John Kerry Recordings

Born a military brat at Fitzsimmons Army Medical Center in 1943, John Kerry, whose grandparents were Jewish before immigrating to the United States converted to Catholicism.  This was the faith that Kerry and his three siblings would be raised is.  He even served as an alter boy.  When his father was discharged from the Army Air Corp the family moved to Massachusetts before moving to the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC where his father took a position with the Navy Department's office of general counsel and then became a diplomat at the State Department for the Bureau of United Nations Affairs.  While the Kerry was considered upper middle class, they still had the privileges of great wealth as his mother was a member of the Forbes family.  A great-aunt would pay the expenses for Kerry to attend the best preparatory schools in Switzerland.  When John Kerry was ten his father took a diplomatic position in Berlin.  At the age of twelve, he crossed the Soviet Occupation Zone to visit the bunker of Adolf Hitler and also ride through the Brandenburg Gate.  It is said that had this young boy been captured it would have caused an international incident.  By 1957, Kerry was sent back to the United States to finish his prep schooling in New England.  It was at this time in his life that he developed an interest in public speaking and politics.  While at at Saint Paul's School he helped found a debating society called the John Winant Society.  Three years later, Kerry and six other classmates formed a minor Rock-N-Roll band called the Electras which he played bass.  A year later, the Electras had pressed an album and had 500 copies pressed that they could sell at school dances.  The album, the Electras was reissued in 2004 and has been made available on streaming platforms.  In. 1962, John Kerry went off to Yale University.  He majored in political science.  While at Yale Kerry was involved in athletics like hockey, lacrosse, and soccer; with the latter being the sport he earned a varsity letter for.  He was involved with the Phi Upsilon fraternity and he would take flying lessons.  Politically, he was named Liberal Party Chairman of the Yale Political Union.  Kerry would excel in debate and even winning awards for topics on such issues as United States foreign policy towards Vietnam.  Romantically, he was briefly involved with Janet Auchincloss who was the younger half sister of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.  It was through Auchincloss that Kerry would be invited to go yachting with President John F. Kennedy.  Academically, John Kerry never received an A.  His highest grade he received at Yale was an 89.  By the time he graduated in 1966 with a bachelor's in political science his overall cumulative average was 76.

After graduating from Yale, John Kerry enlisted in the Navy Reserves.  After completing OCS training he received his officer's commission and was assigned to the USS Gridley.  While on the Gridley, Kerry had requested to be sent to Southeast Asia wanting to command a Fast Patrol Craft, better known as a Swift boat.  His second choice was to command a River Patrol Boat.  Historically, at the time, the latter was the more dangerous of the two assignments.  In December 1968, Kerry and his crew were near a peninsula just north of Cam Ranh Bay when they surprised a group of Vietnamese men unloading sampans.  The Vietnamese men began running and would not stop, failing to obey orders.  Kerry and his crew opened fire on the sampans and they were destroyed.  As the Swift boat rapidly left, John Kerry had noticed a shrapnel wound just above his left elbow.  It was this incident that he received his first Purple Heart.  His second Purple Heart came in February 1969 when he was hit with shrapnel in the left leg during a rocket hit Cua Lon River.  Also in February 1969, John Kerry was in tactical command of a Swift boat with the mission being to go up the Duong Keo River to bring underwater demolition teams and South Vietnamese marines to destroy enemy samsons, structures, and bunkers.  He had directed the Swift boat to turn to the beach where the Vietcong position was changed.  The boat's fire was so expert that the enemy fled while Kerry achieved the insertion of the Vietnamese troops.  Just then, a VC insurgent with a rocket launcher emerged from a spider hole.  While under fire, Kerry reached the VC and killed him and capturing the rocket launcher.  For this act, John Kerry received the Silver Star.  In March 1969, John Kerry and his crew were on the Bai Hap River where they were returning back to their base after dropping off Vietnamese troops from the garrison at Cai Nuoc and MIKE Force in what was known as Operation Sealords.  These Vietnamese troops were advisors for a raid on a Vietcong camp on the Ranch Dong Cung Canal.  While blowing up a rice bunker earlier that day, Kerry had received more shrapnel in his buttocks.  While going around to a fishing weir to debark some of the passengers, a mine was detonated beneath the lead boat as it crossed the weir to the left.  The boat was lifted two to three feet from the water.  According to documentation of the event, a mine or rocket close to the boat exploded knocking Green Beret James Rassmann overboard.  During the explosion, Kerry had hurt his arm but was able to rescue Rassmann who was receiving sniper fire from the water.  For this, John Kerry would receive his third Purple Heart and also the Bronze Star with Combat V for showing heroic achievement during this incident.  Having been wounded three times, John Kerry was able to return back to the United States.  He would be assigned a personal aide to Rear Admiral Walter Schlech.  He would be promoted, temporarily to lieutenant on January 1, 1970.  His service would continue in the Naval Reserves until February 1978.

