Navy Probes Kerry Medal

[Nambe]

faux spews

NEW YORK — In what has been described by Navy officials as a routine process, the Pentagon's inspector general's office on Thursday referred to the secretary of the Navy a request to investigate medals won by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry during the Vietnam War.

Government watchdog group Judicial Watch (search) submitted the request for an investigation. Navy sources said the service will probe the medals, but added that most questions have arisen because of what appear to be errors in processing records.

Kerry received five medals during his four months in combat in Vietnam. Judicial Watch asked the Pentagon to investigate Kerry's receipt of the Silver Star with a "Combat V" designation (search), which stands for valor under fire.

Kerry's campaign Web site includes military records listing the Combat V citation. Navy procedures show that the Silver Star cannot carry a Combat V designation because part of the reason the medal is awarded is for valor under fire — the added designation would be redundant. The findings of the probe, therefore, will not change the record of Kerry's Vietnam service.

In a letter to Judicial Watch, the inspector general's office said: "Concerning our allegations of violations of Uniform Code of Military Justice, we have the responsibility to ... 'report suspected or alleged violations.' We have informed the secretary of the Navy of the allegations."

Fun * Accurate * * A G.I.’s Handbook

[Lindacooks]

1. And where's the investigation into chimp wearing

medals he DIDN'T EARN????

[rocktivity]

6. I'm having 100 buttons made up based on this

for starters.


I'm going to add, "Don't vote for an AWOL commander in chief, Vote Kerry/Edwards 2004."

Besides, it would be the Navy's screwup, not his!

:headbang:
rocknation

[ranosgol]

9. Yeah it is a typo..but the repugs Will say Kerry faked them!

I am a ex military man and the general public hold the military in a higher regard than they should. What i mean by that is the military makes tons of very stupid mistakes. Typos just like in the civilian world happens.

The repugs and the Limpbag crowd will say, see he faked his record!

A typo caused me to serve the rest of my obligated time in the Navy. My ship was decommissioning and I was eligible to get out early, three years early on a 6 years hitch. A typo at a school i took said i had a skill i did not have which caused me to be denied an Early out. I had to do the three years.

[annxburns]

2. Jaysus, it is a TYPO.

The silver star doesn't come with a V for Valor. Valor for the Silver Star is implied.

One or two of Kerry's records FROM THE MILITARY has a typo. Happens on a lot of vets records. The Navy will investigate and correct.

It is NOT a big deal. But Repukes will try to make it one.

And some of us are helping.

BTW Kerry never claimed to have a Silver Star with a V. He knew enough about his own citations to know that ... unlike Bushie who wore a medal he did not earn.

[liberalmuse]

5. Oh.

Well then, nevermind. Goddamned media headlines. Should've known to read the entire story before ranting.

[TahitiNut]

23. Of course it's a typo. I'd guess nearly half of DD214's have typos.

The clerks hammering those things out were among the most overworked guys in the service. That's one of the reasons there's a DD-215.

[liberalmuse]

3. BULLSHIT!

The Navy would savage one of it's own for a piece of AWOL dog shit who was pissing on an automobile while Kerry was thinking up his 90 degree swift boat strategy and looking out for his men. Fucking politics.

[Career Prole]

13. Bullshit's right.

I wish that "AWOL" label would go away though.

Junior is a fucking deserter! (not was a deserter, either...it's a sticky label they rightfully wear for life)
The piece of shit should be holding a dishonorable discharge. He didn't earn the honorable discharge the rest of us got.
I am so sick and tired of having a friggin' cheap-ass phony PUNK for a president!
:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[shockingelk]

27. I see it as a good thing

It's an official investigation, everything and more than the SBVT wanted.

The investigation will issue it's findings, it won't verify anything the Swift Boat vets have been screaming about, but may correct an obvious paperwork error that the Swift Vet's allegedly thorough investigation somehow missed!

That they missed something obvious will show they don't know what the hell they're talking about.

[wurzel]

4. Where is the investigation of AWOL?? They have to be kidding!

[ArnoldLayne]

20. How about investigating the Abortion that

Bush made his girlfriend in the early 70's have,Robin something I can't remember her last name lets get the real facts about that.

[flordehinojos]

7. while they are at it, they also ought to Probe POPPY's medal & doctored up

report over his "crash landing" the Barbara II over the waters of Chichi Jima. That is what they really ought to be Probing. But, who is that Secretary of the Navy who was one of the Bush appointed members of the 9/11 commission, (is his name Lehman? I don't know if I am confusing his name) he will never do so. He is a bush derriere kisser.

