From Boys To Men
In a year that rocked America, two scions of famous families came of age
Kerry, critics said, used the antiwar movement to propel his political career. "The war didn't change [Kerry]. I think he was a guy driven tremendously by ambition," John O'Neill, a hawkish Vietnam veteran who debated Kerry on the war in 1971, recently told the Boston Globe . But many who knew Kerry disagree. "He was a very in-depth thinker," Yarrow tells U.S. News . "He was not a knee-jerk anything. . . . He took seriously his service to the country, to family, and to the world. . . . He had risked his life for the country, and I could tell by the way he talked, he was deeply hurt."
Vietnam had become Kerry's horse, and he rode it hard. His book The New Soldier was published in late 1971 and featured a controversial cover photograph of an upside-down American flag. Condemning Vietnam as a "degrading and immoral war," Kerry wrote: "We were sent to Vietnam to kill communism. But we found instead that we were killing women and children."
Still, Kerry knew, his message couldn't be entirely negative. "I still want to serve my country," he said in the book. "I am still willing to pick up arms and defend it--die for it, if necessary. Now, however, I will not go blindly because my government says that I must go. . . . I will not go unless the threat is a real one and we all know it to be so."
Reviewing that period, Kerry told U.S. News: "You've got to be willing to move in a direction you believe in, and you've got to lay yourself out there, and you've got to take some risks in doing that. That's what I did in opposing the war. . . . I knew it wasn't going to be popular with some of my friends or popular with everybody in the military. But I felt that by conscience it was the right thing to do."
The young veteran had weighty things on his mind, but he didn't allow himself to be consumed by them. He enjoyed folk music and sang with Yarrow at parties and gatherings. Sometimes Kerry played guitar. The future senator particularly enjoyed spending time on Naushon Island, his family's retreat off the coast of Massachusetts. He relaxed in that wild, pristine environment, sunning himself on the beach, riding horses, windsailing, or fishing. Evenings, he liked to cook his catch for family and friends. Among friends, he became known for doing a passable impression of Father Guido Sarducci, a character on Saturday Night Live . Every so often, he smoked a little pot.
Occasionally, Kerry departed from his controlled public persona. In April 1971, he and other veterans threw their military ribbons and medals into a trash heap on the steps of the Capitol. Kerry, it later turned out, discarded someone else's medals and only his own ribbons. Still, the moment was deeply emotional, and he broke down in tears for a half-hour.
Such was Kerry's newfound prominence that even Nixon took notice. The beleaguered president privately endorsed an aide's characterization of Kerry as a "phony" because he had stayed at the home of a rich Georgetown family while other protesters camped out on the Washington Mall. And he had served only four months in Vietnam, the aide argued, even though Kerry had earned three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and a Bronze Star during that time.
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