SwiftVets.com

[BrianC]

Taken with a grain of salt?

How about taken with a whole spoonful of "consider the source" ?

[Hammer2]

[Chuck Z Ombie AC2000]

Free republic publishes just as much if not moreso ficttitious news than Newsmax.
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John Kerry, R.I.P. (Rot In Paris)

[NavyChief]

If it means anything to any of you reading this post, Tom Lipsomb is a friend of mine. I trust he is on the case. He is a fair reporter and has a good sense of morality for writing. I have been working with him for the past two weeks on another story.

If it means anything

- instigator
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Working with Senator Kerry four years in the POW/MIA Office left me thinking -- when did the man ever do any work?

[John Gault]

The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/section/3

Kerry's Bit of Colored Ribbon
BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB
Senator Kerry no longer has a problem with just the 35-year-old recollections of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that are questioning his military records. He now has to deal with the United States Navy. Mr. Kerry's campaign Web site, which may...

I do not subscribe to the Sun so I do not have access to the rest of the article.
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The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles. _ Ayn Rand

[Sonar5]

[TheJudge]

Here is the enite article from the N.Y. Sun - really does not add much IMHO

HE NEW YORK SUN THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2004 PAGE 17


Kerry’s Bit Of Colored Ribbon
By THOMAS LIPSCOMB
Senator Kerry no longer has a problem with just the 35-year-old recollections of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that are questioning his military records. He now has to deal with the United States Navy.

Mr.Kerry’s campaign Web site, which may be viewed at www.johnkerry.com, lists a Silver Star with a Combat V on his DD214.This form issued by the Department of Defense summarizes a serviceman’s career. It is always signed and authenticated as accurate by the individual, in this case Mr. Kerry. But according to a Navy spokesman it is “incorrect.”The Navy has never issued a Combat V at any time for the Silver Star.

This is a serious issue. The chief admiral of the Navy, Jeremy Michael Boorda, committed suicide over questions raised about his right to wear a Combat V by Newsweek magazine in 1996. Boorda stated in his suicide note to his sailors that the questions raised about those he wore caused him to take his life. And that was only a Bronze Star, not the Navy’s third highest decoration.

At the time,Mr. Kerry told the Boston Globe that Boorda’s conduct was “sufficient to question [Boorda’s] leadership position.…If you wind up being less than what you’re pretending to be, there is a major confrontation with value and self-esteem and your sense of how others view you.”

The Navy also questioned the listing on Mr. Kerry’s Web site of a DD215 form listing four bronze campaign stars for his service in Vietnam. According to its records, the Navy credits Mr.Kerry with two campaigns. That is sufficient for the wearing of the Vietnam Service Medal for one campaign bearing one campaign star for the additional campaign — not four.

Perhaps most puzzling of all is Mr. Kerry’s display of a citation for his Star signed in 1986 by the Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman.Mr. Lehman,who recently completed his service on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, finds this “[a] total mystery. I never saw it. I never signed it. I never approved it. And the additional language it contains was not written by me.”

No one knows who provided the additional flowery language concluding, “Lieutenant (jg) Kerry reflected great credit upon himself.…” Well, someone certainly did.

In a statement to Fox News’s Major Garrett, Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan explained that Mr.Kerry had lost the first two citations for his Silver Star and had asked the Secretary of the Navy to provide a new one. Leaving aside the unprecedented appearance of three separate Silver Star citations on Mr.Kerry’s Web site all containing different language signed by three different people, this explanation makes no sense at all.

Veterans lose citations all the time. They simply ask the appropriate military records office to send them a replacement copy, and it does. There is no mystery to this standard procedure that requires the intervention of the Secretary of the Navy.

A legal watchdog group, Judicial Watch, has issued a statement, which may be read at www.judicialwatch.org, that reads, “Kerry should remove [the] Silver Star citation from his internet site pending review by [the] U.S. Navy.” It raises other questions about the Web site records as well.

But Mr. Kerry should need no prompting from an outside interest group pushing him to do this. It is in his best interest to correct any misstatements. Navy records, college transcripts, Internal Revenue Service review documents, credit reports, and the other “official documents” created by bureaucracies are notoriously rife with error.

There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for these inaccuracies. But in the midst of a heated campaign, it is hard to find the time to review the many forms involved.

There would be no shame in Mr. Kerry’s removing the questionable documents from his Web site until he has a chance to do so. As General Thomas Wilkerson, the president of the U.S.Naval Institute puts it,“It is to your best interest to have your record in good order. If it is wrong, you are accountable. And if you use it to advance your career, it is even more important.”

On a British ship, on his way to exile after his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon reflected upon the courage his soldiers would display just to get “a bit of colored ribbon.” And that is why awards and medals are so important to veterans of all wars.

