Kerry Discharge A Big Question

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jcROAT

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Honorable Discharge?

In today's New York Sun, Thomas Lipscomb reports on the latest mystery involving the Vietnam service of John Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam:

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 itself 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.

In the absence of an explanation from the Kerry camp, Lipscomb offers some speculation:

There are a number of categories of discharges besides honorable. There are general discharges, medical discharges, bad conduct discharges, as well as other than honorable and dishonorable discharges. There is one odd coincidence that gives some weight to the possibility that Mr. Kerry was dishonorably discharged. Mr. Kerry has claimed that he lost his medal certificates and that is why he asked that they be reissued. But when a dishonorable discharge is issued, all pay benefits, and allowances, and all medals and honors are revoked as well. And five months after Mr. Kerry joined the U.S. Senate in 1985, on one single day, June 4, all of Mr. Kerry's medals were reissued.

We're not sure what to make of all this, but certainly the story of John Kerry and Vietnam is more nuanced than the simple tale of heroism he sold his party and is trying to sell the country.
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The three most important words, ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE. Jack Lynch, Member Class-29 http://sealstrike.com/jcroat
 
I'd be reluctant to smear him on this ground. After all if the question is was he there, the answer IS yes. Don't matter how he did, he was there, he went and he saw how it was like. Doesnt' matter if he shot himself, if he did something to get out. He was actually there.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
I'd be reluctant to smear him on this ground. After all if the question is was he there, the answer IS yes. Don't matter how he did, he was there, he went and he saw how it was like. Doesnt' matter if he shot himself, if he did something to get out. He was actually there.
Click to expand...

I cannot believe you are saying this. Actually there? You don't think that how honorably or dishonorably a man serves speaks to the character of the man? Besides, as jcROAT pointed out, he did go to Paris to meet with the enemy while still a Naval Officer. This act alone leaves him ineligible to serve as the president. Should he be elected, that will not go away, in fact I can pretty much predict that it will rear its head in the ugliest of ways.
 
What a True Hero Thinks

The thoughts of a True Hero on John Kerry

From Colonel Lew Millett, MOH

Something to think about and consider as we approach election time to pick a president and the direction of our country. I'm a combat veteran of the Vietnam War and I'm against John Kerry's candidacy. I served in the field and witnessed many acts of heroism by American teenage soldiers who became men, and some that laid down their lives. I am deeply troubled by the political commercials portraying Mr. Kerry as a war hero, leaving one with the opinion that he represents Vietnam veterans. He does not.

Considering his radical anti war activism upon his return to the US, the act of throwing his service medals over the White House fence is arrogant, insulting and dishonors any American who ever wore a military uniform, and the 58,000 American sons who sacrificed their lives. It is also disrespectful to the families of the missing in action and prisoners of war. To think of John Kerry grandstanding on the graves of these brave men who are heroes is disgusting. It is apparent to me that this was a well-calculated plan to sell him as a war hero for political gain to get him elected to office. His running mate asserts that "he (Kerry) would never leave anyone behind." Well Mr. Kerry, what about the hundreds of American soldiers still missing in action from the Vietnam War? Weren't you the committee chairman concerning this issue? Where is the accounting of these American soldiers to date?

The radical anti war movement, which Mr. Kerry was involved in, was very harmful to our national resolve while we were at a time of war. It aided the communists by giving the enemy strategic political advantage, much like today's war in Iraq.

I am concerned about allegations by his superior officers and men he served with regarding his actions and character while in the military and after he returned to the US.

If character is an issue, then allow the voices of the wives and family members, of over two thousand American soldiers still missing in action from the Vietnam War, to be heard. These men were written off like a bad debt by self serving politicians in order to normalize relations with communist Vietnam and Senator Kerry was the chairman of the committee that reviewed this issue for then president Clinton. Is it any wonder that his picture hangs in the war hero's museum in communist Vietnam?

----------
Lewis L. Millett
Colonel USA (ret.)

World War II 1941-45
Korea 1950-51
Vietnam 1960-61, 1968-73

MOH, DSC, PH(4)
_________________
The three most important words, ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE. Jack Lynch, Member Class-29.
http://www.specialoperations.com/Stories/green_brothers.html
 
ahhh cmon do you really belive this?

Mod Edit: Unless you have something to add to the discussion, keep the peanut gallery comments to yourself.
 
Who he is and The lastest New York Sun artical

The Man you are asking me if I belive is a True Hero a short history of a true hero.

Lewis L. Millett: Cold Steel in Korea

In the course of his 35-year military career, Lewis L. Millett received the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, two Legions of Merit, three Bronze Stars, four Purple Hearts, three Air Medals, the Army Commendation Medal and numerous foreign awards -- until he stopped accepting them.

Kerry's Discharge Is Questioned by an Ex-JAG Officer
BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB – New York Sun
November 1, 2004

A former officer in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve has built a case that Senator Kerry was other than honorably discharged from the Navy by 1975, The New York Sun has learned.

The "honorable discharge" on the Kerry Web site appears to be a Carter administration substitute for an original action expunged from Mr. Kerry's record, according to Mark Sullivan, who retired as a captain in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve in 2003 after 33 years of service as a judge advocate. Mr. Sullivan served in the office of the Secretary of the Navy between 1975 and 1977.

On behalf of the Kerry campaign, Michael Meehan and others have repeatedly insisted that all of Mr. Kerry's military records are on his Web site atjohnkerry.com, except for his medical records.

