SwiftVets.com

[William]

I was just an enlisted puke so I don’t pretend to understand the inner workings of the promotion of commissioned officers, but the record of Kerry’s changes in rank appears strange to me. I'll bet someone here can show me why the following just reflects SOP for the Vietnam era:

Within the subset of Kerry’s military records that are posted on his web site, “hidden in plain sight” under a link to “Temporary Orders and Ranks,” are 11 pages including seven (!) duplicates (why?) documenting Kerry’s "Temporary Appointments" to rank as follows:

(1) 16 June 1968, Temporary Appointment to LT(jg) effective 16 June 1968.
(2) 1 Dec 1969, Superseding Temp. Appt. to LT(jg).
(3) 27 Nov 1970, Temp. Appt. to LT USNR, effective 1 Jan 1970.
(4) 17 Dec 1970, Temp. Appt. to ? (refers to “reverse” which is not posted)

These dates are the same dates of rank (D.O.R.) listed on the document linked as "Service Record" in the military records posted on Kerry's web site.

Various authorities for the appointments are cited including (for 1 Dec 1969 appt.) Title 10 United State Code, Section 5598. The only reference I can find to that section is:

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Nearly all Naval Academy graduates receive "permanent" commissions.

Nearly all other officers receive "temporary" commissions - an officer is on a "temporary" commission until s/he accepts a promotion to O4 (LCDR), at which time the commission is converted to "permanent."
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[Butch]

I'm amazed at the knowledge of this women. I guess she really is all Navy.
_________________
"You're just jealous because the voices are talking to me." Viet Nam Vet, Semper Fi

[William]

Navy x3,

Neither Kerry's letter of transmittal of his commission, titled "Appointment as Reserve Officer in United State Navy", nor his commission mention anything about being temporary, but his appointments to higher rank all state that they are temporary and refer to U.S. Code sections on temporary appointments.

While for all I know (approaching zero on this subject) your explanation of the nature of USNR-OCS grad. commissions is correct, it doesn't appear on the face of it that Kerry's commission was "temporary", but his ranks of LT(jg) and LT were. Is that the same thing?

The current version of the referenced code section suggests that his temporary appointments should have expired, leaving him an Ensign, before his 1978 discharge.

I'm still confused, but that's nothing new???

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

The words "temporary" or "Reserve" may not show up on all the documents that reference his rank, but his commission retained the "temporary" status as an officer in the US Naval Reserve through his promotions. (O2, LT(jg) and O3, LT)

As a line officer, he would have had to accept permanent status in the "regular" Navy had he accepted a promotion to O4.

Nahhhhh, I don't know everything, Butch - not by a long shot. The only reason I have any familiarity with it is that my (Mustang - E1-O4) husband was required to transition to permanent regular Navy at the time of his last promotion.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[Aristotle The Hun]

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

[Hondo]

I probably shouldn’t try this, but what the hell. Hope my memory from 23+ years ago serves me well. I might have a few of the details wrong, but in general what follows should be accurate.

I believe the confusion here relates to the old Regular/Reserve/Temporary system all services used for managing officers prior to implementation of the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA). (DOPMA became law in late 1980 and was implemented in the early 1980s.) The Byzantine, multi-layered officer personnel system preceding DOPMA was the one in effect during the time Kerry was on active duty.

Prior to DOPMA, there were Regular Officers (tenured under law) serving on active duty. There were also Reserve Officers, serving at the pleasure of the President and who might or might not be serving on active duty.

Moreover, officers serving on active duty also had a Temporary rank and date of rank. This corresponded to the rank the officer actually held while serving on active duty. An officer’s temporary rank was often NOT the same as that officer’s permanent rank if he/she was a Regular officer.

Regular Officers thus had a permanent (Regular) grade – in which they held tenure by law – and a temporary grade, which reflected their current active duty rank but which was not necessarily permanent. A reduction in force in an officer’s service could result in a Regular officer losing his/her temporary rank and reverting back to his/her permanent (Regular) rank. In the Army, the temporary grade of an officer – which was that officer’s current Active Duty rank - was if I recall correctly denoted by the abbreviation AUS (Army of the United States). The RA (Regular Army) rank of an officer holding a Regular commission could be – and often was – considerably lower than their temporary rank.

I believe the same situation existed for Reserve officers serving on extended active duty also, but I can’t swear to that.

A Reserve Officer not serving on active duty had only a single rank and date of rank: his/her Reserve rank and date of rank.

Yes, each rank could – and often did – have a different date of rank. Yes, if I recall correctly there were separate boards for each type of promotion (Regular, Reserve, and Temporary). Yes, the system was cumbersome, complex, and convoluted. The bottom line was that a Regular Officer serving on active duty above the rank of Ensign/Second Lieutenant often had two different ranks and almost always had two dates of rank – one for his/her Regular grade, and one for his/her temporary Active Duty grade. As noted above, I think this was also true of Reserve Officers serving on extended active duty.

DOPMA clarified this a good deal. Under DOPMA, an officer on active duty almost always has a single grade and date of rank.

This affected Kerry in that he was a USNR officer serving on active duty between 1966 and 1970. He thus would have had both a Reserve and a temporary grade.

I'm really not trying to be overly humorous above. The system really was that complex, and it still amazes me that people accepted it without much complaint.