As in the unfortunate case of Boorda, those medals are recognition of their personal honor and honor the comrades they fought beside as well. Napoleon also noted,“The outcome of the greatest events is always determined by a trifle.”

There are few greater events than the election of an American president in these perilous times. Even if Mr. Kerry regards these questions as “a trifle,” he would be well advised to consider them seriously.
Mr. Lipscomb, the founder of Times Books, was the publisher of Admiral Zumwalt’s best-selling book, “On Watch.”

[BrianC]

An earlier post in this forum brought forth an article from Newsmax. Newsmax saw fit to claim that the Navy was "investigating" the matter. THAT is why I cite Newsmax as a poor source.

Thomas Lipscomb, now that's another matter. He uses the General's quote to good effect - but the General is not in any way associated with the DoN.

But the source on the "Navy investigating" the Kerry records isn't Lipscomb, though I'm sure Newsmax would like you to believe that's the case.

The Newsmax article cites a "Navy spokesman", who goes unidentified... and then they quote (at the end of their article) the new CEO of the US Naval Institute.

IF - and I stress this - IF Newsmax is considering the USNI CEO (don't recall his name at the moment, but he's apparently a retired USMC General) as a "Navy spokesman", well, then the article is wholly without merit.

THAT, my friend, is why it is important to consider the source.
And citing a "case" by Judicial Watch ? That lends even LESS credibility to the story.

Which is why I'd rather put my stock in what Lipscomb has to say - and I daresay that Mr. Lipscomb isn't calling Judicial Watch for leads on this story.

Come on folks, there's bigger fish to fry than this.

[Mona]

[AF366TFW]

I'll put my stock in what the NavyChief said above. Thanks Chief.
_________________
Aim High! The wife hates cleaning the floor!

[NortonPete]

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40272

Kerry medal complaint reaches Navy secretary
Probe request comes as ex-chief Lehman calls Silver Star citation 'complete mystery'
Posted: September 2, 2004
1:25 p.m. Eastern

By Art Moore
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

The Department of Defense says it has informed Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England of a formal request to investigate alleged military code violations in Sen. John Kerry's Silver Star award.

The request was made by the public interest group Judicial Watch after news reports revealed Kerry's campaign website displays a document listing a "Silver Star with combat 'V'" even though the combat "V" device is never given with the nation's third highest award for heroism.

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Also, there are three citations for the award, with the third, issued more than a decade after the event, bearing the signature of former Navy Secretary John Lehman.

Lehman, however, says he had nothing to do with the citation.

"It is a total mystery to me," he told the Chicago Sun-Times. "I never saw it. I never signed it. I never approved it. And the additional language it contains was not written by me."

Jerome Corsi, author of "Unfit for Command," the New York Times No. 1 best-seller by Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, told WorldNetDaily he considers the Judicial Watch complaint "an important and serious investigation."

"We believe the secretary of the Navy will validate the charges we've made in 'Unfit for Command,'" he said.

In its letter to Judicial Watch, the inspector general of the Defense Department cited Section 8(d) of the Inspector General Act of 1978, which states "the IG of the Department of Defense shall expeditiously report suspected or alleged violations of chapter 47 of title 10, United States Code (Uniform Code of Military Justice), to the Secretary of the military department concerned or the Secretary of Defense."

Judicial Watch filed the complaint Aug. 18 and then, Aug. 31, called on Kerry to remove the Silver Star citation from his campaign website pending a review of the U.S. Navy's granting of the award.

"We hope that this is the beginning of the actual investigation into the legitimacy of Kerry's awards," Chris Farrell, Judicial Watch's director of investigations and research, told WND.

"Any investigation that finally uncovers the facts and lays out the ground-level truth of the story behind these medals is good for the American public," he said. "We just need the unvarnished truth to come out."

Gary Comerford, spokesman for the Defense Department's inspector general, told WND the inspector general has simply processed the complaint.

"We get a lot of complaints," he said. "When they come in, we look at each one and forward it to where the information is."

But Farrell, a former Army officer, says he sees the speed of the response as an indication that the investigation has a chance to go forward.

"My experience has been that normally there is a tendency with a large military bureaucracy for these things to languish or for there to not be a tremendous sense of urgency," he said.

He noted that in the course of Judicial Watch's many investigations, requests often have taken years to generate a response.

"The fact that they are reacting in a relatively quick way, we find very encouraging," he said.

Navy spokesman Lt. Ohene Gyapong told WND he could not comment immediately and would call back later.

[Hammer2]

[Steve02C5]

[Sonar5]

[zinfella]

We all know the snail's pace of the bureaucracy's, but maybe they have some incentive to really move on this one. I have an idea that those in charge will pressure the fast tracking of this case.
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No whiners!