[Poiuyt]

8. Who is Judicial Watch?

Can anybody ask to have someone's medals investigated?

Calling Walt Starr!!

[aquart]

10. Judicial Watch is Larry Klayman. Sued his own mother.

I believe he's a Scaife slave.

[tblue37]

11. Larry Klayman

is a rightwing nutcase who uses his organization, Judicial Watch, to hound and harass public officials by filing endless nuisance suits.

He went after Clinton constantly, with the encouragement of Republicans. But when the Republicans took power, they were shocked to discover that their pet monster would go after them, too. Not as frequently as he goes after Democrats, mind you, but he is a nuisance to some Republicans as well.

He is a publicity hound and quite power mad.

[joefree1]

16. Scaife front

Scaife's Money Aids Judicial Watch
By Brooks Jackson/CNN

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, June 10) -- Larry Klayman, leader of the group Judicial Watch, calls himself a conservative watchdog. He denies he is in it for the money and says he is just after the truth about the Clinton Administration.
Klayman

"I take it to heart when I see the government not telling the truth, not doing the right thing and covering up," Klayman says.

Klayman subpoenaed Clinton fund-raiser John Huang in 1996. This year he forced former Clinton aide Harold Ickes to testify and got Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon to admit under oath he leaked damaging information about Clinton accuser Linda Tripp.

Tax records show Klayman's tax-exempt group, Judicial Watch, was just a shoestring operation in 1996, with total revenues of less than $68,000.

But now it comes out that Judicial Watch received $550,000 in 1997 from the Carthage Foundation, funded by Pittsburgh billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.
More ...
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/06/11/klayman.jacks... /

[LynneSin]

12. JUDICIAL WATCH???? These folks tried suing Clinton hundreds of times

this is the asshole that filed 10 trillion lawsuits against Bill Clinton for everything that pissed him the wrong way. I'll admit they loosened up a bit when they went after the Cheney Energy Records (they made an attempt and gave up), but I guess they're back at what they do best - nonsense lawsuits

:crazy:

[leetrisck]

14. Waaaaah! I want to investigate Doles' medals, poppy

bush's (does he have any) and I'm sure the right wingers want to investigate any medals received by all former Democratic veterans including the ones laying in Walter Reed & elsewhere.

[DemoTex]

15. ATTENTION: ALL DEMO VETS ON THIS BOARD. URGENT!

Contact your Congress people tomorrow and DEMAND that your Awards & Decorations file be reviewed by the appropriate branch. Bog this shit down, bigtime. I'll get details tomorrow. Sleep on it tonight.

[UTUSN]

25. That's a Thought

I know that the # of little star-devices on my Vietnam Campaign are wrong, and two things I'm eligible for are NOT on my discharge papers.

[True_Blue]

17. When are they going to investigate the deserter?

When are they going to investigate AWOL's National Guard records?

:argh:

[despairing optimist]

18. This is such a straw man

I hope the independents and undecideds aren't as lobotomized as Karl Rove takes them to be. There are real problems in this country, the vast majority of voters would answer Ronbo's "Are you better off now" question with a resounding no, and I bet everyone has at least one friend or family member who has either been out of work for a long time or has had to settle for a lower-paying job just to survive. In this context, anyone who really cares about a bunch of medals that Kerry himself threw back at the government must be in sore need of a life.

[progressivebydesign]

19. The ONLY reason the Navy HAS to investigate, is because someone asked..

The Navy is NOT questioning Kerry's record. The wingnuts at Judicial Watch are!! Make that distinction, please. They will find that the medals are earned. I'm so fucking ashamed to be an American right now...

[UTUSN]

21. Some Admin Staffer Typed a "V" - That's All

This is civilian baiting of civilian ignorance of military regulations and procedures. It was a clerical error that is being blown up into something HUGE, which it is not. Not only do HIGH admin staff not know all the regulations at the time they are typing things, the officers who SIGN them don't know enough about what they are signing, and the number of little devices on the Vietnam campaign medal is a matter of dates of campaigns that fit within the time frame of when you were there. All up and down the chain of command are these little dudes at typewriters with huge binders of regulations that are DENSE to read and EASY to mis-read. It's no big deal. I'll wager that a VERY LARGE NUMBER of military personnel records contain errors, that nobody will ever investigate or correct-------unless you're running for President.

