Kerry: Operation Sealords in the rivers of Vietnam
Researcher
Kerry: Operation Sealords in the rivers of Vietnam
Sun Mar 28 21:44:51 2004
63.228.144.66


Operation Sealords in the rivers of Vietnam
Posted 1/15/2004 3:18 AM

Not your typical campaign book: Tour of Duty revisits John Kerry's experience as a son of privilege fighting in Vietnam.

Kerry has historic tale to tell
By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY
If the Democratic presidential race were judged by literary standards, John Kerry would not be lagging in the polls.
 http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2004-01-15-kerry-books_x.htm

The Massachusetts senator is treated heroically in historian Douglas Brinkley's book, Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War (William Morrow, $25.95). Of the new books by or about the candidates, it's the most dramatic and revealing.

Not a typical campaign book, it deals with how a son of privilege enlisted in the Navy because it was his duty despite misgivings about the Vietnam War.

It describes his role as a 25-year-old lieutenant in the ill-advised Operation Sealords in the rivers of Vietnam, how he was wounded three times and honored for valor.

He emerged as an anti-war activist who asked a Senate committee in 1971: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Brinkley, who succeeded his mentor, the late Stephen Ambrose, as director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, says he isn't sure if the book will help Kerry's campaign. "There are still a lot of moral ambiguities about Vietnam," he says, which is why he finds it more interesting than the heroics of World War II chronicled by Ambrose in best sellers such as Band of Brothers.

Kerry gave Brinkley access to more than 1,000 pages of previously private diaries and letters from Vietnam that document his growing disillusionment with the war he was fighting.

Kerry saved them, intending to write a memoir. Instead, he gave them to Brinkley, who says, "I think he found them too painful to revisit himself."

====================

The Tenth Brother
Douglas Brinkley, author of Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, interviews Kerry’s tenth warmate and gets a story sharply different from what the other nine crew members have had to say
By DOUGLAS BRINKLEY
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,599034,00.html


John Kerry on Foreign Policy, 1971
This week: John Kerry's appearance on ABC's "The Dick Cavett Show" from June 30, 1971. Kerry discusses Vietnam and U.S. foreign policy.

http://www.c-span.org/

Legislative Proposals Relating to the War in Southeast Asia Thursday, April 22, 1971 United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:05 a.m., in Room 4221, New Senate Office Building, Senator J. W. Fulbright (Chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Fulbright, Symington, Pell, Aiken, Case and Javits

The Chairman: The committee will come to order.

Opening Statement

The committee is continuing this morning its hearing on proposals relating to the ending of the war in Southeast Asia. This morning the committee will hear testimony from Mr. John Kerry and, if he has any associates, we will be glad to hear from them. These are men who have fought in this unfortunate war in Vietnam. I believe they deserve to be heard and listened to by the Congress and by the officials in the executive branch and by the public generally. You have a perspective that those in the Government who make our Nation's policy do no always have and I am sure that your testimony today will be helpful to the committee in its consideration of the proposals before us.

I would like to add simply on my own account that I regret very much the action of the Supreme Court in denying the veterans the right to use the Mall. (Applause)
FULL STORY:
http://www.c-span.org/vote2004/jkerrytestimony.asp



Main Page -03/30/04

Message Board by American Patriot Friends Network [APFN]

APFN MESSAGEBOARD ARCHIVES

messageboard.gif (4314 bytes)