Does anyone remember Admiral Boorda?

He committed suicide back in 1996 because of a flap over the illegitimate display of the "V for Valor" on his medals:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The nation's top Navy officer, Adm. Jeremy Michael Boorda, died Thursday from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound hours after learning Newsweek magazine was raising questions about the legitimacy of some of his combat medals.

CNN has learned from Pentagon sources that Boorda wrote two letters before he died, one to his family and one addressed to sailors.

Sources said that in the typewritten note to the sailors, Boorda explained that he took his life because of the questions raised about his wearing of "V" for valor medals on his combat ribbon from Vietnam.

Navy officials had not yet decided whether to release the letters.

I thought of Admiral Boorda because today I learned about a similar flap involving John Kerry:

Now, on the heels of yet another revelation—that Kerry’s DD 214 (“Report of Transfer or Separation”), displayed on his website, shows his Silver Star embellished with an unauthorized “V” for valor—which makes it facially false and at variance with official government records (see our article, John Kerry’s Mysterious Combat “V”)—it has come to light that his Silver Star award is fraught with other peculiarities.

In the United States military, the process of awarding a medal begins with preparation of a form prescribed by official regulations. The current Navy form (OPNAV 1650/3, “Personal Award Recommendation”), substantively identical to the one in use during John Kerry’s time in Vietnam thirty years ago, provides that when an award is recommended, attached to that recommendation is a “proposed citation.” A citation, in essence, is a narrative description of the “service” that the recipient performed to warrant the award. In other words, the citation explains why the award was made and in what way it was earned. (The regulations pertaining to Personal Award Recommendations also reccomend that combat awards be supported by at least two witnesses.)

Here’s where it gets puzzling. Lieutenant John Kerry’s award for the Silver Star has—not one citation, but three—an unheard of number for a single award.

Understandably, as we shall see, only Kerry’s most recent citation—nearly two decades older than the first and signed by a Secretary of the Navy who was years away from that office when Lieutenant Kerry, now Senator Kerry, originally obtained the award—appears on his website. (Not one of the three citations, incidentally, refer to the combat “V” that appears on Kerry’s website’s DD 214.)

Connections, perhaps?

Then there's the "V." Unbelievable as it sounds, the presence of an unauthorize "V" might constitute a federal crime:

The presence of the combat “V” with Kerry’s Silver Star on his DD 214 raises two extremely disquieting questions. How did the unauthorized “V” get there, and why has Kerry allowed it to remain?

The first question should not be taken lightly because we are talking about possible federal crimes. We are talking about the possibility of a forged official document. We are talking, as well, about Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001, which states: “[W]hoever, in any manner within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the United States, knowingly and willfully . . . makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years or both.”

I don't think this is one of the Swift Boat veterans' allegations, but if it's true (which it appears to be), once again the question becomes, is it relevant?

It strikes me that if career military guys commit suicide over these things, it may be.....

Didn't anybody vet this guy's resume risumi?

MORE: I'm beginning to see why Kerry was never vetted as so many candidates are today. In American politics, one's opponents end up doing the vetting. Kerry was first elected to public office in 1982, when he ran for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts as the running mate of Miichael Dukakis. (Once the primary was over, an easy win.) Two years later, Senator Tsongas retired suddenly, creating an opening, which Kerry targeted. This real race was between Kerry and his liberal opponent in the Democratic primary, one James M. Shannon -- who went so far as to criticize Kerry not for his protesting, but for having served in Vietnam. This rightly enraged Vietnam veterans who, feeling impugned, went to bat for Kerry. His Republican opponent, Raymond Shamie, had little chance of winning in liberal Massachusetts, and nothing to gain by scrutinizing the war record of an opponent better known for being against the war than for it. (Liberal Democrats -- particularly in those days -- would not have been likely to scrutunize the military records of other liberals.) Kerry has been in the Senate since, and not until this election has his life been put under the microscope as it is now.

The above biographical information, plus much more, can be read here.

UPDATE (08-27-04): Via Drudge, I see that the Combat "V" flap has now hit the mainstream press:

the official records on Kerry's Web site only add to the confusion. The DD214 form, an official Defense Department document summarizing Kerry's military career posted on johnkerry.com, includes a "Silver Star with combat V."

But according to a U.S. Navy spokesman, "Kerry's record is incorrect. The Navy has never issued a 'combat V' to anyone for a Silver Star."

Naval regulations do not allow for the use of a "combat V" for the Silver Star, the third-highest decoration the Navy awards. None of the other services has ever granted a Silver Star "combat V," either.

Fake claims not uncommon

B.G. Burkett, a Vietnam veteran himself, received the highest award the Army gives to a civilian, the Distinguished Civilian Service Award, for his book Stolen Valor. Burkett pored through thousands of military service records, uncovering phony claims of awards and fake claims of military service. "I've run across several claims for Silver Stars with combat V's, but they were all in fake records," he said.

Burkett recently filed a complaint that led last month to the sentencing of Navy Capt. Roger D. Edwards to 115 days in the brig for falsification of his records.

Does anyone think Kerry will release his records?

UPDATE (09/02/04): Glenn Reynolds (a previous skeptic on this matter) now characterizes the story as having "some legs." And according to the the story he links, Kerry was himself critical of Boorda!

At the time, Mr. Kerry told the Boston Globe that Boorda’s conduct was “sufficient to question [Boorda’s] leadership position.…If you wind up being less than what you’re pretending to be, there is a major confrontation with value and self-esteem and your sense of how others view you.”