Kinky's people respond:
About Kinky's pins:A poster at Rontini's BBS got a similar response (with the same mis-spelling of "obliged"). Kinky himself addresses the issue in this article; his explanation is quite different from the E-mail that "Team Kinky" sent out:
The "Jump Wings" were given to Kinky by his father, who was a proud veteran of WWII. Kinky is proud of him too, and wears this as requested.
A very close friend of Kinky's who recently passed away gave the "Dolphins" to him to wear before he died. Kinky is proud of his friend, and was abliged to uphold this wish.
On Kinky's right lapel is a badge that a fan made him in the style of the Texas Ranger's "badge" that instead says "Governor of Texas."
You are free to use this information as you like, and have a great day!
He says the dolphins were given to him by a submarine widow.Some guy with a blog in Texas is claiming Texas submariner Ray is trying to "Swift Boat" Friedman. The guy's clearly an asshat (the blogger, not Ray). "Swift Boat" implies an attack on the specifics of someone's military record; the question Ray brought up is about someone who was never in the military wearing a qualification pin he didn't earn. (Ray, as near as I can tell from some quick Googling, is the Base Commander of the Austin Capitol Base of USVVI, rather than as he's described in some of the links.)
Hoff asks: "And, she wanted you to wear it?"
Friedman says: "Absolutely, she's been working very hard for our campaign in East Texas."
Any Texas (or other) submariners feel like getting Ray's back?
Update 2339 10 Oct: Snapshot, Tube One, Sierra "Hammer of Truth".
Update 2357 10 Oct: I just watched the video accompanying the news story I linked above, and realized that both the reporter and Mr. Friedman called the Dolphins a "medal".
