ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 17, 1996 TAG: 9605170071
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: From The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times
NOTE: Above
Admiral Jeremy M. ``Mike'' Boorda, the U.S. Navy's top officer, committed suicide Thursday after leaving two notes lamenting the coming disclosure by journalists that he had improperly worn two bronze ``V'' pins - normally awarded for valor in combat - on Vietnam-era decorations he received.
Boorda, 56, the only former enlisted man ever to become chief of naval operations, shot himself in the chest with a .38-caliber revolver while in a yard outside his home in the Washington Navy Yard, according to Pentagon and police officials.
The shooting occurred less than two hours after Boorda learned at 12:15 p.m. that two reporters from Newsweek magazine would be visiting in the afternoon. They were coming to discuss why until last year Boorda had worn the two pins on ribbon decorations, although the official citations bestowing the ribbons did not explicitly say the pins had been earned.
Law enforcement sources said Boorda left two notes, one to his wife and family and another to all Navy sailors. In the message to sailors, Boorda acknowledged he made a mistake in wearing the ``V'' pins. He had wrongly thought he was entitled to them, he said, but worried that some would never see his action as an honest mistake.
Friends described Boorda as a highly sensitive person who took criticism of himself and the Navy personally and who lacked a tough hide.
``Any attack on the Navy, Mike Boorda would absorb as a body blow,'' said a Navy official who was a friend of Boorda's for decades. ``He felt things very keenly.''
Rear Adm. Kendell Pease, the Navy's top spokesman, had been the one to inform Boorda of the Newsweek inquiry. Pease told reporters that Boorda had appeared ``concerned'' about the interview but willing to proceed with it.
``How do we want to handle it?'' Pease quoted Boorda as asking. ``Then he answered the question himself: `We'll just tell the truth,' he said.''
With that, Pease said, Boorda declined to eat a lunch being served in his office and left for home, directing Adm. Jay Johnson, the vice chief of naval operations, to attend a 1 p.m. meeting with Deputy Secretary of Defense John White in his stead but indicating he would return for the 2:30 appointment with Newsweek.
Newsweek issued a statement late Thursday saying it was saddened by the tragedy and confirming that it was working on the story. ``Obviously, we had not published a story and had not reached any conclusions,'' the statement said.
Navy officials said the citations accompanying the medals that Boorda wore indicated that the decorations in question were awarded in connection with a ``combat operation,'' but they did not specifically authorize him to wear a ``Combat V'' on the service ribbon.
However, the officials said, the medals were awarded during the Vietnam War, at a time when virtually every decoration was given for ``combat operations.'' They said it was not immediately clear whether Boorda was entitled to wear the Combat V or not.
Roger Charles, a former Marine Corps officer now with the National Security News Service, which initially broached the questions about Boorda's right to wear the Combat V, said he had talked extensively with Newsweek before the magazine decided to pursue the story.
Charles said his own research showed that although Boorda was on a ship that shelled the Vietnam coast in 1965, the mission would not have made him eligible to wear the Combat V under the rules in effect at the time, nor would the medal that he won have qualified him for it.
It was not clear what the consequences would have been if Boorda had worn the Combat V improperly.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Boorda. color. KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB