Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, by Douglas Brinkley

Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, by Douglas Brinkley
HarperCollins, 2004
357 pages plus 16 pages of photos, bibliography, notes and index
Library: 959.704 BRI

Description
Covering more than four decades, Tour of Duty is the definitive account of John Kerry's journey from war to peace. Written by acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley, this is the first full-scale, intimate account of Kerry's naval career.

In writing this riveting narrative, Brinkley has drawn on extensive interviews with virtually everyone who knew Kerry well in Vietnam, including all the men still living who served under him.Kerry also entrusted to Brinkley his letters home from Vietnam and his voluminous "War Notes"--journals, notebooks, and personal reminiscences written during and shortly after the war. This material was provided without restriction, to be used at Brinkley's direction, and has never before been published.

John Kerry enlisted in the Navy in February 1966, months before he graduated from Yale. In December 1967 Ensign Kerry was assigned to the frigate USS Gridley; after five months of service in the Pacific, with a brief stop in Vietnam, he returned to the United States and underwent training to command a Swift boat, a small craft deployed in Vietnam's rivers. In June 1968 Kerry was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade), and by the end of that year he was back in Vietnam where he commanded, over time, two Swift boats.

Throughout Tour of Duty Brinkley deftly deals with such explosive issues as US atrocities in Vietnam and the bombing of Cambodia. In a series of unforgettable combat-action sequences, he recounts how Kerry won the Purple Heart three times for wounds suffered in action and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Navy's Silver Star for gallantry inaction.

When Kerry returned from Southeast Asia, he joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), becoming a prominent antiwar spokesperson. He challenged the Nixon administration on Capitol Hill with the antiwar movement cheering him on.

As Kerry's public popularity soared in April-May 1971, the FBI considered him a subversive, Brinkley--using new information acquired from the recently released Nixon tapes--reveals how White House aides Charles Colson and H.R. Haldeman tried to discredit Kerry.

Refusing to be intimidated, Kerry started running for public office, eventually becoming a US senator from Massachusetts. But he never forgot his fallen comrades. Working with his friend Senator John McCain, he returned to Vietnam numerous times looking for MIAs ad POWs. By the time Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992, Kerry was the leading proponent of "normalization" of relations with Vietnam. When President Clinton officially recognized Vietnam in 1995, Kerry's three-decade-long tour of duty had at long last ended.

Table of Contents
Author's Note
Prologue: April 22, 1971 (Washington, DC)
Chapter 1: Up from Denver
Chapter 2: The Yale Years
Chapter 3: California Bound
Chapter 4: High Seas Adventure
Chapter 5: Training Days at Coronado
Chapter 6: Trial By Desert
Chapter 7: In-Country
Chapter 8: PCF-44
Chapter 9: Up the Rivers
Chapter 10: Death in the Delta
Chapter 11: Braving the Bo De River
Chapter 12: Taking Command of PCF-94
Chapter 13: The Medals
Chapter 14: The Homecoming
Chapter 15: The Winter Soldier
Chapter 16: Enemy Number One
Chapter 17: Duty Continued
Epilogue: September 2, 2003 (Charleston, South Carolina)
Timeline
Glossary
Interviews
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

Photos
John Kerry, father Richard, and a small plane (Piper JC-3?)
John Kerry and Julia Thorne
Kerry and Senator Thomas R. Kuchel
Kerry, President John F Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, unidentified people at America's Cup race in 1962
Kerry and David Thorne in front of USS Gridley
map of the Mekong Delta
28 unidentified Naval officers and Kerry in posed photo at US Naval School of Command
Kerry in Vietnam with unidentified Vietnamese peasants
Captured Viet Cong guerrilla, unidentified
Unidentified soldiers wading through mud
Crew of PCF-04: Gene Thorson, David Alston, Tom Belodeau, Del Sandusky, John Kerry
Kerry and unidentified crew aboard PCF-94
5 unidentified Navy Seals aboard PCF-94
Unidentified soldiers performing mine sweep
2 unidentified Regional Force bounty hunters
Kerry and fiance Julia Thorne
Admiral Walter Schleck Jr and Richard Kerry
Kerry with several unidentified civilians, at a VVAW rally (Dewey Canyon III)
Kerry testifying at Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 22, 1971. Several unidentified civilians behind him
two unidentified Vietnam vets
Kerry and four unidentied civilians, April 24, 1971
Armistead Maupin and President Nixon
Kerry and another unidentified protester under arrest, and unidentified police officer
Kerry and John Lennon
Kerry and daughter Vanessa
Ted Kennedy, Kerry and one recognizable but unidentified man at political rally


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