[Walt Starr]

22. Man, if only people looked at the FACTS

First off, somebody incorrectly entered his Silver Star on his DD214 incorrectly, listing it as being 'WITH COMBAT "V"'. When you see that it is listed directly below his Bronze Star, you can start to understand why the clerical error. Here from line 24 of his DD214:



On his DD215, which is supposed to correct his DD214, they list his Vietnam Service Medal as having four bronze stars:



But if you look at this photograph of John Kerry, he DID NOT WEAR a "V" on his Silver Star and he only wore two bronze star devices on his VSM:



In that picture, he correctly wears the "V" on his bronze star, two gold stars on his Purple Heart, the appropriate palm devices on the Republic of Vietnam citations, and two bronze stars on his VSM.

The saddest thing of all about this nitpicking is that they will run with this bullshit about Kerry's awards, but the press won't mention the FACT that Bush wore a ribbon he did not earn!

[bagnana]

24. I want an investigation of Bush's medals!!!!!

I want an investigation of his wearing medals he did not win. I want an investigation of his honorable discharge.

[Just Me]

26. Note that "the Pentagon's inspector general's office" is doing this.

Is this not yet another violation of covert propagandizing which is totally illegal and unconstitutional?

Is such a thing not completely anti-democracy, anti-equality, anti-liberty and privacy,...among other neo-fascist things?

[moondust]

28. "Depends on who you ask."

Case closed.

[UTUSN]

29. What I Answered My Wingnut Vet

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

My Wingnut Vet Is Just Getting to the Navy-"investigating" JK's Medals

Update: After a couple of years that he abided by my p.o.ed demand that he not send me wingnut crap, he started up again last week. I have countered with articles from DU, especially the ones about Shrub's demonic domestic agenda (gutting Medicare, etc.) if he seizes power another 4 years.

I doubt that he reads the articles. He doesn't answer those. Today he sent a NewsMax item about the Navy "investigating" the clerical error about a "V for Valor" on JK's Silver Star. We at DU had disposed of this non-issue a week ago. I didn't want to get into a long term "debate" with this guy, but it's happening. Here's my answer today:

----------
So you are not concerned about Shrub's plans to gut Medicare and Social Security and to wage perpetual war and to pillage the country-------so all you can gloat about is the Navy's "investigating" a clerical error about KERRY's medals? (Oh, by the way, Shrub doesn't even have any medals to investigate.) This goes beyond malicious pettiness on to short-sighted lack of concern about our country.

1) Judicial Watch is a wingnut organization that harrasses CLINTON and Dems by filing FRIVOLOUS lawsuits. 2) NewsMax is a wingnut rag, which even in your article notes the "clerical error".

This is civilian baiting of civilian ignorance of military regulations and procedures. It was a clerical error that is being blown up into something HUGE, which it is not.

Not only do HIGH admin military staff not know all the regulations at the time they are typing things, the officers who SIGN them don't know enough about what they are signing.

All up and down the chain of command are these little dudes at typewriters with HUGH binders of regulations that are DENSE to read and EASY to mis-read. It's no big deal. I'll wager that a VERY LARGE NUMBER of military personnel records contain errors, that nobody will ever investigate or correct-------unless you're running for President.

In MY DD214, TWO of my eligible medals are not listed. Plus, the number of little star devices on my Vietnam campaign medal is probably wrong.

When somebody files a complaint, the bureaucratic Navy Department MUST "investigate". It SOUNDS "important", doesn't it? Actually, another vet at the Dem discussion board came up with the idea that all us Dem vets should FLOOD the Navy with requests that our records be reviewed-----haha.

[moondust]

30. Paging Kenneth Starr. Paging Kenneth Starr.

Could this be the beginning of another $80+ million investigation, hopping from bogus claim to bogus claim indefinitely? They sure are good stewards of the public's money! :smoke:

Particularly during the Vietnam war era when so many people were processed in and out of the military are there likely to be a mountain of clerical errors of all kinds. Of course back then the clerks only had manual typewriters and it was a pain in the ass to make corrections on 6-ply.

[Fatima]

31. Not this nonsense again

In 1996, controversy over a "V" designation drove CNO Admiral J. Boorda to suicide. This is a bunch of crap intended to smear Kerry and distract, distract, distract. Let's hope something comes of Sunday night's 60 Minutes segment with Ben Barnes who helped W get into the Texas ANG.

Read about Boorda:

http://www.cnn.com/US/9605/16/boorda.6p/