Word: kerrey
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More than 20 years later and running for President, Kerrey talked about that decision. "I accepted on behalf of other people that didn't get it," he said. "I'm very uncomfortable with the introduction, 'Here's Bob Kerrey, an American hero...
...know one reason why. Thanh Phong puts so much in context, especially the competing pulls of public life and Vietnam: why Kerrey never seemed entirely comfortable with one, why he kept being drawn back to the other...
They all knew it was ridiculous, Ambrose told Karen Tumulty, then with the Los Angeles Times, in 1992. "Bob wanted to turn the medal down ... It was just another night out," he said. "We just got hit." Kerrey and the others believed the "honor" was politically motivated: Nixon's unpopular war needed a few more heroes. Kerrey's buddies told him to accept the medal for the sake of all those who had fought and lost more than he had. Kerrey's sister Jessie Rasmussen says he was still struggling with a decision as the family gathered in Washington...
...Kerrey grew up the third of seven children in a quiet working-class community on the edge of Lincoln, Neb. At the University of Nebraska, he partied hard and nearly flunked ROTC. But he was good at his other studies and finished the five-year pharmacy program in four. Still, life behind the drug counter had started to look like drudgery. He once recalled how a farmer came in looking for a treatment for the "sniffles." Annoyed at the triviality of the man's complaint, Kerrey said, "Try this" and wiped his sleeve across his nose...
When his draft notice arrived in the fall of 1965, Kerrey jumped at the chance to enlist in Navy officer-training school, then signed up for something more exciting: underwater demolition. Kerrey relished the rigorous training and jumped again when he was selected for the secret counterinsurgent team called SEALs. He was eager to serve, he said, "with a knife in my teeth...