Contributors
J.F. Kelly, Jr. - Contributor

J.F. Kelly, Jr. is a retired Navy Captain and bank executive who writes on current events and military subjects. He is a resident of Coronado, California. [go to Kelly index]

Kerry’s Qualifications for the Presidency
What counts the most?...
[J. F. Kelly, Jr.] 8/1104

I’ve been receiving a lot of queries lately about things that did or did not happen during the time John Kerry and I served together in the Navy. I’ve also received large quantities of reading material, mostly email and mostly unpersuasive, from people attempting to trash, for political purposes, his relatively brief combat service in Swift boats. I have also declined offers to join groups attempting to discredit him on the basis of his naval service.

As I have previously written, Kerry and I served together in USS Gridley (DLG 21) in 1967 and 1968. Gridley was a new guided missile frigate, later reclassified with the rest of the ships in her class as a guided missile cruiser. Ensign Kerry was First Lieutenant, the division officer in charge of the deck force consisting of about thirty sailors. I was a commander serving as executive officer, or second in command. The officers reporting directly to me were the department heads, mostly lieutenant commanders. John reported to the weapons officer, one of the department heads, but had daily direct contact with me because of his responsibilities for deck seamanship, the ship’s four boats and the external appearance of the ship and also because of his collateral duty as public affairs officer, a position I had previously filled in an aircraft carrier.

As I have said often and say again, John was a fine junior officer-- intelligent, responsible and hardworking. Moreover, he possessed these qualities in degrees not common in inexperienced ensigns. His fitness reports (evaluations) that I drafted for the captain’s signature reflected those qualities and more. He earned them.

We first received orders for Kerry to report while we were still deployed to the South China Sea and the Tonkin Gulf area. We had a rescue helo detachment on board, berthing was tight and we had no immediate need for another junior officer, so we decided that the best use of his services was for him to remain stateside filling required school quotas until we returned to Long Beach.

After a turnaround of less than eight months, Gridley deployed again in February 1968 with Ensign Kerry on board. Much of that tour, like the previous one, was spent on search and rescue duty, providing support to the carrier and assistance to downed aviators and aircraft in distress. We returned to Long Beach in June and Kerry left shortly after for Swift Boat training. He spent a little over four months on combat duty in the rivers of South Vietnam and was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. He left the Navy after his obligated service tour, joined the anti-war protest movement, entered politics and the rest, as they say, is history.

Kerry refers to his approximately one-year tour in Gridley as tedious. He has little to say about that one-third of his naval career because, he says, not much happened. You could have fooled me. I thought it was rather exciting. I have spoken with many of our former shipmates and they seemed to feel that we were actually doing something important back then. I’m sure, however, that it seemed tame in retrospect compared to his four months on the rivers with the brown water Navy.

After much urging by former shipmates, I read Douglas Brinkley’s account of John’s service in Tour of Duty (William Morrow: New York, 2004). In a chapter entitled “High Seas Adventures” (perhaps “adventures” is a bit strong, considering the tedium he experienced), Mr. Brinkley describes, in near heroic terms, John’s duties onboard Gridley. I may have forgotten some of the awesome responsibilities that we heaped upon Ensign Kerry, but I’m sure that he handled those well, also. There’s a good deal of hyperbole in that chapter, but then a little exaggeration is normal, I guess, when it comes to describing the past exploits of presidential candidates.

Be all that as it may, John was a fine junior officer-- one of the best I’ve served with. I can’t comment on the four months or so on the rivers of Vietnam because I wasn’t there. Others who weren’t there shouldn’t comment on them, either. Nor will I second- guess his awards nor should anyone else unless they can prove for certain that the citations misstated the facts and that somebody lied. Thirty-five years later is no time to be questioning them. And besides, what does all of this have to do with his qualifications for president?

John Kerry spent less than a year and a half on sea duty, much less than that in the combat zone. Most of the rest of his service obligation was spent in school. His service to his country is commendable and his decorations attest to the quality of that service and to his bravery. To make this service the centerpiece of his presidential campaign thirty-five years later, however, is ludicrous.

Senator Kerry’s credentials to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces are flawed by his anti-war protest activities while his comrades were still fighting and dying. They are further soiled by his outrageous accusations of atrocities committed by his comrades in a war in which belligerents posed as civilians.

A three-year tour of service, even heroic service, does not qualify one to be president. Of far more relevance is his nineteen years in the Senate, becoming its most liberal member and opposing most defense legislation. On this, his campaign is virtually silent and for very good reason: His record in public life contains little to commend it to voters concerned about the defense of the United States against international terrorism.CRO

copyright 2004 J. F. Kelly, Jr.

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