A mission upriver in John F. Kerry's war started with a call to arms. "Saddle up, tigers," he would bark to his gunboat crewmen before they headed off on patrol deep into Vietnam's mangrove-choked canals. It was a command and a warning.
Kerry led his men into combat with a gambler's daring that masked a doubter's disillusionment. The remote southern coast of the Mekong Delta became a proving ground for a Navy lieutenant junior grade eager to test his mettle as a leader -- and a crash course in failed policy for a Yale graduate skeptical of the war's outcome.
For four months, from the fall of 1968 into the spring of 1969, Kerry, then 26, experienced Vietnam's chaos from both vantages, piloting a succession of machine-gun-armed Swift boats on raids against Vietcong river outposts. His aggressive, unorthodox tactics made admirers of his crewmen, raised eyebrows among fellow officers and commanders, and earned him a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for valor.
He approached Vietnam with ambivalence, but intent on making his mark in wartime -- much as had his political role model, President John F. Kennedy. Kerry's passage steeped him with self-confidence and a lasting "sense of what it means to be under fire," he said recently during an interview in Portland, Ore.
"I think I was a good warrior," Kerry said. "I think I knew how to fight. I also think I was smart enough and sensitive enough to see through it, and know what the downsides and the strategy faults were."
Kerry took calculated risks in battle even as his unease grew over the Vietnam War's stalemated strategy and rising death toll. After a final blur of firefights and close calls, a third combat wound allowed him to shorten his one-year tour. Kerry returned to the U.S. to publicly oppose the war and subsequently run for office.
His complicated stance and abrupt exit were emblematic of his layered, opaque character. If Vietnam helped define him as a soldier and a leader, Kerry also went to war displaying traits that have marked his public life. His fierce drive to excel and his knack for cementing lifelong friendships alternated with a cerebral aloofness and a barely sheathed instinct for advancement.
The loyal band of Navy crewmen and gunboat officers who bonded with Kerry 35 years ago now campaign for him, depicting him as a trusted fighter. "He got us psyched up to go out on patrol every day, even though he needed it as much as we did," said Del Sandusky, one of Kerry's gunboat helmsmen.
Other Swift boat officers -- Republican sympathizers and veterans bitter over Kerry's post-Vietnam peace activism -- pose a darker alternate history. Members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an anti-Kerry political committee, they are led by retired Rear Adm. Roy F. Hoffmann, a blunt-edged Navy career man who oversaw the hit-and-run river raids Kerry viewed as a costly waste of American lives.
In Vietnam, Hoffmann and other former officers contend, Kerry bucked Navy procedure, staying in country just long enough to prime his political resume. Some question the accuracy of Kerry's recollections and the legitimacy of the first of his three Purple Hearts -- a minor wound, they claim, that was not suffered in action.
"He went to Vietnam to build a career," Hoffmann said. "He was a loose cannon while he was there, and he bugged out early."
Yet Hoffmann and Kerry had few direct dealings in Vietnam. A Los Angeles Times examination of Navy archives found that Hoffmann praised Kerry's performance in cabled messages after several river skirmishes. And while the Purple Heart account remains murky, its award was routine. Navy records show Swift boat crews were frequently raked with slight wounds of uncertain origin -- injuries that often earned decorations.
"I don't know what conclusions you can draw about someone's ability to lead from their combat experience, but John's service was commendable," said James J. Galvin, a former Swift boat officer who, like Kerry, was honored for three minor wounds and left the coastal combat zone early. "He played by the same rules we all did."
Since George Washington's day, a candidate's wartime service has almost "always been seen as an advantage," said Alan Brinkley, professor of American history at Columbia University.
That presumption has been swept aside this presidential election year. Even as the Massachusetts senator uses his Vietnam days in media ads and speeches to emphasize his firmness on national security, sparring over his four-month tour shows how even a prized military record can be picked apart during an election.
Kerry went off to war cautiously, analyzing every move that nudged him closer.
Aware that he was eligible for the draft, Kerry explored his uncertainty in a valedictory speech to his 1966 Yale graduating class. "This Vietnam War," he said, "has found our policymakers forcing Americans into a strange corner." Solemnly insisting he valued military service, he mused about "the very roots of what we are serving."
