Rumors and Certain Truths

Posted By Blackfive

It's getting hotter in the Kerry kitchen. He won't release his military files. He refuses to sign a release. Why?

Tov Brog has a letter from a former Navy Lawyer that discusses the possibility of a Kerry Dishonorable Discharge. The first time I had heard about this possibility was from one of my friends who was a Navy Phantom pilot in Vietnam. In reference to the revisions of the medals that John Kerry requested, he thought that was because, when you get a dishonorable discharge, you forfeit your medals. President Carter got them back for him and then Kerry requested a more heroic version after he became a Senator.

Here is a well researched piece (from Ellen B.) that explores this speculation in detail in the New York Sun:

Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Navy Discharge BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB - Special to the Sun October 13, 2004

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?

NBC's release this March of some of the Nixon White House tapes about Mr. Kerry show a great deal of interest in Mr. Kerry by Nixon and his executive staff, including, perhaps most importantly, Nixon's special counsel, Charles Colson. In a meeting the day after Mr. Kerry's Senate testimony, April 23, 1971, Mr. Colson attacks Mr. Kerry as a "complete opportunist...We'll keep hitting him, Mr. President."

Mr. Colson was still on the case two months later, according to a memo he wrote on June 15,1971, that was brought to the surface by the Houston Chronicle. "Let's destroy this young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader." Nixon had been a naval officer in World War II. Mr. Colson was a former Marine captain. Mr. Colson had been prodded to find "dirt" on Mr. Kerry, but reported that he couldn't find any.

The Nixon administration ran FBI surveillance on Mr. Kerry from September 1970 until August 1972. Finding grounds for an other than honorable discharge, however, for a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, given his numerous activities while still a reserve officer of the Navy, was easier than finding "dirt."

For example, while America was still at war, Mr. Kerry had met with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong delegation to the Paris Peace talks in May 1970 and then held a demonstration in July 1971 in Washington to try to get Congress to accept the enemy's seven point peace proposal without a single change. Woodrow Wilson threw Eugene Debs, a former presidential candidate, in prison just for demonstrating for peace negotiations with Germany during World War I. No court overturned his imprisonment. He had to receive a pardon from President Harding.

Mr. Colson refused to answer any questions about his activities regarding Mr. Kerry during his time in the Nixon White House. The secretary of the Navy at the time during the Nixon presidency is the current chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner. A spokesman for the senator, John Ullyot, said, "Senator Warner has no recollection that would either confirm or challenge any representation that Senator Kerry received a less than honorable discharge."

The "board of officers" review reported in the Claytor document is even more extraordinary because it came about "by direction of the President." No normal honorable discharge requires the direction of the president. The president at that time was James Carter. This adds another twist to the story of Mr. Kerry's hidden military records.

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.

Mr. Kerry has repeatedly refused to sign Standard Form 180, which would allow the release of all his military records. And some of his various spokesmen have claimed that all his records are already posted on his Web site. But the Washington Post already noted that the Naval Personnel Office admitted that they were still withholding about 100 pages of files.

If Mr. Kerry was the victim of a Nixon "enemies list" hit, one might have expected him to wear it like a badge of honor, like many others such as his friend Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, CBS's Daniel Schorr, or the actor Paul Newman, who had made Mr. Colson's original list of 20 "enemies."

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.

Now, I normally don't quote the Sun. This article, however, is accurate.

John Forbes Kerry could end this speculation by releasing all of his records.

What possible reason could he have for not doing so?

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» Dishonorable Discharge? from Electric Venom
I've heard plenty of speculation about the reason John Kerry won't release his military files, particularly one which suggests that he was dishonorably discharged. I've never given that one much credence -- after 20+ years as a U.S. Senator and all ... [Read More]

Comments

[Gail]

Yes, and I would like to see Ms Heinz' taxes also....!!!

[Fred Schoeneman]

Matt,

I'd be careful about this one. If it turns out that Kerry was originally given a dishonorable discharge, and later changed to honorable, it will only make his actions seem justified.

f

[Blackfive]

Well, I just want to get at the truth. I don't understand why he won't release his records? Did he get an STD on R&R or something? Or is it something more?

And I'm not really sure how it will justify his actions...

[TxRascal]

Been reading speculation on this over at BeldarBlog for a little while now...

Wondered if it would ever come out mainstream...

