John Kerry's Character Forged in Vietnam

Review by Bill Doughty

After returning to the States, decorated Swift Boat skipper John Forbes Kerry took a stand against the Vietnam War nearly 50 years ago. Some fellow veterans of the "America, Love It or Leave It / America, Right or Wrong" mindset never forgave him.

On the other hand, Kerry believed this about America: "When right, keep it right, and when wrong, make it right."

He believes the truth, like freedom and democracy, is worth fighting for.

"Every Day is Extra" (Simon & Schuster, 2018) is a remarkably readable and compelling personal journey of a life dedicated to service, honor, diplomacy and keeping America great.

Kerry, like most Americans, is from an extended family of immigrants. "Perhaps the sea was in our blood," he writes. "Not only did our passions always stay connected to the ocean, but the original journey by which we came to America (was also) by sea..." Kerry's love of the sea informed his choice on which service he joined. 

"On February 18, 1966 I raised my right hand and took the oath to enlist in the U.S. Naval Reserve." Kerry prepared to attend Officer Candidate School in Newport Rhode Island.

But he remembered Mark Twain's admonition: "Never let school get in the way of an education."

Kerry's Naval Education

His first ship was USS Gridley (DLG 21), which was "an introduction to hands-on responsibility. The first thing I noticed when I stepped aboard was how big and clean it was."

"I took the Gridley responsibilities seriously. One of the most important lessons learned in OCS is that you don't walk in as the new kid with a pair of bars on your shoulder and start ordering people around. I've seen so many guys screw up, thinking that just because they're an officer, they're automatically in charge. Wrong. The bars represent an opportunity to learn how to be an officer. Some guys don't see it that way, and folks resent the hell out of them. The sergeants in the Marines and the chief petty officers in the Navy are the guys who know the ropes. You just have a college degree and four months of OCS; you really don't know anything, especially compared with the chief petty officers twice your age who have been in the Navy for twenty years. To be successful, listen to them."

Kerry in Vietnam

Another thing Kerry learned in the Navy is "that no one prospered unless everyone prospered. One of the great lessons of the service is that no one does well or right by doing alone."

He recounts his first full deployment:

"When we set out from San Diego in February 1968, I was full of anticipation for the adventure. We sailed away from the California coast in a four-ship group – one frigate, Gridley, and three destroyers – steaming in formation to Pearl Harbor. Just getting one or two nights away from the coast was magical. In all our training runs we had stayed pretty close to California. Now we were cranking up speed, heading west across the Pacific Ocean, honking along with the ship plowing through rolling waves as the sunset lit us up in bursts of crimson and orange. We created an enormous wake. I stood on the fantail feeling the ship vibrate and churn beneath my feet, watching the ocean race by at a pretty good clip."We were the squadron flagship for this convoy, so we took the lead position in a diamond formation. Standing on the bridge on a 535-foot Navy frigate moving at over 20 knots; sensing the harmony of ship, ocean and sky; feeling the ship shudder as it rises and falls with the waves; and watching the sun set into the horizon and looking for a green flash is a pretty damn good sight. It's why people go to sea and never get over it, why, as John Masefield wrote, men 'must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide, / Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.'"

Kerry takes us aboard his swift boat and into bone-jarring combat in 1969, including a heart-pounding description of how he chased and killed an enemy combatant.


Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, future Chief of Naval Operations, then-commander of all naval forces in Vietnam, said Kerry's mission that day, "stood out among heroes as acts of total heroism."

Lt.j.g. Kerry stands with his swift boat crew in Vietnam.

In Vietnam, Kerry remembers how he received news of the deaths of friends and the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. MLK's self-described "maladjusted" stand for justice – and against the war in Indochina – influenced Kerry's thinking.

At a peace rally, young John Kerry introduced John Lennon.

The mid to late 60s was a watershed time for the United States as the nation dealt with Civil Rights, the Vietnam War and "electrifying change" in culture brought about by Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Kerry's "maladjustment" flowered after his return Stateside. 

John Kerry's Found Haiku

Remembering his fallen comrades and the service members still serving in Vietnam, he marched, spoke and eventually testified to Congress against the war, offering this "found" double haiku:

How do you ask a

man to be the last man to

die in Vietnam?

How do you ask a

man to be the last man to

die for a mistake?

His leap into politics eventually led to a successful campaign to become the junior senator of Massachusetts.

Kerry was sworn in to the Senate by then-Vice President George H. W. Bush, who "loved the Navy as I did," Kerry remembers.

Kerry and McCain

He describes the vivid characters he worked with as a fellow senator: Max Cleland, Ted Kennedy, John McCain, John C. Stennis, Joe Biden, Robert Byrd, Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and John Glenn, among many others.

He remembers a time of collaboration, cooperation and compromise in Congress, when senators placed the needs of the nation above their own, including during investigations. He also relearned lessons from Vietnam: to compartmentalize in order to stay on track.

An Early Mueller Prosecution

Oliver North, USMC

Kerry, along with Senators Inouye, Mitchell, Nunn and Sarbanes, served at the heart of the Senate's Iran-Contra investigation during President Reagan's second term. Col. Oliver North had arranged for arms sales to Iran to fund military support to the cocaine-growing Contras in Nicaragua's civil war.

"I knew of Oliver North. We were the same generation and had both fought in Vietnam. He had come home from the war a decorated combat vet, with a Silver Star, Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts. I didn't know what his politics were, but I respected his service and his courage. I wondered how someone with his credentials could be led down a path of illegality. The Marines live by a code. If what we were hearing was true, a Marine should have been horrified."

