Senator Kerry no longer has a problem with just the 35-year-old recollections of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that are questioning his military records. He now has to deal with the United States Navy.

Mr. Kerry’s campaign Web site, which may be viewed at www.johnkerry.com, lists a Silver Star with a Combat V on his DD214. This form issued by the Department of Defense summarizes a serviceman’s career. It is always signed and authenticated as accurate by the individual, in this case Mr. Kerry. But according to a Navy spokesman it is “incorrect.” The Navy has never issued a Combat V at any time for the Silver Star.

This is a serious issue. The chief admiral of the Navy, Jeremy Michael Boorda, committed suicide over questions raised about his right to wear a Combat V by Newsweek magazine in 1996. Boorda stated in his suicide note to his sailors that the questions raised about those he wore caused him to take his life. And that was only a Bronze Star, not the Navy’s third highest decoration.

At the time, Mr. Kerry told the Boston Globe that Boorda’s conduct was “sufficient to question [Boorda’s] leadership position….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.”

The Navy also questioned the listing on Mr. Kerry’s Web site of a DD215 form listing four bronze campaign stars for his service in Vietnam. According to its records, the Navy credits Mr. Kerry with two campaigns. That is sufficient for the wearing of the Vietnam Service Medal for one campaign bearing one campaign star for the additional campaign – not four.

Perhaps most puzzling of all is Mr. Kerry’s display of a citation for his Star signed in 1986 by the Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman. Mr. Lehman, who recently completed his service on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, finds this “[a] total mystery. I never saw it. I never signed it. I never approved it. And the additional language it contains was not written by me.”

No one knows who provided the additional flowery language concluding, “Lieutenant (jg) Kerry reflected great credit upon himself….” Well, someone certainly did.

In a statement to Fox News’s Major Garrett, Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan explained that Mr. Kerry had lost the first two citations for his Silver Star and had asked the Secretary of the Navy to provide a new one. Leaving aside the unprecedented appearance of three separate Silver Star citations on Mr. Kerry’s Web site all containing different language signed by three different people, this explanation makes no sense at all.

Veterans lose citations all the time. They simply ask the appropriate military records office to send them a replacement copy, and it does. There is no mystery to this standard procedure that requires the intervention of the Secretary of the Navy.

A legal watchdog group, Judicial Watch, has issued a statement, which may be read at www.judicialwatch.org, that reads, “Kerry should remove [the] Silver Star citation from his internet site pending review by [the] U.S. Navy.” It raises other questions about the Web site records as well.

But Mr. Kerry should need no prompting from an outside interest group pushing him to do this. It is in his best interest to correct any misstatements. Navy records, college transcripts, Internal Revenue Service review documents, credit reports, and the other “official documents” created by bureaucracies are notoriously rife with error.

There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for these inaccuracies. But in the midst of a heated campaign, it is hard to find the time to review the many forms involved.

There would be no shame in Mr. Kerry’s removing the questionable documents from his Web site until he has a chance to do so. As General Thomas Wilkerson, the president of the U.S. Naval Institute puts it, “It is to your best interest to have your record in good order. If it is wrong, you are accountable. And if you use it to advance your career, it is even more important.”

On a British ship, on his way to exile after his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon reflected upon the courage his soldiers would display just to get “a bit of colored ribbon.” And that is why awards and medals are so important to veterans of all wars.

As in the unfortunate case of Boorda, those medals are recognition of their personal honor and honor the comrades they fought beside as well. Napoleon also noted, “The outcome of the greatest events is always determined by a trifle.”

There are few greater events than the election of an American president in these perilous times. Even if Mr. Kerry regards these questions as “a trifle,” he would be well advised to consider them seriously.