More Kerry Errors

Kerry's Puzzling Silver Star Citations -=- H M Holzer and E Holzer -=- FrontPageMagazine.com -=- 24Aug04
Introduction

Having sowed the wind by carefully crafting his tour of duty in Vietnam as a campaign gimmick, John Kerry is now reaping the whirlwind. He has seen virtually everything about his four months in country challenged with provable eyewitness accounts backed by sworn affidavits: the “wounds” which never required hospitalization or lost time, for which he finagled three Purple Hearts; his Bronze Star with a combat “V” for “heroically” rescuing a special forces soldier who was about to be pulled from the water by a nearby Swift boat, the man in danger, perhaps, of drowning but not under hostile fire; his “gallantry” for back-shooting an enemy soldier, for which he was awarded the Nation’s third-highest decoration, the Silver Star.


Now, on the heels of yet another revelation—that Kerry’s DD 214 (“Report of Transfer or Separation”), displayed on his website, shows his Silver Star embellished with an unauthorized “V” for valor—which makes it facially false and at variance with official government records (see our article, John Kerry’s Mysterious Combat “V”)—it has come to light that his Silver Star award is fraught with other peculiarities.



Hey anyone remember the Admiral ( or was it General) who offed himself over questions from an unauthorized valor marker?


Citation 1



By now, a key incident for which Kerry obtained the Silver Star is well known: He shot a fleeing enemy soldier in the back, presumably acting, in the words of the statute, with “gallantry.” We have reproduced in its entirety that portion of the citation which is significantly different from Citations 2 and 3.



COMMANDER

UNITED STATES NAVAL FORCES

VIETNAM

The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star Medal to

JOHN FORBES KERRY

LIEUTENANT JUNIOR GRADE

UNITED STATES NAVAL RESERVE

for service as set forth in the following:

CITATION

" * * * . . . Patrol Craft Fast 23 and 94 moved upstream to investigate an area from which gunshots were coming. Arriving at the area, Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY's craft received a B-40 rocket close aboard. Once again Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY ordered his units to charge the enemy positions and summoned Patrol Craft Fast 43 to the area to provide additional firepower. Patrol Craft Fast 94 then beached in the center of the enemy positions and an enemy soldier sprang up from his position not ten feet from Patrol Craft Fast 94 and fled. Without hesitation Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY leaped ashore, pursued the man behind a hootch and killed him, capturing a B-40 rocket launcher with a round in the chamber. Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY then led an assault party and conducted a sweep of the area while the Patrol Craft Fast continued to provide fire support. After the enemy had been completely routed, all personnel returned to the Patrol Craft Fast to withdraw from the area.” * * * (Emphasis added).

For the President

/s/ E R Zumwalt

E.R. ZUMWALT, Jr.

Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy

Commander U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam



Citation 2 (Asterisks refer to eliminated repetitive material)

COMMANDER IN CHIEF

UNITED STATES PACIFIC FLEET

The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star Medal to

Lieutenant (junior grade) John Forbes KERRY

United States Naval Reserve

for service as set forth in the following:

CITATION

* * * On a request from U.S. Army advisors on shore, Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY ordered PCF’s 94 and 23 further up river to suppress enemy sniper fire. After proceeding approximately eight hundred yards, the boats were again taken under fire from a heavily foliated area and a B-40 rocket exploded close aboard PCF 94. With utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his own boat only ten feet from the VC rocket position, and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy. Upon sweeping the area, an immediate search uncovered an enemy rest and supply area which was destroyed.” * * * (Emphasis added).

For the President,

/s/ John J Hyland

JOHN J. HYLAND

Admiral, U.S. Navy

Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet



Citation 3

THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

Washington

The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the SILVER STAR MEDAL to

LIEUTENANT (JUNIOR GRADE) JOHN F. KERRY

UNITED STATES NAVAL RESERVE

For service as set forth in the following

CITATION:

* * * After proceeding approximately eight hundred yards, the boats were again taken under fire from a heavily foliated area and a B-40 rocket exploded close aboard PCF 94: with utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his boat only ten feet from the VC rocket position, and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy. Upon sweeping the area an immediate search uncovered an enemy rest and supply area which was destroyed. * * * (Emphasis added).

For the President,

/s/ John Lehman

Secretary of the Navy



All three citations are undated.

