BoatBanter.com - View Single Post

On 07 Mar 2004 13:13:01 GMT, (Florida Keyz) wrote:

Personally, I think the O.T.s have very little to say, that has any value.

Well, fk, you obviously did read this post:

Revealed: how 'war hero' Kerry tried to put off Vietnam military duty
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 07/03/2004)

Senator John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate who
is
trading on his Vietnam war record to campaign against President George
W
Bush, tried to defer his military service for a year, according to a
newly
rediscovered article in a Harvard University newspaper.

He wrote to his local recruitment board seeking permission to spend a
further 12 months studying in Paris, after completing his degree
course at
Yale University in the mid-1960s.

The revelation appears to undercut Sen Kerry's carefully-cultivated
image as
a man who willingly served his country in a dangerous war - in
supposed
contrast to President Bush, who served in the Texas National Guard and
thus
avoided being sent to Vietnam.

The Harvard Crimson newspaper followed a youthful Mr Kerry in Boston
as he
campaigned for Congress for the first time in 1970. In the course of a
lengthy article, "John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress",
published on
February 18, the paper reported: "When he approached his draft board
for
permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and
Kerry
decided to enlist in the Navy."

Samuel Goldhaber, the article's author who is now a cardiologist
attached to
the Harvard School of Medicine, spent 11 hours trailing Mr Kerry and
still
remembers that the subject of the Paris deferment came up during long
conversations about Vietnam.

"I stand by my story," he told The Telegraph. "It was a long time ago,
and I
was 19 at the time, so it is hard to remember every detail. But I do
know
this: at no point did Kerry contact either me or the Crimson to
dispute
anything I had written."

Sen Kerry's campaign headquarters in Washington refused an opportunity
to
deny the report. Despite repeated telephone calls from The Telegraph,
a
spokesman refused to comment. Another Democrat official said merely:
"In
Vietnam, John Kerry proved his patriotism beyond question. Everyone
knows
that."

A senior Republican strategist, who asked not to be named, said: "I've
not
heard this before. This undercuts Kerry's complaints about Bush and it
continues to pose questions as to his credibility among ordinary
Vietnam
veterans."

He said it would fuel concerns over the way Sen Kerry made a name for
himself by leading anti-war protests in Washington and Boston in the
late
1960s and early 1970s after he had completed his service in the US
Navy,
even while his former comrades continued to fight and die.

A newly-published biography of Sen Kerry by Douglas Brinkley, A Tour
of
Duty, makes no mention of the requested deferment or planned year in
Paris.
At the time, it was still unclear just how long America would remain
in
Vietnam, and it might have seemed that a year's deferral of service
could
render enlistment unnecessary.

According to the Democratic Party's version of Sen Kerry's military
history,
he joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Harvard through
eagerness to
do his duty, and sailed with the Navy for combat as soon as he
graduated in
1966.

Sen Kerry won a gallantry medal for his service as a gunboat captain
on the
Mekong Delta, and was honorably discharged with three "purple heart"
medals
after sustaining three wounds. He has consistently presented himself
as a
leader who argued against the war only after fulfilling his duty in
the
field. Supporters argue that his war record makes him a more
trustworthy
leader than President Bush, who served sporadically in the National
Guard at
home.

"This means that Kerry didn't jump into all that heroic service until
he was
pushed, and it is a very nice piece of information," said Lucianne
Goldberg,
a prominent Republican campaigner.

Republican strategists for President Bush were already investigating
Sen
Kerry's record of three wounds sustained in Vietnam. "We find that he
had
only one day off sick - with three wounds? What exactly were these
wounds?"
she asked.

Mr Goldhaber recalled that, during a day spent with Sen Kerry and one
assistant during his congressional campaign, he had described his
involvement, service and decision to oppose the war in great detail.

"I am not at all surprised that he wants to be president, because he
exuded
ambition from the word go," said Dr Goldhaber. "At the time, the idea
that
he tried to persuade the draft board to let him spend a year in Paris
was
just a detail."

A spokesman for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign declined to
comment.

John H

On the 'Poco Loco' out of Deale, MD
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!