Thanks for the Memories

From the USS Gridley home page, financed as all such efforts are; the vets pass the hat among themselves:

GRIDLEY already has a bank account with $490 in it. We don't need much, any size donation would be appreciated. There will be an accounting for the money posted on the site. Total expenses so far have been $323.00 to register the www.ussgridley.com name and that is up for renewal in the end of May each year.

Keith Ott $100
Cliff Tejada $100
Wayne Hoppke $100
Phil Carter $323
Tom Pendergast $25
Kevin Reilly $40
Rich Aamodt $25

Guess they aren't getting any of that big Ketchup money.

Update (hat tip Jim Walker): Once again, I leap to the rescue of John Kerry. This time, it's James Taranto questioning our hero's patriotism!!!!:

Another Seared--Seared--Memory From a John Kerry speech commemorating Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 20, 2003:

I remember well April 1968--I was serving in Vietnam--a place of violence--when the news reports brought home to me and my crewmates the violence back home--and the tragic news that one of the bullets flying that terrible spring took the life of that unabashedly maladjusted citizen.

In fact, Kerry did not go to Vietnam until November 1968.

Why if that were so, then our hero's bio would be a lie. That first tour in Vietnam was on the Gridley of course. It's right on his home page:

John Kerry enlisted in the Navy in 1966. After completing Naval Officer Candidates School, he began his first tour of duty on the USS Gridley, a guided-missile frigate in the waters adjacent to Vietnam.

See James, it all depends on what your definition of the word "in" is. Now, admittedly little is made of this nearly forgotten first tour. Most likely the young Ensign could not afford a movie camera at that time.

Not so any more. Hey, Senator, how about matching Rich or Tom on that 25 large?