Citation alterations

According to Citation 1—apparently prepared soon after the February 28, 1969 episode it describes and laced with the accolades “expertly,” “without hesitation,” “devotion to duty,” “courage under fire” and “outstanding leadership”—three PCFs came under fire, returned it, and embarked indigenous troops onto the shore. Kerry’s boat and another then moved upstream, where “Kerry’s craft received a B-40 rocket close aboard” (i.e., it missed). He beached the boat and “an enemy soldier sprang up from his position . . . and fled” (i.e., turned and ran). Kerry “pursued the man behind a hootch and killed him” (i.e., Kerry chased a man running away, lugging a rocket launcher), and apparently shot him in the back—although we can’t know because there was no witness, let alone the recommended two. (Incidentally, no one else in that episode was awarded a Silver Star).

Although Citation 2 also is undated, we can still ascertain when it was issued. Kerry’s first citation was for action on February 28, 1969, so Citation 2 had to be issued some time after that, but probably not immediately. Citation 2 was signed by Admiral John J. Hyland, as Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, who no longer served in that capacity after December 5, 1970. Thus, Kerry’s second citation had to have been issued some time between February 29, 1969 (following Citation 1) and December 5, 1970 (when Hyland was no longer CINCPAC). Significantly, Kerry left Vietnam in “early 1969” (his website’s timeline) and was separated from service on March 1, 1970. This means that it is likely Citation 2 was issued some time in the almost two years after his departure from Vietnam but before late 1970—when he was back in the United States.

Describing the February 28, 1969 incident, Citation 2—considerably shorter than Citation 1, but including the accolades “utter disregard for his own safety,” “daring and courageous” and “extraordinary daring and personal courage”—presents a very different picture because of a significant omission. This time, it seems, Kerry “led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy. Upon sweeping the area, an immediate search uncovered an enemy rest and supply area which was destroyed.” Vanished is the enemy soldier of Citation 1, springing up from ten feet away, carrying a rocket launcher, turning, running behind a hut, and being back-shot by Kerry. Indeed, in Citation 2’s version, there were no enemy soldiers jumping out of spider holes. Most important, gone is any implication that the current presidential candidate shot an unarmed enemy soldier in the back.

Citation 2 raises two important and intriguing questions. First, why would Kerry bother to have a second citation issued? The obvious answer is that he wanted to expunge from the record that he had shot a fleeing enemy soldier in the back. Another possible explanation, speculative though plausible, is found in the relative ranks held by Admirals Zumwalt and Hyland at that time. Zumwalt had “only” three stars, Hyland four. The politically ambitious Kerry, in a ploy (see below) that he may have repeated later in his career, could well have sought to upgrade his citation from three stars to four (especially since, at that time, it was questionable whether a three-star admiral had the authority to issue a Silver Star).

The other important and intriguing question is how a lieutenant (junior grade), far down on the totem pole and then separated from service, could have induced an active duty four-star admiral, not only to reissue a citation for the Nation’s third-highest award, but to rewrite it by sanitizing Kerry’s killing of a fleeing enemy soldier. Unfortunately, Admiral Hyland is dead, so we can’t ask him. But there is someone else we can ask: the senior senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy. Why Kennedy? Because at the time the sanitized Citation 2 was issued, Kerry and Kennedy were pals. For example, there is a photograph of the two taking a stroll together on April 21, 1971, not long after Citation 2 was issued. The photo’s caption reads: “Senator Ted Kennedy and John Kerry discuss the Supreme Court injunction against Vietnam veterans sleeping on the Mall and whether the vets ought to risk violating it. Washington, D.C., April 21, 1971.” (The photo is at www.vietnamwar.com/JohnKerrySilverStar.htm).

Citation 3, like Citations 1 and 2, is undated. But, again, we can narrow the time frame, since it was signed by John Lehman as Secretary of the Navy. Lehman served from February1981 to April 1987—long after Kerry left Vietnam, long after he was separated from service, and during Kerry’s tenure as a United States Senator.

While it is not difficult to understand why Kerry apparently sought and obtained a sanitized second version of his Silver Star citation, at first glance it is not so easy to surmise why Kerry went after yet a third citation, this time from Lehman (especially because the third citation is word-for-word, in every important respect, the same as the second). One theory dovetails with what may well have motivated him, at least in part, to prefer Hyland’s imprimatur over Zumwald’s. Kerry, now a senator, may have been trying to upgrade his award, issued by a couple of “mere” admirals, to one issued by the Secretary of the Navy.


So why can such additions/corrections be added to citations you ask?

