Posted on 08/13/2004 3:36:49 PM PDT by Jewels1091
Did he or didn't he? After reviewing Kerry's service records, as released by him, I find it hard to believe the media have not picked up on the John Lehman connection. It should set off all kinds of alarm bells, especially considering the recent flap over whether he threw his medals away or not.
A very curious question arises over Kerry's multiple Silver (3) and Bronze (2) star citations. Two of the five were signed by John Lehman who was Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan Administration 5 Feb 1981 - 10 Apr 1987. There are three Silver Star citations supplied by Kerry. One was signed by ADM Zumwalt, one by ADM Hyland, and one by Secretary Lehman. The Bronze Star citations were signed by Zumwalt and Lehman. Specifically,
Zumwalt: ADM Zumwalt served as Commander, US Naval Forces Vietnam from Sep 1968-May 1970. The Silver Star citation is more than likely the original citation taken from the award submission. Normally, as part of the nomination form, the nominator must provide a synopsis of the award (citation) that can fit on a single page suitable for framing with the certificate. Zumwalt's citation covered two pages. I suspect that Zumwalt forwarded the award to CINCPAC, ADM Hyland, for the final signature, including the citation. It is worth noting that the requirement to go to CINCPAC applied only to the Silver Star, hence only the Zumwalt and Lehman citations for the Bronze Star, i.e., Zumwalt as the final approving authority and Lehman for the replacement/reissue.
Hyland: CINCPAC probably edited the Zumwalt Silver Star citation to make it fit on to one page and to clean it up a bit to fit the existing format. ADM Hyland was CINCPAC 30 Nov 1967 - 05 Dec 1970
Lehman: Except for the last sentence, the Silver Star citation is the same as Hyland's. What makes this curious is that Secretary Lehman signed the citation at least over 12 and up to 18 years after the events occurred. Kerry served in Vietnam from November 1968 to April 1969. I doubt, in any event, that the final approval authority for Silver Stars had to go to SECNAV for approval. We also have photographic evidence that Kerry had the Silver Star medal pinned on in 1969. Kerry also acknowledges that he received them. My take is that Kerry requested replacement medals and due to the fact that Kerry was no longer an active duty service member, administrative requirements mandated that SECNAV's office had to approve the issue of the replacements once it was verified from official records that Kerry had actually earned them.
The bottom line is that Kerry probably did throw away his medals and then requested replacements in the 1980s. Someone needs to raise this issue with Kerry, i.e., why did Secretary Lehman sign duplicate Bronze and Silver Star citations at least 12 years after you left Vietnam? Kerry needs to release all of his military records including the nomination forms, which will give us the chronology and the approval chain of command.
Kerry's reaction on Good Morning America fits his MO. He wants it both ways. When he discovered that throwing away your medals was politically a negative, he came up with the story about his ribbons and someone else's medals. Kerry realized that he couldn't walk away from the story entirely, especially since he has the medals displayed prominently in his office. However, the fly in the ointment is that we now have the citations, released by him, signed by Lehman. If he indeed requested replacement medals, he has a real problem, i.e., he was telling the truth initially, lied in the 80s, and is lying now.
I recognize that confronting Kerry on his military service is fraught with problems politically, but I believe there are plenty of inconsistencies that need to be made public. His antiwar activities and associations (Fonda, Ramsey Clark, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, et. al) also need to be exposed fully. The fact that Kerry was a member of the inactive Naval Reserves (1970-2) subject to involuntary recall and could meet with the Communist Vietnamese in Paris (per his sworn Congressional testimony) while our forces were engaged in hostilities is disgraceful. In fact it has recently been learned that Kerry met twice with the Communists in Paris.
Kerry is frozen in a time warp when it comes to his service in Vietnam. His preoccupation with his medals borders on being an obsession. If you check Kerry's released military records, you will notice that Kerry amended his DD214 with a DD215. Among other things, Kerry burnishes his Vietnam Service medal by adding four bronze service stars to reflect various campaigns. This was done in March 2001!!! Why anyone would go through that effort to make some meaningless changes is beyond me. Hundreds of thousands of veterans, including myself, could do it, but beyond self-gratification and ego, what is the point?
