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WASHINGTON -- As a young Navy swift boat commander in Vietnam, Sen. John Kerry was no stranger to the perils of hot pursuit in combat. He was awarded a Silver Star for beaching his boat after a rocket attack and racing ashore to chase down and kill a Viet Cong fighter armed with a rocket launcher. Nearly 40 years later, as incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry favors using hot pursuit against pirates in the waters off Somalia, but urges a cautious approach before U.S officials consider sending American forces to chase them ashore. Kerry plans committee...

U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry is taking aim at the Acela bullet train, saying the 8-year-old line meant to zip passengers between Boston and Washington is riddled with speed and safety issues that have thrown its swift mission off track. “Are you kidding? That train can go 150 miles an hour, (but) it goes that for, what, a couple of miles?” Kerry scoffed. “I want America to have a first-rate high-speed rail system. A high-speed rail that really lives up to the name and gets people there in the time that we ought to be aiming for.” Kerry plans to...

I am in a debate with people who know nothing about Kerry's refusal to release his war records. What is the technical name for this disclosure?

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 29 (OneWorld) - U.S. war veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have announced they're planning to descend on Washington, DC this March to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in Iraq. "The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it," said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. "That's left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like." Iraq Veterans Against the...

Senator John F. Kerry already has a Democratic opponent for his U.S. Senate seat. He is not from the party's right since there is barely anyone sitting in those seats in blue Massachusetts. Kerry's antagonist is Ed O'Reilly, a Gloucester lawyer who, according to the Wednesday Boston Globe, is targeting Kerry from the anti-Iraq war left. And, lo and behold, he wants to know the truth about Kerry's military record and has questions himself about the Swift Boat record and the Swift Boat ads. Besides, like a lot of the senator's tormentors, he is suspicious about whether Kerry is really...

WASHINGTON - Senator Kerry of Massachusetts recently granted three reporters broad access to his Navy service records, according to documents obtained by The New York Sun. The privacy waivers signed by Mr. Kerry authorized the release of "a single, one time copy of the complete military service record and medical record of John F. Kerry" to Glen Johnson of the Associated Press, Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe, and Stephen Braun of the Los Angeles Times. The waivers, executed on a National Archives form known as Standard Form 180, also permitted release of "an undeleted report" of any discharges ever...

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts recently granted three reporters broad access to his Navy service records, according to documents obtained by the New York Sun.The privacy waivers signed by Mr. Kerry authorized the release of 'a single, one time copy of the complete military service record and medical records of John F. Kerry' to Glen Johnson of the Associated Press, Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe, and Stephen Braun of the Los Angeles Times.The waivers, executed on a National Archives form known as a Standard From 180, also permitted an 'undeleted report' of any discharges of any discharges ever granted...

Via the Freedom of Information Act, a reader obtained copies of the Form 180s that were recently signed by John Kerry to permit, at long last, the release of his military records. I believe there may be a story about this in the New York Sun tomorrow, and no doubt more commentary will be forthcoming over the next few days. Here are the three documents that Kerry signed; on their face, I don't see anything wrong with them, but then, I'm no expert in military personnel records. We look forward to our readers' comments. Go to the link..there are 3...

I contributed a little acorn to the 2004 election. I use the acorn metaphor because the outcome of what I did seemed to take on a life of its own and grew beyond any of my expectations. In fact the ripples continue to this day. A brief history of my experience begins in August of 2004. A friend sent me an email about John Kerry’s Navy experiences. I am a Navy veteran so I took a look at the issue. It soon became obvious to me that John Kerry was hiding something about his military experience, so I decided to...

Questions Remain About Kerry's Military Records But will the press answer them? The Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times published in-depth accounts this week but, according to Lipscomb, the form that produced the documents may have asked for "anything and everything" or "nothing much at all." By Thomas Lipscomb (June 11, 2005) -- The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times initially refused to confirm or deny that they had a copy, or had even seen a copy, of the Standard Form 180 (SF-180) by which Sen. John Kerry’s “complete” military records were released over the past several days. This...

DESPITE THE continuing gripes of his critics, records released this week show that Senator John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. The documents should put to rest claims that Kerry misrepresented his military record in the presidential race. But Kerry's failure to respond to the smear campaign launched against him last summer lent credibility to its real objective: to impugn his equally honorable opposition to the war. John O'Neill, a Houston lawyer and Kerry's adversary on the war since 1971, acknowledged as much in a telephone interview Wednesday. ''We produced seven commercials," he said of his anti-Kerry group, now called Swift...

