Today's New York Sun is reporting that a "Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Naval Discharge":

An official Navy document ...opens a door on a well kept secret about his military service. The document is a form cover letter [that] describes Mr. Kerry's discharge as being subsequent to the review of "a board of officers."

There is nothing about an ordinary honorable discharge action in the Navy that requires a review by a board of officers.

The article goes on to tie the year the review occurred, 1978, with certain policies of then-President Jimmy Carter:

The "board of officers" review reported in the ... document is even more extraordinary because it came about "by direction of the President." No normal honorable discharge requires the direction of the president.

The president at that time was James Carter.

Mr. Carter's first act as president was a general amnesty for draft dodgers and other war protesters....in March 1977 it had been expanded to include other offenders who may have had general, bad conduct, dishonorable discharges, and any other discharge or sentence with negative effect on military records. In those cases the directive outlined a procedure for appeal on a case by case basis before a board of officers.

The timing of the review in 1978 is even more suspicious, the Sun reports, because it is six years after Kerry should have received an honorable discharge:

Mr. Kerry's military commitment began with his six-year enlistment contract with the Navy on February 18, 1966. His commitment should have terminated in 1972.

Furthermore, the article notes, the government had grounds to deny Kerry an honorable discharge due to his anti-war actions "while still a reserve officer of the Navy":

For example, while America was still at war, Mr. Kerry had met with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong delegation to the Paris Peace talks in May 1970 and then held a demonstration in July 1971 in Washington to try to get Congress to accept the enemy's seven point peace proposal

Given the above, the Sun's writer has to conclude:

The review was likely held to improve Mr. Kerry's status of discharge ...to an honorable discharge.

Of course, Kerry could clear up much of this mystery by simply releasing all his military records. However, as the Sun, and others, have reported:

Kerry has repeatedly refused to sign Standard Form 180, which would allow the release of all his military records [and] the Naval Personnel Office [has] admitted that they were still withholding about 100 pages of files.

So far, this story is confined to the Sun, and the various blog sites out there (including, now, this one).

However, if this theory is correct, and if the story gets traction, it could be that the "October surprise" against Kerry is that he, in fact, did not "serve honorably" while in the military, as he has always claimed.