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As for being AWOL, Kerry has his own questions to answer about his service. First off, he NEVER volunteered to join the Navy, he enlisted in the Naval Reserve officer train corp, a year later his unit was activated. Upon activation he served on a frigate the made a port call into Vietnam (his supposed first tour) then left for the states for a overhaul. He then volunteered for the Swift Boats, this actin is best explained in his own words: Kerry told the Boston Globe last year, "I didn't really want to get involved in the war. When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling...." After finding out that the swift boats where doing some REAL fighting he grabbed up three Purple Hearts (his own campaign admits at least one is fake) and ran back to the states after 4 months. He then petitioned to be released from active two years early so that he could pursue his career as a politician. He was also supposed to be serving in the active reserve as a condition of his release from activie duty. Not one sailor has ever come forward that confirms that Kerry reported for duty. Nor has Kerry ever released his military records to "prove" that he served out his enlistment. His own discharge paper posted on JohnKerry.com reveals there where issues surrounding his discharge from the reserves. The document is a form cover letter in the name of the Carter administration's secretary of the Navy, W. Graham Claytor. It describes Mr. Kerry's discharge as being subsequent to the review of "a board of officers." This in it self is unusual. There is nothing about an ordinary honorable discharge action in the Navy that requires a review by a board of officers. According to the secretary of the Navy's document, the "authority of reference" this board was using in considering Mr. Kerry's record was "Title 10, U.S. Code Section 1162 and 1163. "This section refers to the grounds for involuntary separation from the service. What was being reviewed, then, was Mr. Kerry's involuntary separation from the service. And it couldn't have been an honorable discharge, or there would have been no point in any review at all. The document is dated February 16, 1978. But Mr. Kerry's military commitment began with his six-year enlistment contract with the Navy on February 18, 1966. His commitment should have terminated in 1972. It is highly unlikely that either the man who at that time was a Vietnam Veterans Against the War leader, John Kerry, requested or the Navy accepted an additional six year reserve commitment. The Claytor document indicates proceedings to reverse a less than honorable discharge that took place sometime prior to February 1978. The most routine time for Mr. Kerry's discharge would have been at the end of his six-year obligation, in 1972. The "board of officers" review reported in the Claytor document is even more extraordinary because it came about "by direction of the President." No normal honorable discharge requires the direction of the president. The president at that time was James Carter. This adds another twist to the story of Mr. Kerry's hidden military records. Mr. Carter's first act as president was a general amnesty for draft dodgers and other war protesters. Less than an hour after his inauguration on January 21, 1977, while still in the Capitol building, Mr. Carter signed Executive Order 4483 empowering it. By the time it became a directive from the Defense Department in March 1977 it had been expanded to include other offenders who may have had general, bad conduct, dishonorable discharges, and any other discharge or sentence with negative effect on military record. After demands for Bush to release all of his military records, the press had been reduced to counterfeiting documents in attempt to defame the president. In the mean time Kerry keeps his under lock an key, as he runs as a "war Hero".
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