I had previously speculated about Kerry's discharge over the family dinner table. I had wondered aloud about an Other Than Honorable dischage, knowing that many administrative disharges are labeled as such. Obesity in today's military, for example, could lead to a medical discharge labeled OTH. Knowing that the Senator had pursued an administrative disharge based on some obscure three purple heart rule (My father earned five purple hearts and served two tours, no one invited him to leave the dance) so I thought that an OTH was not an unreasonable idea.

There is a rumor breaking now that the Senator might have actually received a Dishonorable Discharge because of his meeting in Paris with the North Vietnamese and his subsequent championing of their talking points before the senate...

Here is an unsubstantiated letter from a Captain Donald Nelson.

I suppose that only time and the diligence of the blogosphere will see this one to the light of truth, whichever side it falls on.

Subject: Fw: THE JIMMY CARTER LEGACY CONTINUES

Sean,

I was on active duty as a U.S. Navy lawyer when all of this was going on some 25 to 30 years ago, and so was Mark F. Sullivan, who at all relevant times was the personal lawyer to J. William Middendorf, then the Secretary of the Navy. We remember.

We are trying to break this absolutely true story nationwide, i.e., Fox News, C Span, and hopefully all the major networks. We are positive that John Kerry was one of those dishonorably dismissed from the Navy for collaborating with the Viet Cong, after he was released from active duty but still in the Navy, and for a totally unauthorized trip to Hanoi. He later got an "honorable" separation in 1978, some 12 years after joining the Navy, under President Carter's "Amnesty Program" for draft dodgers, deserters, and other malcontents who fled to Canada and Holland, among other places, to avoid military service to our country.

This is why he has refused, and continues to refuse, to release all of his Navy records: they reflect that he was Dishonorably Dismissed from the United States Naval Service. If they do not (which they do), he would have released them to the public. Again, he has not done so, because he well knows that the truth would kill his challenge to President Bush.

Sincerely,
DONALD L. NELSON
CAPT, JAGC, USNR
(Ret.)

Hat Tip to Tov Brog at New Conservative Voice.

Posted by Michael at October 29, 2004 04:41 PM