When I Was a Young Man: A Memoir by Bob Kerry

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The Barnes & Noble Review
Former Nebraska governor and senator (and onetime presidential candidate) Bob Kerrey recounts the story of his early life, including his childhood in Lincoln, Nebraska, his training as one of the original Navy SEALs, his brief (and tragic) combat experiences in Vietnam, and his recovery after a serious combat injury. In many ways, this is a "tale of two wars," as Kerrey also relates his father's and uncle's combat experiences in World War II. His father's deathbed request that his son find out what happened to his brother (reported missing in the Philippines) sets the memoir in motion.

Kerrey's writing on Vietnam is compelling; he feels that the U.S. never really had a chance to win because of general confusion about why the troops were there in the first place, and he himself felt unprepared and clueless about his own purpose there. Kerrey also feels that the U.S. simply underestimated the will of the North Vietnamese and "focused too much on stopping Communism and too little on building a free and independent nation."

Kerrey's general disillusionment is graphically portrayed by two incidents: the now-infamous mission at Thanh Phong (where unarmed civilians were, Kerrey claims, caught in the crossfire during a retreat), and his own maiming at Nha Trang (his right leg was, ultimately, amputated below the knee). As Kerry later puts it: "My fifty plus days in Vietnam seemed to be at best a waste of time."

Kerrey's recounting of his painful rehabilitation in a Philadelphia naval hospital, as he adjusts to wearing his new artificial limb, brings home the horrors of war in a blunt and chilling way. The fact that he would go on to serve his country in other ways is a moving testament to the civic awareness and responsibility that appears to be a Kerrey family trait. (Nicholas Sinisi)

Nicholas Sinisi is the Barnes & Noble.com Nonfiction editor.

Publishers Weekly

Kerrey, former Nebraska governor and senator, is currently president of the New School University. He opens this moving autobiography by recalling his idyllic Nebraska childhood. At 10, he discovered that his father had a brother who'd disappeared during WWII. Years later, Kerrey promised his father he would uncover the truth about his uncle's death. "As I searched, I discovered many things I should have known before and many I wish I had known." He traces the family's history and details his own postwar childhood of church sermons, nights alone in his tree house, movies, music, paper routes, baseball and bicycling. As a University of Nebraska graduate pharmacist, he was employed at Iowa pharmacies. In 1967, at Officer Candidates School, he made the "difficult decision" to become a frogman; while training at Coronado Bay in California, "I thought the navy had sent me to paradise." At age 25, Kerrey arrived in Vietnam. Only weeks later, he was seriously wounded, losing part of a leg, and he spent a year recovering at Philadelphia's naval hospital. Kerrey explores his doubts about accepting the Congressional Medal of Honor "I knew that many men got nothing for bravery far greater than mine" and concludes with the results of his investigation into the mystery of his uncle's disappearance. Kerrey's deceptively simple writing style has great strength, and he presents his personal memories against the larger backdrop of antiwar protesters and other events of the period. Although the Vietnam missions fill only 30 pages, an army of readers will embrace this inspiring story, and many will eagerly await future chronicles of Kerrey's later life. B&w photos not seen by PW. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A Vietnam War veteran, former senator from Nebraska, and current president of the New School University in New York City, Kerrey has written a deceptively simple yet powerful memoir. Prompted by a desire to discover the fate of an uncle who died mysteriously in World War II, Kerrey finds himself forced to confront his own life. He focuses on his tour of duty as a young navy SEAL in Vietnam and his recuperation from a serious leg wound. In response to recent public charges that he ordered his men to kill civilians, he blames himself explicitly for approving the mission and implicitly for not ordering a cease-fire when he saw that women and children were caught in the crossfire. (He does admit that his memory may well be flawed.) Kerrey concludes with a powerful dream in which he meets his dead uncle, who also made a bad decision, one that led to his death. In the dream, Kerrey confronts his own guilt. While some might find Kerrey's style a bit ordinary, its very straightforwardness and lack of flourish add to the power of the work. Highly recommended for all libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/02.] A.O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, IN Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An affecting memoir of youth in the Cold War-era American heartland and life and death in Vietnam. Former US senator Kerrey, now president of the New School, inadvertently stirred up controversy last year when news came out that he had been involved in a Vietnam War incident that left women and children dead. Kerrey's subsequent account of events was sometimes a little vague and did not always line up with other versions. "The story told in this book-though the most important details remain the same-is different than the one I first told," he writes in an afterword, "and even today I would not swear that my memory is 100% accurate." Cynical readers may wonder why his memory of that life-changing event, in which women and children were cut down in a crossfire between Vietcong soldiers and Kerrey's detachment of Navy SEALs, could be dodgy when, early on, he writes of being able to recall "with absolute clarity" 40-year-old moments on a Nebraska high-school football field. Be that as it may, his account of that fateful night in the Mekong Delta forms the dramatic heart and most newsworthy portion of his rueful memoir, which otherwise sounds familiar notes about patriotism turned to disaffection in the corrupt confusion of Vietnam. When he declares that not only those civilians but also "the young, innocent man who went to Vietnam died that night," Kerrey isn't being maudlin; he in fact came close to dying soon thereafter from grievous wounds received in an action for which he would be awarded the Medal of Honor. It's another strange twist in a war that, he holds, ended in failure largely because American strategists were too concerned with containing communism and not concerned enough withbuilding a democratic society in Vietnam. Of particular interest to veterans, and certain to attract still more discussion.