Written by: Beck

Not that stories like this seem to make a lick of difference, but it would appear that John "I volunteered for service because it was the right thing to do" Kerry actually attempted to defer service in Vietnam with the draft board prior to enlisting.

For those not old enough to remember Vietnam (like myself), let me explain to you how things worked back then. Through reading history books and conversations with my father who went through a similar process as Kerry, I have a pretty good grasp on the way things operated at the time.

For starters, if you were the right age & physically qualified, you could virtually count on being drafted. As such, you had several options. First, you could attempt an outright dodge--anything from getting braces to finding a doctor who would lie about your physical condition to render you 4-F (i.e. physically unfit to serve). Second, you could seek a deferment--the most common excuse being the pursuit of further education (the route my father unsuccessfully attempted, along with, it appears, Kerry). Third, you could just enlist, thereby securing the privilege of choosing your field (which, ultimately, my father, and also Kerry, chose). Fourth, you could do nothing and just get drafted.

Kerry's repeated argument as to his quality as an American relative to Bush was that he enlisted outright, without being coerced into serving via the draft. Bush, on the other hand, opted for a risky form of dodging by going into the national guard. Now, assuming this article in The Telegraph is accurate, it would seem that Kerry in fact first opted for a deferment.

Senator John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate who is trading on his Vietnam war record to campaign against President George W Bush, tried to defer his military service for a year, according to a newly rediscovered article in a Harvard University newspaper.

He wrote to his local recruitment board seeking permission to spend a further 12 months studying in Paris, after completing his degree course at Yale University in the mid-1960s.

The revelation appears to undercut Sen Kerry's carefully-cultivated image as a man who willingly served his country in a dangerous war - in supposed contrast to President Bush, who served in the Texas National Guard and thus avoided being sent to Vietnam.

The Harvard Crimson newspaper followed a youthful Mr Kerry in Boston as he campaigned for Congress for the first time in 1970. In the course of a lengthy article, "John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress", published on February 18, the paper reported: "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."

As stories like this continue to not receive mainstream reporting, I can't help but think of the little Dutch boy trying to plug holes in the dike. At some point, Big Media will realize that so many holes have been punched in Kerry's finely-cultivated image that they can no longer damn the onrush of factual evidence. I personally haven't read the 1970 back issues of the Harvard Crimson, but I have no reason to believe that the story is false. It just adds to the pile of contradictions that make up the man John Kerry.

(Hat tip: Ace-o-Spades)