"If that is the case," Mr. Sullivan said, "the true story isn't what was on the Web site. It's what's missing. There should have been an honorable discharge certificate issued to Kerry in 1975,if not earlier, three years after his transfer to the Standby Reserve-Inactive."

Another retired Navy Reserve officer, who served three tours in the Navy's Bureau of Personnel, points out that there should also have been a certified letter giving Mr. Kerry a choice of a reserve reaffiliation or separation and discharge. If Mr. Meehan is correct and all the documents are indeed on the Web site, the absence of any documents from 1972 to 1978 in the posted Kerry files is a glaring hole in the record.

The applicable U.S. Navy regulation, now found at MILPERSMAN 1920-210 "Types of Discharge for Officers," lists five examples of conditions required to receive an honorable discharge certificate, four required to receive a general discharge "not of such a nature as to require discharge under conditions other than honorable," and seven for "the lowest type of separation from the naval service. It is now officially in all respects equivalent to a dishonorable discharge."

Kerry spokesmen have also repeatedly said that the senator has an honorable discharge. And there is indeed a cover letter to an honorable discharge dated February 16,1978,on the Kerry Web site. It is in form and reference to regulation exactly the same as one granted Swiftboat Veterans for Truth member Robert Shirley on March 12, 1971, during a periodic "reduction in force (RIF)" by the Naval Reserve. The only significant difference between Mr. Kerry's and Mr. Shirley's is the signature information and the dates. In a RIF, officers who no longer have skills or are of an age group the Navy wishes to keep in reserve are involuntarily separated by the Navy and given their appropriate discharge. This is a normal and ongoing activity and there is no stigma attached to it.

Kerry spokesman David Wade did not reply when asked if Mr. Kerry was other than honorably discharged before he was honorably discharged.

"Mr. Meehan may well be right and all Mr. Kerry's military records are on his Web site," Mr. Sullivan said. "Unlike en listed members, officers do not receive other than honorable, or dishonorable, certificates of discharge. To the contrary, the rule is that no certificate will be awarded to an officer separated wherever the circumstances prompting separation are not deemed consonant with traditional naval concepts of honor. The absence of an honorable discharge certificate for a separated naval officer is, therefore, a harsh and severe sanction and is, in fact, the treatment given officers who are dismissed after a general court-martial."

With the only discharge document cited by Mr. Kerry issued in 1978, three years after the last date it should have been issued, the absence of a certificate from 1975 leaves only two possibilities. Either Mr. Kerry received an "other than honorable" certificate that has been removed in a review purging it from his records, or even worse, he received no certificate at all. In both cases there would have been a loss of all of Mr. Kerry's medals and the suspension of all benefits of service.

Certainly something was wrong as early as 1973 when Mr. Kerry was applying to law school.

Mr. Kerry has said, "I applied to Harvard, Boston University, and Boston College. I was extremely late. Only BC would entertain a late application."

It is hard to see why Mr. Kerry had to file an "extremely late" application since he lost the congressional race in Lowell, Mass., the first week of November 1972 and was basically doing nothing until he entered law school the following September of 1973.A member of the Harvard Law School admissions committee recalled that the real reason Mr. Kerry was not admitted was because the committee was concerned that because Mr. Kerry had received a less than honorable discharge they were not sure he could be admitted to any state bar.

The fact that Mr. Kerry had cancelled his candidacy for a Congressional seat in 1970 in favor of Father Robert Drinan cannot have hurt Mr. Kerry's admission to Boston College. The Reverend Robert Drinan's previous position was dean of the Boston College Law School.

Given this, it is likely that a legal review took place that effectively purged Mr. Kerry's Navy files and arranged for the three-year-late honorable discharge in 1978.There were two avenues during the 1977-1978 time period. This could have been under President Carter's Executive Order 11967, under which thousands received pardons and upgrades for harsh discharges or other offenses under the Selective Service Act. Or it might have merged into efforts by the military to comply with the demands of the 1975 Church Committee. Mr. Sullivan was personally involved in the 1976 and 1977 records review answering Senator Kennedy's demands to determine the scope of any counterintelligence abuses by the military.

In the Foreign Surveillance Act of 1977, legislation introduced by Mr. Kennedy to enforce the findings of the Church Committee, there is language that literally describes the behavior of Mr. Kerry. The defined behavior that could no longer be subject to surveillance without warrants includes: "Americans having contact with foreign powers in the case of Americans who were active in the protest against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Some of them may have attended international conferences at which there were representatives of foreign powers, as defined in the bill, or may have been directly in communication with foreign governments concerning this issue."

One of Mr. Kerry's first acts of office as he entered the Senate on January 3, 1985, was making sure what was still in the Navy files. A report was returned to Mr. Kerry by a Navy JAG on January 25, 1985, and appears on the Kerry Web site. There is an enclosure listed that may have contained a list of files, according to David Myers, the JAG who prepared it, that is not on Mr. Kerry's Web site. It could have provided an index for all of Mr. Kerry's Navy files.

All officials with knowledge of what specifically happened in Mr. Kerry's case are muzzled by the Privacy Act of 1974.The act makes it a crime for federal employees to knowingly disclose personal information or records.

Only Mr. Kerry can do that. As of this writing, Mr. Kerry has failed to sign a Standard Form 180 giving the electorate and the press access to his Navy files

© 2004 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC. All rights reserved

The three most important words, ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE. Jack Lynch, Member Class-29.
http://www.specialoperations.com/Stories/green_brothers.html
 
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