My comment was more toward TonyS6, that the Swift boat veterans story is not keeping what he thinks is "better ammunition" from making the air, and it has not been played so much that the public is "tired of it." Heck, the public has barely heard it.
TonyS6 described Kerry's Cambodia confusion as a minor issue - it is. But Tony didn't mention the elephant in the living room. All the baggage that came with Kerry calling our soldiers in Vietnam baby-killers. That isn't "goofy confusion." That is really heavy, serious stuff, that had powerful ramifications in this country. If THAT is a lie (and it is), and it gets out, Katy bar the door. Kerry will be toast to any thoughtful person.
Sure, the Democrats will still vote for Kerry, and cheat and lie, and do whatever it takes to stay in power.
You got the point. Self-gratification and ego, on a pathological level.
Great summary of the citations and differences between them, along with what I figured was the simplest explanation -- new citations were necessary to obtain replacements for the medals he threw over the White House fence. Yes, he wants it all ways. He could have just said, "Yeah, I threw my medals over the fence. Then I had a case of 'throwers remorse' and asked for replacements. Deal with it." But no, he wanted to pretend he never changed his mind, rather, he "nuanced" it. He is really unfit.
BTW, thank you too, for your service.
I have the book. There are other swifties who swore affadavits and were firsthand observers. In additon to Odell and Thurlow, they include Chenoweth and Pease who was the skipper of PCF-3 that was struck by the mine. The book only mentions Kerry's false after action report which ignored "Chenoweth's heroic action in rescuing the PCF survivors and Thurlow's action in saving PCF-3, while highlighting his {Kerry's} own routine pickup of Rassmann and PCF 94's minor role in saving PCF 3."
I'll read the rest of the thread, but as to your post - wow!
How did you find that?
You may be right, and I was thinking that it could backfire earlier in the week. But, the Bush administration is attacking Kerry on his statements (or misstatements) on the war and the flip-flopping thing has hurt Kerry. On the other hand, the little lies that Gore told in 2000 got him the label of a FIBBER and hurt him. Kerry may get that reputation too. Let's see what the polls say this coming week. But, Kerry did get his numbers up in the catagories of LEADERSHIP and HANDLING THE WAR ON TERROR due to his emphasis on his military "record" at their convention. Therefore, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth will not help him in that regard. I hear that some of the reporters covering him are not as solidly for him since the Cambodian story sounds so fishy.
We'll see how it plays out.
Yes. Here is what I found on the Silver Star incident. Someone with swift boat experience needs to check my analyis, but here it is.
On John Kerry's website is a video called "Brothers in arms". Close to five minutes into the John Kerry video the silver star incident is described. Initially Mike Medeiros starts the narration of the event which occurred on Feb 28. He states that when they went up river they came under fire "from some people with rockets" (note the plural). This is located at around 5 minutes 5 seconds into the video. Del Sandusky then comes in stating "The Viet Cong was shooting at us and had a live b-40 ready to launch towards us." "There was no question in my mind or anyone of the crew that this was a hostile Viet Cong with a live B-40 and he was just waiting for an opportunity to launch it at us." Mike M. then takes over and relates, "Well Lt. Kerry decided we're going to beach the boat and go and get this guy. and He didn't say that, but that was his intentions. So we beached the boat on that starboard shore." Del picks up the story and states, that Kerry, Mike with radio, and Tom Belodeau(remember this name) go ashore. Back to Mike who states that Kerry follows the enemy down the path and around a lean-to where Kerry dispatches him, rightfully earning a silver star.
Now ABC news has a story covering this same incident. Kerry uses incredibly bad judgement. As in the video, the threat is plural. "And this time, another B-40 rocket hit, and maybe a couple more. But this one was close aboard. It blew the windows out of the crew cabin. I see out of a spider hole a Vietcong stand up dressed in a loin cloth, holding a B-40 rocket."
This is the tactic to use. "Protocol at the time would be for Kerry's Swift boat to fire to shore and then take evasive action. But Kerry ordered Sandusky, his second-in-command, to drive the boat onto the beach — directly into the ambush."
