Robert Kerrey

Here's a book that's been sitting on my shelf for several years now, and I've finally found time to read it and thoroughly enjoyed it. WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN (2002) is Bob Kerrey's memoir of growing up in a family of seven children in Lincoln, Nebraska, where his father, a WWII veteran, ran a lumber and coal business. College educated as a pharmacist, Kerrey joined the Navy to avoid the draft, trained as an underwater (frogman) demolition specialist and then became a platoon leader on SEAL show more Team 1, after completing Airborne and Ranger training with the Army. Deployed to Vietnam, he was there less than two months and on his second mission was blown up by a Viet Cong grenade, which resulted in the loss of his right foot and part of his leg. He endured many months of surgeries and rehabilitation therapy and was fitted with a troublesome wooden prosthesis before being medically discharged with a disability pension. For his bravery, he was awarded the Medal of Honor presented by then-President Nixon. His unvarnished account of the action and the painful months of recovery and adapting is the most interesting, and winceworthy, portion of the memoir, but his readjustment to civilian life was almost as difficult for him, and he was plagued by nightmares of the first, botched mission he led which had resulted in the deaths of 21 Vietnamese women and children, an action for which he had to answer more than twenty years later. Kerrey went on to become Governor of Nebraska, and later the state's US Senator. He was also, for a time, president of the New School University in NYC. Kerry's story brought to mind Bob Dole's memoir of his WWII service, ONE SOLDIER'S STORY, which I read a dozen or more years ago.

I remember when Bob Kerry first crossed my radar, decades ago, when he got some national press for dating Deborah Winger. He was Nebraska's governor while she was filming TERMS OF THE ENDEARMENT, part of which was filmed in Lincoln.

Oh, and Kerrey also wrote about his postwar friendship with Lewis Puller, who he met during their rehab in a Philadelphia VA hospital. Puller was the son of "Chesty" Puller, perhaps the most famous of Marine Corps generals. I read a biography of Lewis Puller, FORTUNATE SON, years back. Sadly, his war wounds were so severe and crippling, that he ended up taking his own life.

A very good book. Read it in just a few sittings over two days. Very highly recommended.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the Cold War memoir, SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA show less