After returning to the United States, John Kerry became involved in an antiwar group known as Vietnam Veterans Against the War.  In the early 1970s, their membership was around 20,000.  Richard Nixon considered VVAW an effective and controversial component of the antiwar movement.  Kerry would take part in the Winter Soldier Investigation to investigate United States atrocities in Vietnam.  On April 22, 1971, John Kerry appeared before a Senate committee to participate in a hearing on proposals to end the war.  He would take part the next day with other Vietnam veterans where they threw their medals and battle ribbons over a fence in front of the US Capitol Building.  This was to make a dramatic statement about their opposition to the Vietnam War.  In a statement before throwing his medals he made a statement, "I'm not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try and make this country wake up once and for all."  While participating in a march in honor of POWs being held captive by North Vietnam like future Senate colleague John McCain and future Ross Perot running mate in the Presidential Election of 1992, James Stockdale, John Kerry along with 441 other protestors were arrested for trespassing when camping out on the village greens in Lexington, Massachusetts.  Kerry and the others were read the Miranda Warning and then taken away in school buses where they would spend the night in the Public Works Garage.  After paying a five dollar fine each, John Kerry and the other protestors were released.  Because of the mass arrests, the community of Lexington created a backlash and thus gave the VVAW positive coverage.

In 1972, John Kerry made his first run for elective office where he ran as the Democratic Party Nominee in Massachusetts' 5th Congressional district.  In a three way race in the General Election, John Kerry seemed like he was going to win.  But, with President Richard Nixon taking a personal interest in Kerry's defeat and the Sun Newspaper calling Kerry every anti and un they could think of, John Kerry lost the election by 11 percent.  After a decade of exile from politics where John Kerry earned his juris doctorate and practiced law, he was ready to run for elective office again.  This time, running as lieutenant governor with Former Governor Michael Dukakis.  The Dukakis/Kerry ticket won nearly 62 percent of the vote.  As Lieutenant Governor, John Kerry was tasked by Dukakis to be the administration's liaison to the United States federal government and to become active in environmental issues like acid rain.  By 1984, Paul Tsongas had decided not to run for another term for the United States Senate due to health issues.  Despite a tough primary and the landslide re-election of Ronald Reagan in the Presidential Election of 1984, John Kerry narrowly defeated his Republican opponent.  Tsongas resigned his Senate seat in January 2, 1985 so Michael Dukakis appointed John Kerry to the seat.  The strategy was to give him seniority over the rest of the incoming freshman class the next day.

Through his Senate career, John Kerry took a very strong interest in foreign affairs.  He helped unearth the scandal of the Reagan administration known as Iran Contra.  By 2000, Kerry was on a short list of candidates to be Vice President Al Gore's running mate.  Included on the list were Kerry, North Carolina Senator John Edwards (who would be Kerry's running mate in the Presidential Election of 2004), Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt, New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen, and Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman.  In the end, Al Gore chose Joe Lieberman.  For the next three years, Kerry would be faced with issues of war in the Bush administration to the point that when he ran for President in 2004 against George W. Bush, John Kerry would be labeled a flip flopper.  Protesters at Kerry rallies in 2004 would be dressed as flip flops and playing the the theme song to the old 1960s television show; Flipper.

The Presidential Election of 2004 would have been an election where the incumbent should have lost. The economy was not good, but the fact that the country was in a War on Terror and had just captured Saddam Hussein in December 2003, and add too that by Election Day, many swing states had the issue of legalizing same sex marriage on the ballot, the odds were really stacked against John Kerry.  The one bright spot for the Democratic Party that year was State Senator Barack Obama being introduced to the country at the Democratic National Convention paving the way for his own run for President in the Presidential Election of 2008.

John Kerry went back to the Senate after his defeat and when Barack Obama and Joe Biden were elected President and Vice President in 2008, Kerry succeeded Joe Biden as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

After four years as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was resigning from the Cabinet.  Barack Obama nominated Senator Kerry to succeed Secretary Clinton.  Secretary Kerry presided over such issues as the Ukraine in 2014, as well as the issues with Syria.  He left the Cabinet in 2017 after Donald Trump became president.

In 2020, after Former Vice President Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in the Election, Biden created a position for John Kerry called United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.  This position in the United States will allow for the administration to have a hand in determining what can be done to save the environment so that the human race and other forms of life don't become extinct in our lifetime, all while working on innovative solutions to create a cleaner and greener economy to help build the middle class.