of the U.S. Code to examine the official records of officers of the Naval Reserve on inactive duty and determine whether they should be retained on the rolls of the Reserve Component or separated from the naval service pursuant to the Secretarial instructions promulgated in [former] BUPERSMAN 3830300". With respect to Kerry's discharge from the Naval Reserve, Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times wrote: "A second charge is that Mr. Kerry did not successfully fulfill his time in the Reserves, so a special board had to be convened to determine what type of discharge he should receive. Navy documents show that in 1978, he received an "honorable discharge certificate" after a board of officers convened and reviewed his record. Navy officials say today that the board was standard operating procedure at that time for all reservists and does not indicate Mr. Kerry did anything wrong. After service just short of four years on active duty, Mr. Kerry transferred to the Ready Reserve and then in 1972 to the standby Reserve. He was not required to attend drills under those two designations, says a Navy official who asked not to be named.The controversy remains active however, because Kerry's discharge was issued years after Kerry's reserve obligation ended, and occurred during the time of President Jimmy Carter's blanket amnesty and discharge upgrade program for Vietnam-era veterans who were discharged under less-than-honorable conditions for misconduct. Additionally, the discharge was processed by a Naval Board of Review, a procedure only utilized to upgrade less-than-honorable discharges, so the fact that Kerry's discharge went through such a process shows that it was a proverbial "fresh coat of paint," over a bad discharge, according to veterans. Detractors contend that Kerry's ties to his fellow liberal political ally, then-President Carter, was behind the upgraded discharge. Carter was very sympathetic to the anti-war movement and had pardoned US deserters and draft-dodgers. Thus, he was suspected to have ordered an upgrading of the discharge. Otherwise, Kerry would have remained on record as a non-honorably discharged veteran. " Criticism of military service and awards Critics have questioned several aspects of Kerry's military service. As the presidential campaign of 2004 developed, around 200 Vietnam-era veterans formed the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT) and held press conferences, ran ads (financed in part by a major Republican party donor in Texas) and endorsed a book, Unfit for Command, questioning Kerry's service record