Submitted by Roger Helbig, Nov 24, 2007 05:15

Steve Harwood is mistaken. I believe that Senator Kerry is the one who has the legal proceedings against the men who decided that politics trumps the truth. Tom Lipscomb unfortunately has the same belief. He knows the truth, but he has not got the guts to retract his previous lies disguised as news "articles" or editorial commentary. Like the other poster, I am glad that he finally has decided that he really was not nominated for a Pulitzer - or let's say in actual contention for the award of a Pulitzer. The key is the Bureau of Personnel Manual, BUPERSMAN, cited as reference (c) on Lieutenant John Kerry's discharge from the inactive standby Naval Reserve. The Navy simply no longer needed Lieutenant Kerry and hundreds of other officers and it discharged them from the reserve. That is too simple an answer when you want to spin a political conspiracy and the spinners probably thought that you couldn't find a copy of the regulation from that day anyway; they certainly did not bother to do so. How do I know, because I did contact the Naval Personnel Command in Tennessee and I got the BUPERSMAN that was cited on the discharge; I also asked if anyone else had done so and I was told no. The manual and the letter that I faxed to the former Secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Ambassador J William Middendorf II the night before the election in 2004 are posted to the Yahoo Group theVeteran2 in the files section.

Roger Helbig

My letter to the Honorable Ambassador begins as follows

Dear Ambassador Middendorf:

This has taken a little longer than I had expected, but here is my rationale plus the relevant pages of the BUPERSMAN effective 1 Jan 1978.

Lieutenant Kerry was assigned to the Inactive Ready Reserve upon separation from active duty on 3 January 1970. He was offered the opportunity to extend this ready reserve commitment on 1 March 1972 and when he declined that offer was transferred to the Standby Reserve-Inactive on 1 July 1972. In 1978, BUPERSMAN 38383030 was revised, adding 6 a. which provided for review of records by a Board of Officers and discharge of officers who had served in the the Standby Reserve-Inactive (on Inactive Status List) for a period of three years or more. Having served over 5 years on the Inactive Status List, Lieutenant Kerry was Honorably discharged on 16 February 1978. There are no indications that this discharge was anything other than normal; the cover letter was prepared on a pin feed computerized form and six months transpired between the time the letter was prepared, sent to the Secretary's Office in Washington, signed and returned to Naval Personnel Center, New Orleans for onward transmittal to Lt Kerry.

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