Readers of Patriot Paradox discovered another exaggeration in Kerry’s military service claims. (Article via Instapundit)

As part of the 2003 Martin Luther King Day celebration, Kerry said:

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.

Kerry’s own web site says that he was assigned to the USS Gridley in the waters adjacent to Vietnam.

I suppose the Kerry supporters will say “close enough,” but it seems like just one more nail in his coffin, to me.

UPDATE: I’m a little less cynical (after all, it’s hard to get worked up at 5:15 a.m.), but I’m backing off on this a bit. Patriot Paradox reader MJ correctly points out: “There are many reasons to go after Kerry, but his service ‘off the coast’ in the Gridley is not one of them.”

While there is certainly a possibility that the Gridley wasn’t actually in the Gulf of Tonkin on the day MLK was shot, I’m exercising my right to be skeptical of the claim that she was actually en route to New Zealand.