The Education of Lieutenant Kerrey [Hardcover]

Gregory L. Vistica (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312285477 | ISBN-13: 978-0312285470 | Publication Date: January 1, 2003 | Edition: 1st

On the night of February 25, 1969, an inexperienced, 25-year-old lieutenant, Bob Kerrey, led a commando raid on an isolated hamlet called Thanh Phong in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. While witnesses and official records give varying accounts, one thing is certain: around midnight, Kerrey and his men killed nearly two dozen unarmed women and children.

What happened that night and why? It's a terrible secret that Kerrey has borne for more than thirty years. Kerrey went on to do heroic things in Vietnam and later as a politician. Since World War II, he is only Medal of Honor winner to sit as a member of Congress. In many ways, Kerrey's life following that tragic mission has been a struggle for redemption.

So is Bob Kerrey a war hero or war criminal? Gregory L. Vistica, who uncovered the Thanh Phong atrocities in a widely-praised cover story for The New York Times Magazine, searches the entire span of Kerrey's life to answer that question.. From his rural boyhood in Nebraska, to his gut wrenching Navy SEAL training, to his aborted run for President, Kerrey's life will become a vehicle for understanding the Vietnam generation shaped in the 50s and sharpened by the tumultuous 60s.

The Education of Lieutenant Kerrey is an incredible story and a modern morality tale about a man of compassion and promise trapped by a horrible secret.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Bob Kerrey has been many things in his long and successful career: Navy SEAL, Medal of Honor winner, millionaire businessman, governor of Nebraska, U.S. Senator, and presidential candidate. But is he also a war criminal? This is the disturbing question at the center of Gregory Vistica's absorbing book, based on over four years of research, including much time spent with Kerrey himself. The issue in question is a dark secret that remained buried for nearly 30 years: in February, 1969, Lieutenant Kerrey led a small group of SEALs on a raid in which 21 unarmed women and children were killed. The official version was that it was an unfortunate accident and that the SEALs were defending themselves against enemy fire. As Vistica began to dig, however, a remarkably different account surfaced--a version corroborated by one of the men involved in the raid, as well as by two Vietnamese eyewitnesses.

Vistica does an excellent job of presenting the psychological harm Kerrey suffered as a result of his experience and is particularly sensitive to the fact that Kerrey is considered a hero by many--in short, this is no hatchet job. At times, Vistica genuinely seems to wish that he had never discovered the story at all, despite the enormity of the scoop. Still, his desire to find the truth overrides all other concerns, and he manages to maintain his objectivity. Kerrey did his best to control the story and even to quash it by offering Vistica a job on several occasions. He also changed his story repeatedly: "After the many talks I'd had with Kerrey over two-plus years, I came to see that he regarded the truth as fluid--something that could be modified, mixed, or diverted to suit his needs at the moment." Vistica is remarkably frank about how he was almost drawn in by the charismatic Kerrey and describes how difficult it can be to accuse famous and respected people of heinous behavior. But in following the facts all the way to his conclusion, he has written a brave and important book. --Shawn Carkonen

From Booklist

Vistica writes for the New York Times Magazine (in which a cover piece appeared that is the basis for this book) and is a 60 Minutes II producer; he is also the author of Fall from Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy (1996). Four years of research stand behind his new book, which is about Senator Bob Kerrey--and, as the author insists, his account is underscored by his "belief that there is no higher calling for a journalist than the honest pursuit of the truth." And that truth, as he reconstructs it, is that Kerrey's adult life and career represent one long attempt to assuage his guilt over a huge, haunting secret he "carried . . . through three decades of what was, by all appearances, a storybook existence: war hero, self-made millionaire businessman, governor, and a United States senator." The secret? In Vietnam, 25-year-old Lieutenant Kerrey led a commando raid on a village, and 21 unarmed women and children were killed. In Vistica's emotion-laden account of how the secret was borne by Kerrey all those years, how it informed his post-Vietnam goals and aspirations and achievement, and how he dealt with the situation once his secret became public, we see a prominent politician as very much a human being; as a result, this book is an important contribution to the literature of contemporary American politics. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (January 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312285477
• ISBN-13: 978-0312285470
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,031,035 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Cautionary Tale, February 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Education of Lieutenant Kerrey (Hardcover)

