Word: kerrey
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...disastrous mission that one SEAL called a "bumbling overf___" was deemed a success by the brass. Ambrose put Kerrey in for a Silver Star, but as the request moved up, senior officers embellished the description and elevated the recommendation. The next year, Kerrey was awarded the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry...
...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...
...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...
...That one too went very wrong?information from defectors led Kerrey's squad into a trap. Chastened by the killings in Thanh Phong, Kerrey had decided to take these targets as prisoners. As a result, he told TIME last week, "I think I almost got some of my men killed that night." Instead, in a 90-sec. fire fight, seven V.C. were gunned down?but not before a grenade landed on Kerrey's foot, shattering his leg and wounding his groin, chest and face. Declining morphine for the pain, Kerrey refused to relinquish his command until...
...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...