Tour of Duty

Senator John Kerry enlisted in the Navy in February of 1966. He 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 in action. When Kerry returned home, he joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), becoming a prominent anti-war spokesperson. He would return to Vietnam many times with his friend Senator John McCain, looking for MIAs and POWs. Kerry was also the leading proponent of “normalization” of relations with Vietnam, a goal that was achieved in 1995.

In the first full-scale account of John Kerry’s Navy career, acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley draws on exclusive access to Kerry’s personal diaries and letters home from Vietnam to explore his odyssey from highly-decorated war veteran to outspoken antiwar activist. The result is an insightful look at a time in our nation’s history that radically changed the way we look at war and government, and the compelling story of a man who was at the center of that era.

Douglas Brinkley is director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies and professor of history at the University of New Orleans. Brinkley’s recent publications include Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company and a Century of Progress, and The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation with Stephen E. Ambrose. He lives in New Orleans with his wife, Anne, and daughter, Benton.

“Vietnam still haunts the corridors of power where war policy is forged, and its lessons never seemed to fall from fashion. Tour of Duty is a fresh and welcome retelling of these lessons, and how acutely Kerry once wrestled with them.” — Boston Globe