October 30, 2004

Kerry's military record

The Braden Files has more on the growing dishonorable discharge question: bq. Kerry’s Dishonorable Discharge There is overwhelming evidence that John Kerry got a dishonorable discharge from the Navy, and that, as a result of such discharge, he was stripped of all of his famous but questionable Navy awards and medals. And the kicker? The evidence is on his website! bq. Kerry’s oh-so-clever handlers evidently depended on the ignorance of the public and the press about military records when they posted his 1978 "Honorable Discharge from the Reserves" on his site as part of a carefully selected partial release of his Navy records (the Navy says it is still withholding about 100 records). However, one diligent reporter, Thomas Lipscomb of the New York Sun, saw through the scam and exposed it in a story on October 13. Predictably, the major media has shunned the story. bq. What Mr. Lipscomb noticed (and I overlooked when I first read the document) was the date of the posted discharge, Feb. 16, 1978. This was six years after Kerry’s six-year (1966-1972) commitment to the Navy ended. The anti-war detractor of our military did not re-up for another six-year term in 1972, so why the delay of his discharge? The only logical conclusion is that the 1978 honorable discharge was a second discharge given to replace an earlier undesirable discharge. Emphasis mine -- the 1978 date is important -- continue reading: bq. I was a colonel assigned as Director of Operations of Headquarters, Texas Air National Guard when George W. Bush was a lieutenant in the Air Guard. Since 1999, I have been besieged by the media, from the London Guardian to CBS’s Sixty Minutes, NBC, the Boston Globe, and others, with allegations and questions about Lt. Bush's service in and discharge from the Texas Air National Guard and USAF. I recently appeared on Fox & Friends twice to shoot down CBS’s phony memos about Lt. Bush and allegations about his discharge. In the interest of fairness and equal time, it is time that scrutiny of John Kerry's discharge(s) is demanded. bq. Senator Kerry has said that his medal certificates were reissued because he lost them (and his dog ate his homework, I suppose). Rewards are certified in one’s permanent personnel record jacket. If you lose a medal, you can get a replacement medal if your records show the award. The only way awards would have to be reissued is if they were rescinded and deleted from your records. And this narrows the possibilities down toward a dishonorable discharge, rather than a lesser form of undesirable discharge. As Mr. Lipscomb noted, "There is one odd coincidence that gives some weight to the possibility that Mr. Kerry was dishonorably discharged. -- (W)hen 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." And more: bq. The Nixon/Ford presidency gave way to Democrat President Jimmy Carter in 1977, which tends to explain the six-year delay in getting the revised discharge. Mr. Lipscomb adds some insight: bq. Mr. Carter's first act as president was a general amnesty for draft dodgers and other war protesters. Less than an hour after his inauguration on January 21, 1977, while still in the Capitol building, Mr. Carter signed Executive Order 4483 empowering it. By the time it became a directive from the Defense Department in March 1977 it had been expanded to include other offenders who may have had general, bad conduct, dishonorable discharges, and any other discharge or sentence with negative effect on military records. In those cases the directive outlined a procedure for appeal on a case by case basis before a board of officers. A satisfactory appeal would result in an improvement of discharge status or an honorable discharge." Any questions? Posted by DaveH at October 30, 2004 11:47 PM