Beaching the boat in the face of an indeterminate threat is lunacy. Follow that with splitting your force and taking your heavy weapon operator away from his weapon is stupid, stupid, stupid(or a lie about the situation). This is where Tom Belodeau comes in. Tommy Belodeau was manning the boat's M-60 machine gun, Short said. "Tommy in the pit tank winged him in the side of the legs as he was coming across," he said. "But the guy didn't miss stride. I mean, he did not break stride."
...
The man was still running down a path when they got to the bank. Kerry, Belodeau and Michael McDarris[sic], in hot pursuit, saw the Vietcong soldier.
So the M-60 operator goes chasing after a wounded enemy who was only 30 yards away from an M-60 machine gun. M-60 --->Effective Range (max) - 3,725 meters (max effective range varies with target type and bipod use from 200m to 1100m)
Things almost went against the sailors. "He needed like, 25, 30 yards to arm that rocket, all right," Sandusky said, "and as we beached, he could not aim it at us. So he got up out of the spider hole, started running."
What were they, the gang that couldn't shoot straight?
I'm 47. The draft for VN ended shortly before I graduated HS.
This is not a republican/democrat issue. As Fred Barnes said to Hugh Hewitt tonight, if the Bush campaign requested the MSM to investigate, then there would be a political backlash.
This is all about character.
Pray for W and Our Troops
I wonder if the timing of a Lehman signature also explains creation of the "service_record" document, which was typed on 01/25/85. The thing that was odd to me is that it was prepared by JAG vs. being prepared by the Personnel Office. Why would the legal counsel be preparing a service record of Kerry in 1985? Below is the (recreated) text of that document in its entirety:
www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Service_Record.pdf
The following information was compiled from the service cord of
John Forbes Kerry by LCDR D. H. Myers. JAGC, USN, NMPC-06P, Office
of Legal Legal Counsel, Naval Military Personnel Command.
INDUCTED (PEBD) 18 February 1966
OCIU-2 19 August 1966
D.O.R. as Ensign, USNR
(Active Comm Base Date) 16 December 1966
D.O.R. as Lt (jg) 16 June 1968
D.O.R. as LT, USNR 1 January 1970
Release from ACDU/
Trf to Naval Reserve 3 January 1970
Trf to Standby Reserve - Inactive 1 July 1972
Discharged for U. S. Naval Reserve 16 February 1973
ORIG: D. MYERS, LCDR, JAGC, USNR, NMPC06/OP-01L, 42225, DISK #3
TYPD: 01/25/85, NMPC-06 NBI: KERRY1 ,Courier 10 pitch, 42225. JE
Enclosure (1)
>>> The noisy boats "had no place to hide. People could hear them coming a half-mile away."
Sure - perfect vessel for secret landings for SEALS, CIA and Green Berets into Cambodia..
What a house of cards.
Perhaps the mine would count for the Bronze Star - the enemy put it there and it fired.
Good point. Perhaps Kerry wanted an official record for use in further campaigns, but it also could have coincided with a possible request for replacement medals. The Lehman citations are not dated.
Other men were in the water, no Bronze Stars for them. Many of the veternas who were there assert that there was NO enemy fire, other than the mine (or mines).
The Purple Heart is not without dispute, but jimminy, if Kerry didn't set the record straight regarding enemy fire, when he becaame aware of the submission of a request for a Bronze Star, and then used that Bronze Star to advance his personal political fortune, it speaks volumes to his character. He has none.
ping
How do you know that?
How do you know that the mine(s) alone don't count as enemy fire sufficient to award all the sailors Bronze stars?
I ask because I see a remote chance it could boil down to this on the Kerry side:
"Kerry showed bravery because he understandably thought he risked injury, assuming the other boats' suppressing fire as evidence of enemy fire. And two 'command controlled' mines did go off, more possibly on the way..."
Perhaps Kerry got a second butt wound from the second mine.
It doesn't explain why JAG would get involved though. It still leaves me wondering.
That document (service_record.pdf) was created in January 1985.
Then on May 9, 1986, Kerry formally requests his record (per this May 24 1986 confirmation from the Naval Military Personnel Command Liaison Office, National Personnel Records Center, which contains basically the same dates and content of the January document.) Correspondence with the Personnel Records Center sounds normal... documents prepared by JAG seem out of the ordinary.
http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Request_For_History_of_Service.pdf
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