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American Morning

Bob Kerrey Writes Book About Growing Up in America's Heartland and Coming of Age in Vietnam

Aired May 29, 2002 - 09:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Bob Kerrey has shared his most painful memories of the Vietnam War. Now the former governor, former senator and decorated war hero has written about growing up in America's heartland and coming of age in Vietnam. It is called "When I Was a Young Man."

Bob Kerrey, now president of the New School University here in New York joining us this morning.

Good morning and congratulations.

BOB KERREY, AUTHOR, "WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN": Thank you.

ZAHN: How long did it take you to write this?

KERREY: Well, I actually initially Started it in '88 when my father was dying and asked me to find out about his brother, and then I didn't do much on it for the first term in the Senate, and then '95, I started to write it more seriously.

ZAHN: Now his brother lost his life in the Philippines?

KERREY: As it turns out, right, his brother was sent to the Philippines in 1941, and was there when the Japanese attacked in December 8th and invaded the island, and was in the Battle for Baton, was surrendered, escaped Baton death march, and then operated as guerrilla for a couple of years, and what I found was that he was killed delivering a packet of information, intelligence to a submarine on the east coast of Luizon (ph) on the 17th of October, 1944.

ZAHN: This is picture of dad and your uncle here?.

KERREY: That's a picture of my father and my uncle..

ZAHN: And describe to us this important relationship between the two. Was that a defining moment in your life, when your father looked back on his relationship with his brother?

KERREY: Yes, because my father had not talked about his brother. Every time I raised the subject, he would shift the subject. He would not give me very much information. It was a pretty traumatic experience when he lost his brother. Both of them were raised by an aunt. They were both orphaned early, raised in Chicago. And so he was quite close to him. So to lose him was a big deal.

ZAHN: What was the hardest thing about writing the book?

KERREY: Rewriting was the hardest thing. I mean, the hardest thing doing the mechanical work of writing it again and again and again until I found it was satisfied with it to give to the publisher.

ZAHN: And you really look inside yourself in this book. You talk a lot about how your values were shaped by your Midwestern upbringing, and you talked about how your years in Vietnam defined you, and your values, and I wanted to share with our audience a little bit of what you wrote in the preface. And you said: "The patriotic and heroic stories of my youth caused me to believe that my nation was never wrong and that my leaders could never lie to me. When the sands of this foundation blew away, I lost my patriotism. In the second half of my life, I rebuilt this on something studier, the observation that Americans at their best can be unimaginably generous and willing to put their lives on the line the freedom and well being of others."

When you look back at the earlier chapter of your life and your lost faith in the country's leaders, do you even recognize that guy?

KERREY: Yes. I do recognize that guy. I recognize it just as a younger version of myself. I've lost a lot along the way, as all human beings do. I think I recognize that, that young man.

ZAHN: And in the wake of September 11th, describe to us this resurge as of patriotism that you've seen witness and what difference will make when we continue to what seem to be daily-alert notices?

KERREY: Well, some of it is quite good. Some of the patriotic feeling of a larger sense of purpose is quite good. Some of it can get -- anytime it's blind and litmus-test based, it can get ugly and very exclusive, and not powerful at all. It can get quite destructive. But in the main, it's been enormously constructive. In the main, it's brought the nation closer together. It's given us a sense of purpose, and I would love for that sense of purpose to carry us not just in foreign policy areas, but domestic as well.

It's living in New York City since the 11th of September. It's given us a chance to see how great human beings can be when there's trouble.

ZAHN: You're no longer getting your daily intelligence briefings as a New Yorker. When you hear that one day it's the harbor, and the next day it's landmarks here, how do you react to the threats?

KERREY: Well, I think...

ZAHN: Do you think it's responsible for issue them and to share them with the public?

KERREY: None of get out of this deal alive. So at some point, the reaction to try too protect yourself against physical death is futile. I mean, you can't do it in extreme. I mean, you just can't run around worrying about something falling on you. I think we obviously have to do a better job on the security side, dealing not with the criminal in this case. Bin Laden is not a criminal; he's a terrorist. and much different mindset, much different purpose, much different reason for doing things, and he genuinely hates pluralism in the plebicide and our tolerance. I mean, the more tolerant we are of him, the more likely he will do bad things to us.

So part of us is have to be, you know, understanding of people who get misled, but also extremely uncompromising in executing an objective to take down people who are threatening our lives.

ZAHN: Just wanted to give you a moment to reflect on all the controversy surrounding your role on a mission in Vietnam that left dozens of civilians dead. You went through hell when people were raising questions about whether civilians were knowingly killed or not. Just a final thought on that to leave us with this morning.

KERREY: Well, I mean, first of all, if you went back and did an examination of my accounting of a 1960s football game and talked to all my players, you would probably find that there's going to be discrepancies in the story. So I make no claim for having a perfect memory. But I did volunteer to tell the story, and I did volunteer to tell the story for a reason that I think is good. And that is I think it can help us understand not just about war, but what we need to prepare people to go into it, what we adults who don't do the fighting need to understand when it comes to committing young people, and what -- especially the United States of America is having to face in a new world where we're the dominant, preeminent economic and military power on the planet. It imposes upon us as adults greater responsibilities than you would have in other nations.

ZAHN: We're going to have to leave it there this morning, Bob Kerrey, author of "When I Was a Young Man," former senator and now the current president of a university.

Hope you get some time off.

KERREY: I will.

ZAHN: Be nice to yourself.

KERREY: I'll try.

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