180 right here for you, now sign on the dotted line and we will clear this up.

[Goat Locker Freeper]

http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Honorable_Discharge_From_Reserve.pdf

Note that the actual certificate would have been enclosed with this letter, but probably was not forwarded to BUPERS for microfiching. Nonetheless, the document above, presuming it is genuine, is his honorable discharge from the Naval Reserve.

[aruanan]

Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Navy Discharge

At first I thought this said, "Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Navel Discharge" and got a gross image.

[television is just wrong]

and he wins the nobel peace prize... Liberal joke.

[GeronL]

Apparently but it seemed to have been undone and changed by Carter and his medals were released back to him in '85 or something.

Carter pardoned everyone didn't he?

[GeronL]

#50- sounds right on the money