[Casey Tompkins]

I hate to sound stupid, but... Couldn't Kerry have gotten a less than honorable discharge for his anti-war activities? Then Carter's pardon cleared that?

And maybe Kerry doesn't want to sign the 180 because he wants to avoid any anti-war stigma, since he (now) wants to be seen as a military hero?

I'm not trying to excuse the man; I'd rather stick my arm in a meat grinder than vote for him! Just tryin' to figure it out.

[sam]

IIRC, you can only receive a DD through a General Courts Martial. The maximum you can receive from a Special Courts Martial (which is considered a lower court) is a Bad Conduct Discharge (BCD).

I think it is highly likely that Lurch got a General Discharge Under Less than Honorable conditions. IIRC, regular General Discharges were administratively upgradeable to Honorable. A Less than Honorable took more intervention, possibly in this case, as high as the White House.

Funny if the SecNav at the time (Warner?) wouldn't remember that, but he may be protecting a fellow member of the club (Senate).

Just IMHO.

[Tom the Friendly Ghost]

When I first heard about this story, I went over to the Kerry web site. He has two DD214s posted. The first before he was commissioned, the second for when he left active service. Maybe someone who was in during the Vietnam-era can take a closer look, but it looks like an honorable discharge to me.

I think you can get him for trying to hide a bad fitness report for part of his service in Vietnam, but I'd be careful about a dishonorable discharge.

[Partisan Political Operative @ 11372]

The Honorable Discharge before commissioning is standard operating procedure. When you are a cadet, or officer trainee you are treated for pay reasons as a non-commissioned officer.

Just before you are commissioned as an officer, you are discharged from the service on a honorable discharge and then commissioned as an officer.

[Robin Burk]

Just to be clear -- there are several types of discharges.

Honorable
General (under honorable circumstances)
General (other than honorable)
Dishonorable

The last one requires conviction by a full court martial IIRC. For serious offenses where there might not be sufficient evidence to ensure conviction, an "Other than honorable" discharge is often used.

[Fies]

He was a Maoist and had vets in the US sign anti US papers which he then sent or delivered to Vietnam, etc. Jane Fonda was a good friend and made the introductions to his new trillionaire wife, Teresa(yes, he was a Republican and died in a flying accident).

For his military record: Why do you think Kerry hires all these retired CIA people, its not like his wife is a South African Operations Officer!

[CW]

I think this is a dry well.

A few weeks ago, I looked at this pretty hard and went over all of Kerry's released documents pretty hard. Based on his DD-214s and discharge documents, I don't think there's an other-than-honorable discharge floating around out there.

He may have deserved it for consorting with the North Vietnamese while still in the Reserves, but there's no record anywhere that anything like that was done. Also the 1978 discharge was routine and not the result of any strange political deals.

There is a question of what's in the records he won't release, but I don't think it's an other-than-honorable discharge.

[Shaun Bourke]

See sabreman's post....especially at the end.....

http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14707&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

[Anonymous]

You'll never know if Kerry got an STD while in Vietnam--the common practice was to start a separate page in your medical records for in-country STD stuff, which page(s) always disappeared when you were rotated stateside. Can't disabuse the civilians of their odd notions, now can we?

[Peter]

Sorry, CW, the one thing we DO know for sure is that the 1978 discharge was not routine. The Hee-row's service committment ended in 1972.
There is no way, NO WAY, that The Hee-row would have been permitted to extend his service or to reenlist after his 1971 'testimony' before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
My suspicion is that his service was involuntarially extended by either Naval Intelligence or the Naval Criminal Investigators while the internal debate went on as to whether to run him up before a general court martial on either charges from his self-confessed war crimes or aiding and abetting the enemy during a shooting war. Then later they decided to just show him the door because by then it was politically expedient.

[saturn]

remind me again when Bush went to Vietnam? oh that's right, he didn't go - someone else went for him, and their name is on the wall - not his.

[Sigivald]

Saturn: Blah blah Swift Boats weren't combat units when Kerry volunteered, blah blah Bush's unit was in Vietnam, in active combat, when he signed up, blah blah.

Please get a better-functioning canard, okay?

(And does Bush's unit getting pulled out of combat before he was trained up enough to serve somehow mean that if Kerry had a non-Honorable discharge, it's okay? Not that I much care either way, but you obviously seem to think it's Very Important.)

[bdfaith]

Don't miss the latest Lipscomb column at http://www.nysun.com/article/4040.