Kerrey, J(oseph) Robert 1943- (Bob Kerrey)

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KERREY, J(oseph) Robert 1943- (Bob Kerrey)

PERSONAL: Born August 27, 1943, in Lincoln, NE; son of James (a businessman) and Elinor Kerrey; married Bev Defnall (an actress; divorced); married Sarah Paley, February 23, 2001; children: (first marriage) Benjamin, Lindsey; (second marriage) Henry. Education: University of Nebraska, B.S. (pharmacology), 1966. Politics: Democrat

ADDRESSES: Offıce—New School University, 66 West 12th St., New York, NY 10011.

CAREER: Politician and educator. Worked as a pharmacist; founder of fitness clubs and Grandmother's Restaurants, all in Nebraska, 1970s; State of Nebraska, governor, 1982-87; Printon, Kane & Co., Lincoln, NE, partner, 1987-89; U.S. Senator, 1988-2001; New School University, New York, NY, president, 2001—. Also taught at University of California, Santa Barbara, 1987. Military service: U.S. Navy SEALs, 1966-68, became a lieutenant, served in Vietnam, 1969; awarded Congressional Medal of Honor, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart.

MEMBER: American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Phi Gamma Delta.

WRITINGS:

(As Bob Kerrey) When I Was a Young Man: A Memoir, Harcourt (New York, NY), 2002.

Author and contributor to policy papers and reports.

SIDELIGHTS: J. Robert Kerrey, popularly known as Bob Kerrey, was the third of seven children in a conservative, Republican, Midwestern family. He went on to become a war hero, Democrat, governor, senator, and president of a prestigious university. Kerrey's When I Was a Young Man: A Memoir recalls his childhood and adult life until 1970. In his book, Kerrey addresses his wartime service, including a 1969 episode in Vietnam that haunted him, and surrounded him with controversy, three decades later.

Kerrey first, however, writes about his typical life as an American boy. His father was a successful businessman, and the family lived in an affluent suburb of Lincoln, Nebraska. They worshipped at the Bethany Christian Church, where Kerrey attended bible study, services, and received a full-immersion baptism. Also, although Kerrey had a slight build, he enjoyed sports and played football. His politics were such that he voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1968.

Kerrey's father had served in World War II, as had his uncle John, who had been taken prisoner and escaped, but he disappeared again before coming home to the States. These family examples of heroism were a factor in Kerrey's decision to enter the escalating war in Asia. He had earned a degree in pharmacology, and although he could have gotten a deferment because of his asthma, Kerrey volunteered for the U.S. Navy's officer candidate school, and then for underwater demolition training on Coronado Island, across the bay from San Diego, California. The dropout rate in the dangerous program was high, and trainees sometimes died before finishing the course. Upon completion, Kerrey was asked to join the SEALs, an acronym that stands for the Navy's elite Sea, Air, and Land division. Kerrey accepted the offer.

After additional training, Kerrey was commissioned as a lieutenant and shipped out to Vietnam as part of SEAL Platoon One to serve a six-month tour, the maximum for SEALs. The team could not be viewed as playing a support role in the conflict and was ordered to independently look for the enemy and destroy him. The definition of "enemy" was cloudy, however, since villagers joined whichever side they felt presented the greater threat. Kerrey's team consisted of six men and an interpreter. For days and nights, they traveled the waters of the Mekong Delta in a fast boat equipped with machine guns, mortar, grenades and launchers, and knives, but they never came across the enemy they sought.

When the group received notification of a Vietcong meeting to be held in the village of Thanh Phong—located in the Free Fire Zone where they were allowed to fire at anything that moved—they planned an attack. Their orders and information about the meeting were murky, but they were told that no civilians would be present. That turned out not to be the case. Even though their own surveillance confirmed that no women or children were present, by the time they descended on Thanh Phong, women, old men, and children filled the huts, and the Vietcong, if they had been there, were gone.

Kerrey writes, "My point man led the way. He came to a house he said he believed was occupied by sentries. We had been trained that in such situations it would be too risky to move forward knowing that they would warn the men in the village unless we killed them or aborted the mission. I did not have to give an order to begin the killing but I could have stopped it and I didn't."

