When I Was a Young Man: A Memoir by Bob Kerrey - Hardcover

Kerrey, Bob

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151004749 ISBN 13: 9780151004744

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002

Synopsis

A former Nebraska governor and senator traces his experiences as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam, which led to his being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, describing his sheltered childhood, his war-wound disability, and his search for the truth about his uncle's death in World War II. 100,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Authors

Bob Kerrey, former Nebraska governor and senator, is now president of New School University. He served with the elite Navy SEAL Team, and is the only living member of Congress to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. A self-made businessman who, upon returning from the war, built a chain of successful restaurants and health clubs, he is the father of three children and lives in New York City.

Bob Kerrey, former Nebraska governor and senator, is now president of New School University. He served with the elite Navy SEAL Team, and is the only living member of Congress to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. A self-made businessman who, upon returning from the war, built a chain of successful restaurants and health clubs, he is the father of three children and lives in New York City.

Reviews

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, Inc.

Kerrey is the former governor of Nebraska, former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, founder of a chain of restaurants, and the only living member of Congress to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Yet most of his accomplishments are absent from this book, which chronicles his early years. Kerrey grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, the son of a coal- and lumberman. He studied pharmacology, but Vietnam intruded on his career, and he wound up in the navy. Kerrey volunteered for the SEALs and was sent to Vietnam in 1968, where he lost part of his right leg and was discharged. The book ends with him receiving his Medal of Honor. Kerrey recounts his war experiences vividly, but this is really a story of growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, of postwar America and the cold war, of a working-class family and a boy waiting to become a man. Unlike so many politicians' memoirs, this one is refreshingly honest and a genuinely good story. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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. A.O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, IN
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1
ONE SATURDAY AFTERNOON in the spring of 1954 when I was ten years old, I discovered my father had a brother. My parents, brothers, and sisters were out. I was home alone, a rare and exciting moment, made more exciting by my mission to find a storage room where my mother kept items too important to throw away. My goal was to find a wooden chest that a year earlier I had helped carry into the basement.
I had followed the box's movements from smaller house to larger house during the eight years our family grew from the four small children who arrived in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1946 following my father's discharge from the U.S. Army, to the seven children who lived there now. My father's entire name-James Henry Kerrey-was stenciled in black on the top of the faded olive green box. It had leather handles on either end, a brass-hinged clasp that held the lid closed, and, fortunately for me, it was not padlocked.
Our new house was built on three levels. Upstairs were my parents' master bedroom and two other bedrooms for my sisters. In the basement were four smaller bedrooms, a large bathroom, and a recreation room for my brothers and me. In between was the entry level with spaces used by us all: dining room, music room, living room, laundry room, and an office.
Under the stairs going to my sisters' and parents' rooms was a crawl space where the green wooden chest was stored. That day I carried a chair down to the basement and placed it below the wooden doors that hid my treasure. As I opened the doors, my heart beat fast from the fear I might be caught and the excitement of discovering the secrets inside the box. I pulled a string that switched on a single incandescent bulb and climbed into the closet, moving things around so I could reach what I presumed was a war chest full of bloody memorabilia.
As I opened the lid the smell of camphor filled my lungs. On top were brown wool army jackets, trousers, and shirts. I pushed the uniforms aside, hoping to find souvenirs from some great battle. There was nothing of the sort. No pistols or muddied boots or a jacket with a bullet hole surrounded by the bloodstain of a fallen comrade. No battered helmet marked by too many days on the head of a weary soldier.
Underneath the uniforms I found a bayonet, but the blade looked as new and unused as any hardware knife in my father's store. I found hats, which were too large for my head, and four envelopes of pictures marked Iowa, Florida, Chicago, and Japan. I went straight for the one that said Japan. Inside were three-by-three-inch black-and-white images like the ones we took on our summer vacations. Men in uniforms stood in front of a metal building with a rounded roof. I recognized my father's smiling face, looking young and happy. I saw odd-shaped houses and strange, misshapen plants, and in one, a twisted, melted glass bottle. But nothing in the box lived up to the delights I had imagined.
Just as I was beginning to lose interest, I opened a large folder that held an eight-by-ten-inch black-and-white photograph of the head and shoulders of a man in a white uniform. He looked just like my older brother John, tan and handsome, with dark thinning hair combed straight back. The resemblance was so strong that I decided to take the picture with me when I left the basement.
After dinner that night I waited for my father to go into his office, where he and my mother shared a desk and a set of filing cabinets. The room was always cluttered with broken chairs, torn clothing, and discarded toys. My father often made phone calls from this room after supper. My mother used it late at night when we had gone to bed to pay bills or make entries in a black book that held the income and expenses of their lumber, coal, and hardware business.
I stood in the doorway until he finished making a call. Then he turned and asked in a kind voice what I wanted. With the photograph in my outstretched hand, I said, "I found a picture of a man this afternoon. It looks like John." My father looked at the man's face and his expression grew sad and worried. "It isn't your brother John. This is my brother John. He was killed in the war." Before I could ask any questions, he said, "Where did you get it?"
When I answered truthfully his face reflected something I had never seen-a mixture of anger and pain. In that instant I thought he might either cry or shout at me. He chose anger. He rose and walked quickly past me and out the door, yelling, "You kids leave my things alone. Leave them alone." And he was gone. I stood as if I had been turned to salt like Lot's wife. I could not move; I could only stand there and cry. My mother came into the office and asked me what had happened. When I told her, she said gently, "Your father had an older brother named John. He was killed ten years ago. Your father doesn't like to talk about it. Please leave his things alone." Which is exactly what I did.

Copyright © 2002 by J. Robert Kerrey
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Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151004749
• ISBN 13: 9780151004744
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352