I may have been too quick and too generous in giving John Kerry the benefit of the doubt about the full and complete release of his military records, as reported by the Boston Globe on Tuesday. As Thomas Lipscomb details in today's Chicago Sun-Times, some questions and confusion remain. The exact details will most likely get sorted out in time, but just for the moment let's consider the one aspect of this story that we know for sure: Kerry released his records exclusively to The Boston Globe. This is an odd decision for someone seeking end speculation regarding the whole...

Reader John Boyle writes: I have been yelling since last year that the Navy does not have Kerry's records, nor does DoD. The Navy has always been Kerry's hide-out. The Navy is covered by the Privacy Laws. You're a lawyer, right? The SF 180 is generically addressed to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. These records are 30 to 40 years old. They are history! They do not stay at Navy Personnel Command forever. It seems to me that all of Kerry's tortured rhetoric on this subject attests to the fact that he was having his records vetted,...

ANOTHER KERRY DISCHARGEBefore Memorial Day weekend, Sen. John Kerry sat down with editors of his hometown newspaper, the Boston Globe and announced that he had signed the form SF 180, authorizing the Department of Defense to grant access to all his military records. This, more than a year after he had claimed the press and public had seen all there was to see from his military record. Only one problem: according to several sources who formerly worked on the Kerry campaign, the senator expects that little to nothing new will be in the files that are released. "He's fairly confident...

Senator John F. Kerry, ending at least two years of refusal, has waived privacy restrictions and authorized the release of his full military and medical records. The records, which the Navy Personnel Command provided to the Globe, are mostly a duplication of what Kerry released during his 2004 campaign for president, including numerous commendations from commanding officers who later criticized Kerry's Vietnam service. The lack of any substantive new material about Kerry's military career in the documents raises the question of why Kerry refused for so long to waive privacy restrictions.

Subject: KERRY DISCHARGE - THE JIMMY CARTER LEGACY CONTINUES Words of Captain Donald L. Nelson, JAG corps USN ret. "I was on active duty as a U.S. Navy JAG when all of this was going on 25 to 30 years ago, and so was Mark F. Sullivan, who at all relevant times was the personal JAG to J. William Middendorf, then the Secretary of the Navy. We are trying to break this absolutely true story nationwide, i.e., Fox News, C-Span, and hopefully the major networks. We are positive that John Kerry was one of those dishonorably dismissed from the Navy...

Today marks 100 days since John Kerry promised, on national TV, to sign form SF-180 and release his military records. During the 2004 campaign, John Kerry made his service in Vietnam the foundation of his campaign, and he attacked President Bush's service. There are many unanswered questions about Kerry's service that the American people deserve to have answered. John Kerry has the power to have all these questions answered, simply by signing Standard Form 180. We're not sure why Kerry hasn't followed through on his promise yet, so, just to make sure he's got a copy of the form, all...

So John F. Kerry has finally agreed to sign an SF-180 and release his military record. Well, don’t hold your breath, because there is no way he will ever open up that bag of worms, and I don’t think it has anything to do with a Dishonorable Discharge from the Navy as some believe. If Kerry had been arrested, charged with consorting with the enemy, court-martialed, and given a Dishonorable Discharge during the Nixon administration, he would have worn it as a badge of courage just as he did his phony Purple Hearts and Silver Star. The court-martial would have...

So now John Kerry has told both Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" and Don Imus on his morning MSNBC-broadcast radio show that he will sign Standard Form 180. But when? Sometime before 2008, when he has to run for re-election in Massachusetts for the Senate? A group has formed to help Kerry out. Called "KerrysTreason.com," the group has created a website on which they have archived Standard Form 180, in PDF format. The group is calling for a campaign to flood Kerry's Senate office with SF180s sent in from all over America. The website gives Kerry's Washington office address...

MIDI - HAZY SHADE OF WINTER (scroll to Bangles) Time, time, time, sign the 180 Form It won't go away...can you feel the firestorm John, you know it's the norm Sit right down, take a pen, fill it out Time to do it, Winter Soldier We heard your Band of Brothers crap Most men with whom you served know you got things you don't deserve They won't be your saps...you can't control this flap Sit right down, take a pen, fill it out Time to do it, Winter Soldier Your hopes, John, are going down SwiftVets wouldn't sing your...