Everyone is now authorized to find the aspirin bottle, open it, take two, and sit down until their head stops hurting and the world stops spinning. I know I need to!
_________________
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse."
-- John Stuart Mill

[air_vet]

[Hondo]

air_vet:

Thanks. Thought so, but after 23+ years the memory starts to go (along with a few other things) . . .
_________________
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse."
-- John Stuart Mill

[Aristotle The Hun]

[Hondo]

Sam,

Quit flirtin' so shamelessly - and tryin' to use that psychobabble rap on EJ.
_________________
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse."
-- John Stuart Mill

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

See, Hondo's onto you, too.

::::passing out cookies::::

*************************************

I don't know what to think of this Kerry discharge thing - I think my head is too full.

Would it be too much to ask the leftist media in our country to go to the sources that could ask such questions and get to the bottom of this?

I know, I know.... "Yes, it IS too much to ask."

We're probably not going to find a definitive answer before the election, but some of us don't plan on quitting on this stuff after the election, no matter which way it goes.

This ISN'T politics, as usual - this is personal. And I won't be happy until that scum-sucking liar is soundly discredited forever.

THEN we get to work on the MSM and the NEXT election.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[William]

O.K., thanks for your expert responses. So as I understand it, an USNR/OCS officer, was only eligible for temporary appointments to ranks below LCDR, and was not eligible for permanent promotion as an USN/academy grad would be. That’s what I was hoping to hear!

Bear with me here, because I think this could be an important piece of circumstantial evidence bearing on the nature of Kerry’s discharge that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere before. [/ego]

There are two viable theories for Kerry’s “discharge mystery”

1. NavyCheif’s “bad paper - Carter amnesty” hypothesis (the one my heart wants to believe)

2. Hondo’s “2x failed to promote – involuntary separation” hypothesis (the Occam’s Razor favorite to explain the known data, in my opinion)

But, in the unlikely event that I am correct here, the history and regulations surrounding Kerry’s temporary appointments may support the” bad paper” hypothesis and tend to disprove the “failed to promote” hypothesis.

Kerry’s appointments to LT(jg) and LT were all TEMPORARY. Apparently, they were subject to TERMINATION under the applicable authority cited in Kerry’s temporary appointments: Title10 U.S. Code, Section 5784.

Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives at <uscode.house.gov> says:

[Hondo]

William:

I don't think you're correct here. The last of Kerry's appointments was on 27 Nov 1970. This was his appointment as LT in the Naval Reserve. The 17 Dec 1970 document you reference as an appointment appears to be the forwarding transmittal of his 27 Nov 1970 appointment to LT and the endorsement by which Kerry accepted same. My guess is that the 17 Dec 1970 document was actually printed on the back of the 27 Nov 1970 appointment (hence the "in paragraph 1 on the reverse").

My opinion is that this 27 Nov 1970 document was in fact Kerry's promotion to LT in the USNR, and that no further appointment action was necessary after that time.

Moreover, Kerry's 27 Nov 1970 appointment occurred long after he had left active duty. It therefore could not have been an appointment to a temporary active duty rank. In contrast, the appointments to LT(JG) you reference appear to be exactly that.

Appointments under 10 USC 5784 were appointments to temporary active duty rank during wartime or national emergency. (See my post above about the Byzantine and complex Regular/Reserve/Temporary officer rank system of the era. No, I wasn't kidding when I wrote it - that is really how officer ranks were done prior to DOPMA being implemented in the early 1980s.) Kerry's 1 Dec 1969 appointment to LT(JG) was of this type. Looks to me like his 16 Jun 1968 appointment also falls into this category; since it only references an old personnel reg, I can't be sure.

Regarding the laws governing Kerry's 27 Nov 1970 appointment: according to the US Code collection at Legal Information Institute site provided by Cornell University (http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/), 10 USC 5910 "provided that officers in Naval Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve could be promoted under regulations prescribed by Secretary of the Navy." Similarly, 10 USC 5891 "related to officers in active status in Naval Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve who could be promoted." Active status in a reserve component is in general NOT the same thing as "serving on active duty"; it typically means the Reservist is in "good standing" and may be among the first in line for recall. Current examples are drilling reservists, IMAs, members of the IRR, and Standby Reserve (Active Status List) - although this last group is much harder to recall than the others I list, and may not have even existed before passage of the Reserve Officer Personnel Management Act in 1995.

To reiterate: Kerry's 27 Nov 1970 appointment to LT in the USNR seems to me to have been his Reserve promotion to LT. Since reservists serve "at the pleasure of the president", all reserve promotions are technically temporary (vice the - at the time - statutorily permanent nature of "Regular" promotions). I think this fact is why the language "temporary appointment" appears on this document. I could be wrong; any Navy personnel types of the era reading this, please weigh in and correct me if I'm wrong.

Don't misunderstand. I would love to see DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE that Kerry received something other than an honorable discharge between 1970 and 1978. I simply haven't seen it yet. Moreover, my layman's analysis of the laws referenced on his 1978 discharge letter (see http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13492) leads me to believe that this is highly improbable - although it seems to me to be deserved, given his postwar conduct.

Navy Chief: if you're holding back high cards, maybe now's the time to play an ace - two weeks and counting down.
_________________
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse."
-- John Stuart Mill