This book is must reading for any policymaker, or citizen, as this country moves inexorably toward war. Whatever your view of our iraq policy, "The Education of Lt. Kerrey" will make you give some real thought about the impact of war on the young men and women we put in harm's way. I was capitivated by the narrative and appalled at the position we put our soldiers in in Vietnam. The question of individual guilt is a difficult one. Each of us will have to decide for ourselves the individual culpability of Bob Kerrey, although it certainly seems that he, himself, feels the guilt deeply. As a nation, however, Vistica's book leaves no doubt in my mind that we carry a signficant burden of guilt with regards to the war in Vietnam.

This riveting tale has to give us some pause before sending our troops on another foreign adventure. The education of Lt. Kerrey can serve as a cautionary tale to the rest of America. Let us hope we can benefit, through this terrific book, from his education without having to relearn old lessons with the blood of our children.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Penetrating..provocative...& painful, January 8, 2003

By 

Bert Ruiz "Author" (Pleasantville, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Education of Lieutenant Kerrey (Hardcover)

This book is not a biography of Bob Kerrey. In the words of the author, "it is a story about war, memory, and the terrible corrosive power of secrets."

If you are fond of Bob Kerrey, you may not want to read this book...because it will more than likely change your opinion of him. Author Greg Vistica clearly establishes himself as one of the finest young journalists in America with the publication of "The Education of Lieutenant Kerrey." This book is penetrating, provocative and painful. It is also bound to accumulate many journalistic laurels for its extraordinary fairness and maturity.

The plot of this explosive nonfiction book is whether Bob Kerrey conducted an atrocity or orchestrated a war crime while leading an elite team of Navy SEAL commandos in Vietnam. The facts are straightforward. Vistica spends three long years putting the puzzle together. His big break takes place when the most credible member of Kerrey's Vietnam SEAL team admits the young Lieutenant from Nebraska ordered the brutal murder of unarmed civilians...mostly women and children. Some were carved up with knives and the others were riddled with bullets from point blank range. The evidence collected by Vistica is so compelling you will have to suppress the urge to vomit in horror.

Unfortunately at the conclusion of this book one is left to think that Bob Kerrey is not a hero. In defense of the former Senator Americans must bear in mind...it was the poor decisions of politicians that created the Vietnam quagmire. In addition, the many brave soldiers that answered the nation's call were subjected to a sinister White House and Pentagon obsession with "body counts."

Still and all, Bob Kerrey is his own worst enemy by authoring misleading and inconsistent explanations. Moreover, his employment of mercenary "spin masters" to control the damage of Vistica's journalistic investigation is absolutely dishonest. This is a book you make time to read and then pray that you find the moral strength to forgive. Nevetheless, as a lifelong Democrat dedicated to the protection of human rights...the bottom line of this book is that Bob Kerrey is probably not qualified to run for President of the United States.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tome for our times, May 11, 2004

By 

Kim Martin (Baytown, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Education of Lieutenant Kerrey (Hardcover)

Contrary to a couple of the other "amateur" reviews already posted on this book, I say that, given the unfolding of events in Iraq, particularly the atrocities of the American military against prisoners and the shame of immorality that those atrocities carry, that are only just now beginning to surface and be investigated, this is perhaps the most timely book one could read today. Vistica uses the events of February, 1969, in Vietnam to examine America's collective self-image and the guilt of not living up to that image when engaged in battlefield realities. I say if you read no other book this year, this month, you must read this one. In it you will find grave lessons for those who are involved in fighting and policing overseas, as well as for politicians who are sending them as our agents. What will be said thirty years from now about what the United States is doing today?