You know, Elk,
There’s no doubt that Kerry was in a dangerous situation in Viet Nam, and that he signed up for a naval tour. But I think the distinction between what he thought he was signing up for, and what Bush signed up for, isn’t as well defined as you make it out to be. Of course, I can see where the confusion arose: from the Kerry campaign…
http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2004_08_22_archive.html#109338012424943922
The myth of Kerry knowingly volunteering for dangerous duty lives on (8/24)
By Brendan Nyhan
The myth that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry volunteered for swift boat duty in Vietnam knowing it was particularly dangerous continues to spread despite clear evidence to the contrary.
As we have written before, http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2004_08_01_archive.html#1091679708922 74992
Kerry actually volunteered at a time when swift boats were engaged in relatively safe coastal patrols. They were redeployed to the rivers of Vietnam – a far more risky mission – after Kerry’s decision. Kerry himself has admitted as much, writing in 1986 Boston Globe Online | John Kerry: A Candidate in the Making
that “When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that’s what I thought I was going to be doing.”
Yet Kerry’s campaign website, http://www.johnkerry.com/about/john_kerry/service.html
vice presidential nominee John Edwards and former president Bill Clinton USATODAY.com - Bill Clinton's remarks at the Democratic convention
have all suggested Kerry knew the risks. As Edwards put it, DEMS 2004 • Democratic national convention
“He volunteered to go to Vietnam and to captain a swift boat, one of the most dangerous duties you could have.”
Kerry’s campaign continues to encourage this misperception. Spokesman Tad Devine said on CNN’s “Paula Zahn Now” on August 18 that Kerry “volunteered to serve on one of the most dangerous assignments in Vietnam, on a swift boat.” And on August 20 on Fox News Channel’s “The Big Story with John Gibson,” he told guest host Andrew Napolitano virtually the same thing:
DEVINE: Well, first, I would like to say that John Kerry served two tours of duty in Vietnam. After the first tour of duty, which was a year that he served and was awarded a ribbon for being in the theater, he served in a second tour of duty. He volunteered for it.
NAPOLITANO: That's the controversial one.
DEVINE: One of the, you know, most -- the most dangerous assignments of anyone in Vietnam, a casualty rate of more than 50 percent.
Reporter and commentators have picked up the talking point. Knight Ridder’s Joseph L. Galloway wrote recently that
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/special_packages/election2004/9455159.htm “The attacks by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have called into account Kerry’s conduct during the war, when he volunteered for one of the most dangerous duties – the so-called Brown Water Navy.” Michael Tomasky, executive editor of The American Prospect, embellished Kerry’s decision as well,
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8388 writing in an online article that “John Kerry volunteered for the Navy, volunteered to go to Vietnam, and then, when he was sitting around Cam Ranh Bay bored with nothing to do, requested the most dangerous duty a Naval officer could be given.” Others have made vaguer but equally misleading claims. On Slate, executive editor Jacob Weisberg wrote
http://slate.msn.com/id/2105353/ that Kerry “volunteered to go to Vietnam and, once there, volunteered for dangerous duty.” And San Jose Mercury News columnist Dan Gillmor wrote on his weblog http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/010711.shtml#010711
that “Kerry, unlike Bush, volunteered for dangerous duty in a war zone.”
There is much debate about and confusion over Kerry’s war record, but on this issue, the facts are especially clear. The media should start getting them straight and holding Kerry’s campaign to the same standard.
And then there’s this:
After serving in an admittedly dangerous area - more dangerous than he had signed up for - Kerry went home after 4 and a half months in Viet Nam. He was, of course, allowed to do so after receiving the 3 Purple Hearts. Nothing wrong there, leaving aside the controversy over his Purple Hearts.
Kerry then signed up for a second tour, in the Pacific aboard the U.S.S. Gridley, which spent part of the tour off the Vietnamese coast. Kerry reported to USS Gridley on June 8, 1967. On February 9, 1968, the USS Gridley departs for a Western Pacific (WESTPAC) deployment, to engage in operations in support of the Vietnam War. Ship spends time in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam, at Subic Bay in the Philippines and in Wellington, New Zealand. (All of this information is from Kerry’s site.) On May 27, 1968, the Gridley sets sail for the U.S.
From the Boston Globe’s biography of Kerry:
http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061703.shtml
"He asked for a cushy assignment - service as an admiral’s aide - and was given precisely that job in Brooklyn… On Jan. 3, 1970, Kerry requested that his superior, Rear Admiral Walter F. Schlech, Jr., grant him an early discharge so that he could run for Congress on an antiwar platform.
“I just said to the admiral: `I’ve got to get out. I’ve got to go do what I came back here to do, which is, end this thing,'” Kerry recalled, referring to the war. The request was approved, and Kerry was honorably discharged, which he said shaved six months from his commitment.