DID KERRY REALLY VOLUNTEER?

Here is what Kerry said in "Tour of Duty" page 64: "We just all thought it was the right thing to do. President Kennedy had called on our generation to pay any price for global freedom, so duty dictated that we enlist"

Here is what is said in "Unfit For Command" on page 23: " Kerry petitioned his draft board for a student deferment. 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. The Navy or Coast Guard was considered a good way to avoid combat because Vietnam had no Navy to fight. The top choice for Kerry was the Navel Reserves where a larger proportion of duty could be served stateside."

Here's what Charles Lawrence says: 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. According to Kerry's enlistment record, he signed up for the USNR-R (United States Navy Reserve) for six years. That's about equivalent to Bush joining the Air National Guard for a six year term. It was the luck of the draw whether either of them got to serve in Vietnam. Bush ended up training on a plane that was withdrawn from service in Vietnam just as he finished flight training.