...why Kerry continues to refuse to sign SF 180 and release all of his military records. There have been rumors swirling about this for a while, but it's looking more and more like his discharge from the Navy may have been less than honorable.

And much of his subsequent political career has been spent in attempting to repair that blot on his vital narrative of "John Kerry, Vietnam Hero"

There are a number of categories of discharges besides honorable. There are general discharges, medical discharges, bad conduct discharges, as well as other than honorable and dishonorable discharges. There is one odd coincidence that gives some weight to the possibility that Mr. Kerry was dishonorably discharged. Mr. Kerry has claimed that he lost his medal certificates and that is why he asked that they be reissued. But when a dishonorable discharge is issued, all pay benefits, and allowances, and all medals and honors are revoked as well. And five months after Mr. Kerry joined the U.S. Senate in 1985, on one single day, June 4, all of Mr. Kerry's medals were reissued.

[2:30 PM EDT update]

More thoughts over at the Beldar Blog.

Even if this isn't the issue, the question won't go away--why is Kerry and his campaign stonewalling on the service records? If this isn't what he's hiding, is it something else? Something worse?

The quote is doubled. You've got the portion that says "There are a number of categories of discharges besides honorable. There are general discharges, medical discharges, bad conduct discharges..." in twice.

Thanks, I fixed it.

There's been some interesting discussion of this over at PoliPundit, where at least one person notes that, given Kerry's position in the MA state government, he probably could not have been dishonorably discharged, because it would have prevented him from passing the bar exam.

The questions that swirl around this, however, makes one wonder why Kerry doesn't sign a Form 180 and clear up the controversy once and for all?

I cannot speak to when Mr Kerry was seperated, but circa 1991, the author of the linked article would be incorrect. My discharge from the USN is A) Honorable, B) involuntary, and c) was subject to automatic review. (It was a "Convenience of Goverment" discharge, further details not available because they are personal.)

Furthermore, I'd not put too much weight on something being "by direction of the President". Lots of things in the service are done "by direction of the President", which frequently means sometime in the past the President signed an Executive Order and the boilerplate verbiage means they process in question is being carried out in accordance with the EO, not by individual intervention on the part of the President.

The cover letter mentioned in the linked article is cause for suspicion, but I'd be hard put to draw any firm conclusions from it.

Well, all this speculation would end if Senator Kerry would simply sign the form and release the records. Every day he continues to refuse to do so will allow the questions to hang out there.

Speaking only for myself, I don't give a darn about his military records or circumstances surrounding his discharge. I'm not voting against a 23 year old junior officer, I'm voting against the liberal senator from Massachusets.

From Ms. Carnacki: Bush says he doesn't think the government ought to run our healthcare ... except when it comes to telling a 13-year-old incest victim she has to go live in a maternity group home.

On Tuesday's IMUS show, Col. John Jacobs announced that Kerry did not receive an Honorable Discharge because he missed meetings, etc., while in the Reserve (sounds like his Senate record).

In later years, Kerry applied to have his GENERAL
discharge changed to Honorable. Col. Jacobs did not give a source for this info, but others have sourced it to A.L.[Steve] Nash, MAC Ret/ UDT/SEAL
of the AutheniSEAL site.

Does anyone know more about this?

-cube

> he probably could not have been dishonorably discharged, because it would have prevented him from passing the bar exam.

As others have pointed out, that's not true.

Most bars will admit certain convicted felons, so it's silly to think that they wouldn't also admit certain dishonorably discharged folks as well.