Posted on 02/09/2004 12:42:13 PM PST by GailA
Wednesday January 28, 3:15 PM
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/040128/afp/040128071557people.html
John Kerry: forged in the fires of Vietnam
WASHINGTON (AFP) - John Kerry, after graduating from Yale University in 1966, enlisted in the US Navy and like tens of thousands of other young American men was sent to Vietnam.
It was to become a defining experience in the life of the 60-year-old US senator who has emerged as the front-runner for the 2004 Democratic nomination for president and an experience that he credits for putting him on the campaign trail for the White House.
"There's a sense after Vietnam that every other day is extra, that you have to do what is right," Kerry said in a television spot. "That's why I'm running for president."
Born December 11, 1943 in Denver, Colorado, John Forbes Kerry spent part of his childhood in Europe, where his father was a diplomat, and in the northeastern state of Massachusetts, which he has represented in the US Senate for the past two decades.
After leaving Yale, Kerry became an officer on a gunboat patrolling the Mekong Delta in Vietnam -- hazardous duty immortalized in the Francis Ford Coppola film "Apocalypse Now."
Lieutenant Kerry earned Silver and Bronze Stars for valor and three Purple Hearts for wounds, a distinguished military record which has served him well with veterans' groups.
On his return home, however, Kerry became a leader of the anti-war movement and threw away some of his medals. He co-founded Vietnam Veterans of America and was a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
"I was an instrument of a foreign policy with no common sense. I was forced to carry an M-16 to serve that policy," he tells campaign rallies.
Kerry helped organize a huge anti-war protest outside Congress in Washington in 1971, appearing alongside Black Panther Angela Davis and earning a place on president Richard Nixon's notorious "enemies' list."
That same year, a 27-year-old Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, earning headlines with his remark "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
After a failed bid for the House of Representatives in 1972, Kerry went back to law school. He served as a prosecutor in Massachusetts and went into private practice before winning election as lieutenant governor of the New England state in 1982.
Two years later he was elected to the US Senate. He has been re-elected three times since, serving alongside his supporter and mentor, Ted Kennedy.
At 6 feet 4 inches (1.93m) with greying hair, a long face and an air of gravitas, Kerry bears a slight physical resemblance to Civil War president Abraham Lincoln. But he has more often been compared to another former president, John F. Kennedy, whose initials he shares.
His win on Tuesday in the New Hampshire primary moved Kerry a step closer to following in JFK's footsteps to the White House although he will have a formidable opponent in the Republican incumbent Bush in November.
With his war record and years of service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry says he has the best qualifications to counter Bush on national security.
Although he voted for a congressional resolution which Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam Hussein, Kerry has been highly critical of the Bush administration since.
"I think this administration has run the most reckless, arrogant, inept, and ideological foreign policy in modern history," he said.
Kerry, who underwent a successful operation for prostate cancer last year, has two grown daughters, Vanessa and Alexandra, from his first marriage.
His wife, Teresa Heinz, is the heiress to a fortune estimated at some 500 million dollars from the Heinz ketchup family.
I've heard about that before...but I don't think McCain has said anything about that lately. Now that he's on one of the committees investigation intelligence, he might not talk about it unless questioned directly.
Sorry. I thought that said "isn't that about it?"
He stayed in the back of the boat while his men shot the Viet Cong. When the VC was mortally wounded, Kerry jumped out, finished him off, grabbed the guns...and all the glory. Some act of heroism.
Uh, wasn't he an officer? That's different than "enlisting" - he was "commissioned"...
Born December 11, 1943 in Denver, Colorado, John Forbes Kerry...
Please don't hold this against our otherwise fine state!
I find it interesting that this "war hero" (fine - he earned medals while serving his short time in Vietnam) - turned traitor (those same medals (borrowed from another medal) were thrown back in the face of the government he earned them from) is finding ANY traction at all for his "veteran" status.
I don't know of any veterans that support him, and I know plenty...
The story is that he only went into the military because of his close ties to the Kennedy family and his idolization of JFK - who as we all know was on the PT109. I see he quit bringing up how he shares initials with JFK. He led from the back, meaning he did his level best to stay out of personal danger. As soon as he'd got enough medals - not hard to do for an opportunist - and saw which way the political wind was blowing over here, he used his connections, got the heck out and morphed into a military-hating, war-protesting, lying scuzbag. Then he ran for office.
I'm not sure, but don't think he's ever actually done anything jobwise but join the military and be a politician.
Yep. I misunderstood the first post.
That was when he blamed it on the Free Fire Zone, right? I haven't been keeping up with all the Kerry threads...don't think my blood pressure could handle them anyway.
Yeah he was an officer. Puff piece. The media is never gonna bring up the truth about him. Looks like it's gonna be up to us. I hate the media.
Yes, I think it was, and I think it broke him.
I think the experience shattered him and left a pathetic whiner occupying the skin of a brave soldier.
The political John Kerry is the antithesis of the military John Kerry.
So9
CANDIDATES UNABASHED BY PAST POT USE
Presidential Watch
( AP ) - The question during the debate, held in front of an audience of twenty-somethings in Boston, was inevitable. The answers showed how much the times have changed.
"Which of you are ready to admit to having used marijuana in the past?" Anderson Cooper, the moderator of Tuesday's "Rock the Vote" debate on CNN, asked eight of the nine Democratic presidential candidates. ( Rep. Dick Gephardt was not there. )
"Yes," said Sen. John Kerry, leading off.
"Yes," said Sen. John Edwards.
"Yes," said former Gov. Howard Dean.
None of these three baby boomer candidates said anything beyond their short, declarative affirmations. The implication of their answers seemed to be, "Yeah, so what?"
In fact, the defensive answers tended to come from those replying in the negative.
"No," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich. "But I think it ought to be decriminalized." >{? "I grew up in the church," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "We didn't believe in that."
"Well, you know, I have a reputation for giving unpopular answers at Democratic debates," said Sen. Joe Lieberman. "I never used marijuana. Sorry!"
The next day's news coverage of the debate focused on the attacks on Dean for his references to appealing to people who fly the Confederate flag. The admissions of marijuana smoking by three of the Democratic candidates for president were largely ignored. -- NEW YORK TIMES
Gephardt asks staff to take a pay cut
Democratic presidential hopeful Dick Gephardt, facing a huge cash disadvantage against Howard Dean, has asked his senior staff to take a pay cut."We want to make sure we spend the bulk of our resources in the early states on the ground and on the air," said campaign manager Steve Murphy. - -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kerry backs UMass effort to grow pot
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry supports the University of Massachusetts' effort to grow marijuana for medical research. The University of Mississippi is the only legal grower of marijuana for research. Kerry and fellow Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy say that amounts to an "unjustifiable monopoly."
"The current lack of such competition may well result in the production of lower-quality research-grade marijuana, which in turn jeopardizes important research into the therapeutic effects of marijuana for patients undergoing chemotherapy or suffering from AIDS, glaucoma or other diseases," Kerry and Kennedy wrote in a letter to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration dated Oct. 20. . -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.rollingstone.com/features/nationalaffairs/featuregen.asp?pid=2454
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