Does the Name Mike Boorda Mean Anything to You?

Does the Name Mike Boorda Mean Anything to You?
Vol: 35 Issue: 28 Saturday, August 28, 2004

Does the Name Mike Boorda Mean Anything to You?

This morning, I ran across a blog site that asked the question; “Does the Name Mike Boorda Mean Anything to You?” In point of fact, it does.

Admiral Mike Boorda was US Chief of Naval Operations until 1996.

Reverberations from the 1991 Tailhook convention, at which dozens of women were assaulted by drunken naval aviators, were sapping Navy morale.

A string of embarrassing problems at the Annapolis officers’ Academy, from cheating in examinations to drug abuse and car theft, had further damaged the Navy’s image.

Admiral Boorda was a legendary figure among Naval officers; he was a ‘mustanger’ — an officer who came up through the enlisted ranks — who was known as a ‘sailor’s sailor’, patriotic to the core and a conservative icon. His appointment as CNO ended the string of Navy scandals, leaving bored reporters with nothing to report.

Then, a godsend. In February 1995, a former marine colonel named Roger Charles received an intriguing tip-off from a navy contact at the Pentagon. After leaving the Marines, Charles had become a specialist reporter for the National Security News Service, a privately funded Washington agency focusing on defense news.

America’s most senior admiral was regularly to be seen in public, Charles reported, wearing military decorations he had not earned.

Newsweek seized on the story, and, following a year-long investigation, dispatched two of its investigative reporters to confront Admiral Boorda with the ‘evidence’ it had uncovered.

Admiral Mike Boorda was wearing his Distinguished Service Medal and his Legion of Merit Medal with a combat ‘V’ attached. The combat ‘V’ is only authorized when the medal is awarded during combat operations.

Since Boorda was aboard ship in the waters off Vietnam, there was a question as to whether or not Boorda’s combat ‘V’ was authorized.

When Boorda heard that Newsweek was investigating, he ordered his driver to take him home for lunch. In his study, he wrote two letters. The first was to his wife of four decades, Bettie.

According to a friend, it “tragic note filled with despair and apology”. He feared he was about to be exposed as a fraud and he simply “could not stand this attack on my integrity”.

The second letter was to the navy that he had served so faithfully since he lied about his age in 1956 to enlist at 17. He apologized for wearing insignia to which he may not have been entitled and hoped that his sailors would feel, as he did, that it was simply an “honest mistake”. (The Navy has since ruled the decorations WERE authorized)

When he finished his letters, Boorda walked out of the house and down a garden path where he sat down on a bench and shot himself to death.

Assessment:

The blog’s mention of Admiral Boorda intrigued me, and I starting digging around in the internet, mostly for my own curiosity. I ‘googled’ Admiral Boorda and read the initial reports in the news archives. One of the Google hits came from the current news archives on a story running this morning in WorldNetDaily.

It noted the 1996 Boston newspaper interviews with John Kerry discussing the suicide of Admiral Jeremy “Mike” Boorda.

“In a sense, there’s nothing that says more about your career than when you fought, where you fought and how you fought,” Kerry told the Boston Herald in 1996. “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.”

WND says the Herald described Kerry as among the veterans who said although they would take offense at someone falsely wearing the “V” pin, they couldn’t see how it would drive Boorda to suicide.

“Is it wrong? Yes, it is very wrong. Sufficient to question his leadership position? The answer is yes, which he clearly understood,” Kerry told the Herald.

Kerry also spoke with the Boston Globe.

“The military is a rigorous culture that places a high premium on battlefield accomplishment,” WND says he told that paper. And of Boorda and his apparent violation, Kerry said: “When you are the chief of them all, it has to weigh even more heavily.”

The Bible places great emphasis on the power of the spoken word. “The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.” (Proverbs 18:8) In Admiral Boorda’s case, the words of the talebearer wounded him to his death.

Proverbs 29:20 is also applicable here. “Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? there is more hope of a fool than of him.” In John Kerry’s case, he is on record saying that falsely claiming military honors is sufficient cause to question his qualification for a leadership position.

The Preacher writes; “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.” (Ecclesiates 5:2)

James says, “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.” (James 3:5-6)

John Kerry wants to be the President of the United States. Let me say this about that.

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t really care who wins the Oval Office in November.

Wait! Don’t fire off that email yet! Hear me out.

I admit I have a preference — I have as large a stake in the outcome as anybody else does. But my main focus is on the Big Picture painted by Bible prophecy for the last days. Romans 13:1 makes it clear that the ‘higher powers’ of government are ordained by God.

“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”

I don’t know how else to take that verse except at face value. Simply stated, it means that God put George Bush in the White House according to His Purpose, just as He put Bill Clinton in office before him. It also means that He will put John Kerry in power, if it suits His ultimate Purposes.

When Gamaliel defended the Apostles in the council, he warned; “Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.” (Acts 5:38-39)

It is with that principle in mind that I say I don’t care who wins in November. If he is elected, its because God wants him there. But it seems pretty clear that John Kerry is an opportunistic fraud whose word has been proved unreliable.

Kerry has said publicly on at least 50 occasions that his Christmas Eve in Cambodia was the seminal event that turned him from a war hero into a war protestor. Except he invented the seminal event that he claims shaped his political worldview.

When questioned, instead of addressing the issue, he attacked the men who were at least as heroic as he claims he was. As I’ve mentioned before, John Kerry embodies the characteristics outlined in 2nd Timothy 3:2-6 that Paul says are the hallmark of the ‘perilous times’ of the ‘last days’.

So, if America knowingly elects such a man as their chosen leader, it fits the Big Picture rather neatly. That is why this election is, I believe, so significant in the context of understanding the signs of the times.

As a Christian, I don’t care who wins in November. I trust God.

But as a person who must live in this world for now, I sure hope it isn’t John Kerry.