As part of the investigation, Kerry followed the money.

Robert Mueller, USMC

"We discovered a shady and unsavory bank with an innocuous acronym: BCCI. It stood for the Bank of Commerce and Credit International. BCCI was a dream for criminals and money launderers, and it was hiding in plain sight ... We learned that the CIA had prepared hundreds of reports outlining the criminal connections of BCCI. Thankfully, the Department of Justice soon had a new head of its criminal division: my St. Paul's classmate, a Vietnam veteran and a diligent law enforcement professional named Bob Mueller. Our subcommittee's two staffers had exposed the perfidy of BCCI, and I felt vindicated when Mueller assigned thirty-seven prosecutors to the case. By July 1991, regulators had seized the bank. BCCI was dead."

The ghost of BCCI would later come back a decade later in the wake of 9/11 in how al-Qaeda funded its terrorism. "When my investigation and Robert Mueller's prosecution shut down BCCI, it cut off Osama bin Laden's foothold in Sudan; now we needed to go after the entire dirty financial network that operated in the shadows," Kerry writes.

Smears and Retaliation

In 1996, Kerry was challenged for reelection by William Weld, former governor of Massachusetts. During the campaign, political operatives and a reporter, who was classmate of Weld, questioned Kerry's military record.

Kerry and Zumwalt.

In response, Admiral Zumwalt led a contingent of commanders who had oversight of swift boat shoreline operations to set the record straight. They conducted a press conference at the Charleston Navy Yard, "where USS Constitution stands as a reminder of our country's naval origins."

"Every Day Is Extra," includes a contemporaneous message about Kerry's key swift boat operation from then-Capt. Roy Hoffmann commending the mission: "The extremely successful raid and land sweep conducted along the Rach Dong Cung which demonstrated superb coordination and aggressive tactics stands as a shining example of completely overwhelming the enemy."

Decades later, when Kerry ran for president against George W. Bush, Hoffmann was recruited by anti-Kerry forces. Those forces were led by several principals: Ted Sampley, a "self-appointed POW activist (who) profited grossly" from myths and lies about POW/MIAs; John O'Neill, an ally of Nixon and Chuck Colson; and Jerome Corsi, an anti-Obama birther theorist and close associate of Roger Stone.

Kerry visits Afghanistan April 9, 2016. (Photo by SSgt Tony Coronado, USAF)

O'Neill and Corsi wrote the smear-book, "Unfit for Command," which was discredited by Zumwalt's previous statements, Navy and Coast Guard records, John McCain's testimony, and Sailors who served with Kerry during the missions for which he was decorated.

"It was extraordinary," Kerry writes about Hoffman, Sampley, O'Neill and Corsi. "They were lying about me, lying about themselves, lying about history – a history they knew was documented, in some cases by themselves, but always by the Navy they purported to love and respect."

To Tell the Truth

Respect for truth, honor and justice is a theme that runs through Kerry's life and this book.

For example, he explains why he felt it was important to take on BCCI with Robert Mueller:

"Because if you start backsliding and trimming on the rule of law, you contribute to the inexorable deterioration of democracy. Corruption is cumulative. I believed the rule of law has to mean something in the United States. If we knowingly turn a blind eye on the rich and powerful, enabling them to escape accountability while two-bit criminals go to jail for years, we create a tiered system of justice. That is no justice at all."I had learned a great deal as an investigator, both in Iran-Contra and in BCCI. I'd been reminded that when you push hard for truth, people who are invested in lies or in convenient avoidance resist, and they retaliate. But truth is worth fighting for; truth is the American bottom line."

"Every Day Is Extra" opens with a poignant recounting of the death of Kerry's father. Scattered throughout the book are the shadows of combat deaths, cancer diagnoses and the losses of friends and family members "...so many of life's sad, sudden turns."

Senator John Kerry participates in a remembrance ceremony at Utah Beach, June 6, 2011. Kerry joined paratroopers from the U.S. Army, U.K, Germany, and France in honoring those who fought and died in Operation Overlord, the D-day landings. Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Armed Force Committee, was the senior U.S. representative at the ceremony. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Felix Fimbres, U.S. Army)

A deeply personal encounter comes with Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry visiting Normandy Beach. I won't ruin the experience, made better with Kerry's context and nuanced prose, but you can find the passage on page 209 of the 2018 hardbound edition.

A thorough report of John Kerry's time in Vietnam and his journey to warrior diplomat and healing with friend and colleague John McCain is presented in Douglas Brinkley's "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War" (HarperCollins, 2004).

According to Thomas Cutler, author of "Brown Water, Black Berets," "Douglas Brinkley's vivid rendition of brown-water operations in 'Tour of Duty' rings true, with all the sights, the sounds, and the smells that make it such a unique experience. But this is far more than another war story. It is an account of a young man's journey through his own 'heart of darkness,' ultimately emerging with his soul intact and his need to serve undiminished, ready to wage a different kind of war."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry crosses the brow of the Avenger-class Mine Countermeasures ship USS Devastator (MCM 6) April 7, 2016 at Naval Support Activity Bahrain in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ryan D. McLearnon)

Secretary of State John Kerry lays a wreath Aug. 13, 2014 at the USS Arizona Memorial. Kerry visited U.S. Pacific Command to discuss cooperation strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jay M. Chu)

Kerry signs the Paris Climate Agreement while holding his granddaughter, Apr. 22, 2016.