Whatever the reason—and only Kerry and the Navy Department, and perhaps Kennedy, know the truth—Hyland’s Citation 2 and Lehman’s Citation 3 would have had to satisfy the requirement of Title 10, Section 1552, of the United States Code, subsection (a) (1), which provides that “The Secretary of a military department may correct any military record of the Secretary’s department when the Secretary considers it necessary to correct an error or remove an injustice.” Subsection (b) provides that “No correction may be made . . . unless the claimant . . . files a request for the correction within three years after he discovers the error or injustice. However, a board . . . may excuse a failure to file within three years after discovery if it finds it to be in the interest of justice.”(Emphasis added).

This means that in order to obtain Citation 2, Kerry would have had to prove that there was an “error” in Citation 1 and/or that the existence of that citation somehow constituted an “injustice.” Was the error in Citation 1 that he had shot the enemy soldier in the back, or that it was somehow an injustice to Kerry for the citation to say so?

As to obtaining Citation 3, there are two problems for Kerry. First, since it is virtually identical with Citation 2, there could be no error or injustice. Second, even if arguably there were, since the three-year statute of limitations had passed by the time Lehman was in office, in order for Kerry to obtain the correction, he would have had to prove that correcting Citation 2 was “in the interest of justice.”

An Army officer formerly in the Pentagon’s “awards and decorations” hierarchy for many years, explains the amendment process for military citations this way:

In the Army, and up until the 1980's, decorations for valor and heroism as well as service and achievement were published on general orders by the commander vested with the approval authority to act in finality on a recommendation. * * * The general orders contained a citation (reason) for the award. The recipient of the decoration also received a certificate which contained the citation or a certificate and a separate citation. The wording of the citation whether it was on the certificate or a separate document was lifted or copied from the general order.

The approved method of changing or correcting a general order once it had been issued was in the form of an amendment and there was a prescribed format for issuing an amendment on a later general order. The method voiding a previously issued general order was through a revocation and it too had a prescribed format. Most amendments were issued to correct personal data or dates on the original general order, but seldom were amendments issued to correct the citation or reason for the award. If the citation or reason for the decoration as it appeared in the original general order required a change or correction, it was accomplished through the issuance of an amendment. In this unlikely event (amendment of the citation/reason), a new certificate containing the corrected citation or a separate document containing the corrected citation/reason would be issued to the recipient. Amendatory general orders were almost always issued by the headquarters who issued the original general orders, however, amendments could also be issued by a higher headquarters; most often by Headquarters Department of the Army. This was especially true of revocations.




(a front page article in my email gave me the above citation issue)

and of course the swifties are all lying right

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX TUE AUG 24, 2004 11:09:31 ET XXXXX

KERRY PHONES SWIFT BOAT FOES

**World Exclusive**

Dem presidential hopeful John Kerry personally phoned anti-Kerry swift boat vets, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Kerry reached out to Robert "Friar Tuck" Brant Cdr., USN (RET) Sunday night, just hours after former Sen. Bob Dole publicly challenged Kerry to apologize to veterans.

Brant was skipper of the #96 and # 36 boat and spent time with Kerry in An Thoi. Kerry and Brant slept in the same quarters, and Brant used to put Kerry back to bed at night when Kerry was sleepwalking.

Brant received a call from Kerry at his home in Virginia while he was watching the Olympics on TV.

The call lasted 10 minutes, sources tell DRUDGE.

KERRY: "Why are all these swift boat guys opposed to me?"

BRANT: "You should know what you said when you came back, the impact it had on the young sailors and how it was disrespectful of our guys that were killed over there."

[Brant had two men killed in battle.]

KERRY: "When we dedicated swift boat one in '92, I said to all the swift guys that I wasn't talking about the swifties, I was talking about all the rest of the veterans."

Kerry then asked if he could meet Brant ["You were one of the best"] -- man to man -- face to face.

Brant declined the invite, explaining that Kerry was obviously not prepared to correct the record on exactly what happened during Vietnam and what happened when Kerry came back.

Developing...


of course they are John


Kerry's campaign now says is possible first Purple Heart was awarded for unintentional self-inflicted wound!


Kerry received Purple Heart for wounds suffered on 12/2/68...


In Kerry's own journal written 9 days later, he writes he and his crew, quote, 'hadn't been shot at yet'... Developing...

http://www.drudgereport.com/


Wait wait, aren't they all liars

i am confused