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By the beginning of 1967 Kerry had moved from Rhode Island to California for rounds of naval training, first to Treasure Island and then to San Diego. The war in Vietnam was escalating rapidly. On Jan.1,1966 ,when Kerry made the decision to enter the navy, the number of U.S. personnel killed in Vietnam was just 636. By the beginning of 1967 the number multiplied tenfold to 6644. By the end of 1967 it would double to 16,021.
On June 23,1967, Kerry and Thorne were both in Southern California when they heard President Johnson was going to appear at a L.A. hotel. Thousands of protesters were expected to gather. Bursting with curiosity, the two changed into civilian clothes and went to watch. As Johnson spoke at a fund raising dinner, 15,000 protesters walked by the hotel, shouting "Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" When many of the protesters halted in front of Century Plaza, a police force of 1300 cracked down, arresting 51 people on the grounds of unlawful assembly or refusal to diperse.
Kerry and Thorne soaked it all in "We were on the outskirts listening and talking, a little worried", Kerry recalled. "It seemed like a perfectly peaceful thing, and then the police got aggressive and started whacking people. The crowd dispersed, there was chaos I remember just being shocked, and John was shocked", Thorne said.
Smith and Pershing were on the ground in Vietnam several months later, by early 1968. The four men were extraordinarily close, writing detailed letters and soliciting news about each other from mutual friends. Thorne and Kerry were always anxious for reports on how Smith and Pershing were fairing. Smith was in Vietnam serving with the U.S. Marines. Pershing was serving as second lieutenant in the 101st Airborne. In Dec. 1967, he was off to war.
Shortly after Pershing's arrival, on Jan. 31,1968 the North Vietnamese Army launched the Tet Offensive, taking U.S. and South Vietnamese by surprise in a series of major attacks. Pershing was rushed into action with his troops and the outcome was a bloody one. He lost half a platoon, maybe two thirds. Now he had to arrange tagging and bagging of the dead, and the securing of their personal property for sending home. And the letter to the next of kin.
Despite the death toll, Pershing was determined to returned to battle. On Feb. 17,1968, Pershing and his men were in a rice paddy when Vietcong launched a surprise rocket attack. At first it seemed everyone had survived. Then Pershing noticed that one of his men was missing. As he walked through the paddy, looking for the soldier, a rocket propelled grenade soared toward him. Pershing was dead.
By extraordinary coincidence, Fred Smith was about three miles away. Now Smith heard of Pershing's death. The deep connection of comradeship and Yale drew him to the site of his friends death. Smith said "it was a ultimate tragedy. It was remarkable only to the extent that it was unremarkable-lives paid for basically nothing. We were trading American boys' lives for lives of Vietnamese boys' lives.
David Thorne was at sea aboard the USS Maddox when the ship's executive officer hand delivered him a telegram with news of Pershings death. Thorne angrily cursed the ocean air.
Kerry meanwhile, was aboard the USS Gridley, a guided missile frigate, headed toward the Gulf of Tonkin. As the Gridley crossed the Pacific, an officer tracked Kerry down on the deck. Do you know a guy named Dick Pershing? the officer asked. The officer handed Kerry the paper, Kerry feared the worst as he opened it. Pershing, the telegram said, he died due to "wounds received while on a combat mission whe his unit came under hostile small arms and rocket attack while searching for the remains of a missing member of his unit." For Kerry, the war was no longer an abstract policy issue. One of his best friends died trying to find a fallen comrade. Kerry couldn't attend the funeral because he was so far out to sea. But he wrote anguished letters to Julia, David, Pershing's parents and his own parents.
Dearest Mama and Papa,
What can I say? I am empty, bitter, angry, and desperately lost with nothing but war, violence, and more war around me. I just don't believe it was meant to be this cruel and senseless- that could possibly get near Persh to take his life. What a Goddamn total waste Why? ....I have never felt so void a feeling before. With the loss of
Persh something has gone out of me-he was so much a part of my life that can never be replaced.
There was no way of turning back Persh was heading home in a casket, Kerry was headed to Vietnam. A war was waiting.
As Kerry continued across the Pacific, President Johnson and his war cabinet were facing crisis. The Tet Offensive had cost North Vietnamese 40,000 lives, compared to 1100 American and 2300 South Vietnamese losses. But the ability of the North Vietnamese to attack in so many places at once, and briefly occupy the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, dealt a deep blow US morale. It was followed by rapid succession of extraordinary events that shaped a generation of Americans. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces took 26 bloody days to recapture Hue, feeding doubts at home and spurring a new wave of antiwar activism. US military commanders asked for another 206,000 soldiers.
During this period Johnson was nearly defeated by Minnesota's Senator Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire Primary. CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite returned from Saigon and in what was later considered a turning point. Cronkite said he was "more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end slatemate." Robert Kennedy announced his candidacy for the presidency. And on March 31, Johnson declared he wouldn't run for re-election. Four days later Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Riots broke out, and some feared war was moving on the home front.
Kerry received only sporadic news of all these events. His tour aboard the ship was, in some ways, surreal, strangely apart from the tensions both in Vietnam and America. The ship stopped briefly at a U.S. base in Vietnam, where Kerry seen bodies of Vietcong piled up like corkwood.
By early 1968, Kerry and the USS Gridley were heading back to port in Long Beach, California. He was enthusiastic about the prospects of Robert Kennedy , who was participating in a California presidential primary on the very day Kerry was arriving off the coast. As Kerry's ship prepared to dock, another shock wave from that tumultuous year hit. Robert Kennedy had been shot at a L.A. hotel just after winning the California primary. For Kerry who idolized John F. Kennedy and looked to Robert Kennedy to end the war, the death was a bewildering blow.
As the Gridley pulled into port, Kerry's best friend David Thorne, was on the dock waiting for him. When Thorne spotted Kerry from a distance Thorne swung his fingers towards his head, in motion of pointing a gun at oneself. Kerry nodded, understanding that the hand signal was a reference to Robert Kennedy's murder.
Julia was on deck waiting as well, waiting in the distance in a blue turquoise dress. Her appearance was a surprise, and Julia would recall years later the sight of her husband-to-be doing a double take and tripping over a coil of rope. It was a joyous reunion for the Thorne twins and Kerry, but also a day of unspeakable sadness. The dream of another Kennedy presidency was gone. And so was the country Kerry left only five months earlier. Antiwar protests abounded, a hippie counterculture was taking root, and violence was in the air.
Before Kerry could leave for Vietnam he had to go to swift boat training school in San Diego, then his most grueling yet-survival camp in the wilderness outside San Diego. In Sept. 1968 Kerry headed off for Survival Evasion, Resistance and Escape training in which sailors were treated as if they were prisoners of war. They were taunted, beaten, and psychologically harassed, all to prepare them for what to expect if they are captured. The survival camp was a reality check. Kerry was about to return to Vietnam as this time the exception was that he would come face to face with the enemy.
Before departing Kerry had time for one last meeting with Julia. They both knew Pershing left behind a fiancee and never returned again. Now as Kerry and Julia parted, they made a decision about their future. When Kerry returned from Vietnam that would get married.
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