When they believed a shot had been fired at the team, the SEALs—only two of whom had seen previous combat—retaliated by shooting into the darkness. The women and children who stood in front of their huts were cut down in the crossfire. Kerrey had been in Vietnam only five weeks, and it was his first combat experience.

Kerrey's team was then sent to Nha Trang to stop reported killings of civilians by the Vietcong. They lost the element of surprise, and Kerrey's right leg was severed at the calf by an explosion as he heroically fought to save his platoon. As he was airlifted by helicopter, his hand caught on a tree limb, and a finger was shattered.

John Gregory Dunne wrote in the New York Review of Books that "the next year was a chronicle of horror, and, in its pitilessly precise and unsqueamish telling, the most remarkable section of this ineffably sad, tormented, and wonderful book. It is as if Kerrey regards sentiment as an affront, a betrayal of the reader, or himself." Kerrey was flown to the states to be treated in Philadelphia. Gangrene set in, his leg was amputated below the knee, and he continued to undergo surgeries for another nine years. He was discharged in 1969, and in 1970, although he had first decided to refuse the award, he did ultimately accept the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Richard Nixon, immediately after the invasion of Cambodia and the massacre at Kent State. His feelings about the war and his participation had dramatically changed.

Roy Reed wrote in the New York Times Book Review, regarding Kerrey, "Not only did he feel he did not deserve the medal. Worse than that, he writes, he believed that his injury was punishment for his part in the killings at Thanh Phong. On his first night home in Nebraska, he says, he couldn't sleep because he kept hearing the cries of the women and children in the village. Clearly, he still hears them."

Kerrey returned to civilian life to become a successful businessman. He was married for four years and had two children. After he and his wife divorced, he remained a bachelor for more than two decades before remarrying and starting a new family. He made a successful bid for the governorship of Nebraska and served two terms. It was well publicized that his romantic interest, actress Debra Winger, frequently visited him at the governor's mansion. He then served two terms in the U.S. Senate, during which time he made an unsuccessful bid against Bill Clinton for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party in 1992. He declined to run for a third term and accepted the position of president of New School University in New York City.

Kerrey has been a popular figure, and his views tended to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative. He has a reputation of always being prepared, and he was one of only three senators who voted against the 1990 war in the Persian Gulf. Financial Times contributor Christopher Caldwell described him as "a bohemian—bookish, blessed with a cynical sense of humor." Kerrey, in fact, was given the nickname "Cosmic Bob" because of his easy-going nature and New Age leanings.

In 2001 New York Times contributor Gregory L. Vistica painted Kerrey as a war criminal, based on the testimony of Gerhard Klann, the then-troubled team member who claimed Kerrey had given a direct order to kill the civilians. He also sold the story to CBS's 60 Minutes. A television crew went to Vietnam, where they found one woman who first stated that she witnessed the killings, then later said she only heard the screaming. Kerrey agreed to appear on 60 Minutes with Dan Rather.

Dunne described Rather's interviewing style: "Hard, short, rapid-fire questions that demand yes or no answers, punctuated with the pregnant pause. It is a tawdry star-chamber technique designed less to elicit facts than to imply malfeasance, and it was in full play when he faced Kerrey."

The testimonies of the five team members who contradicted Klann seemed to carry no weight, and the sensationalism of the piece took hold. Newspapers across the country were filled with negative opinion and suggestions that Kerrey had been given a pass because he was well connected. Four senators who were themselves decorated combat veterans defended Kerrey. They included Republicans John McCain and Chuck Hagel, and Democrats John Kerrey and Max Cleland.

Time's Michael Elliott pointed out, "Kerrey lived, of course, and those in the village did not. But it is impossible to read his book without a sense that war can be almost as terrible to those who survive it as to those who do not. Throughout When I Was a Young Man, Kerrey quotes from Wilfred Owen, the greatest poet of World War I. Owen's subject, he once wrote, was 'war, and the pity of war.' That is Kerrey's subject too, and he has added magnificently to the long canon of literature on it."