The Fog Of War

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Whatever the truth of that terrible night, the long-hidden memory of it explains a great deal about Kerrey, about the way a soldier maimed in body and mind came to cope with the horrors of war.

During Kerrey's brief, lamentable run for the presidency in 1992, he confounded his handlers with his ambivalence about exploiting what should have been his strongest political asset: his war heroism. Everywhere he went, people thanked him for it. But always, there was an awkwardness in the way he addressed it. In the end, under pressure from his consultants, he mentioned it plenty, but he always seemed to talk around it. Kerrey never mentioned his Bronze Star for Thanh Phong, but he could not escape the glory of his other decoration. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military prize, for his actions in another raid less than a month after Thanh Phong.

That one too went very wrong--information from defectors led Kerrey's squad into a trap. Chastened by the killings in Thanh Phong, Kerrey had decided to take these targets as prisoners. As a result, he told TIME last week, "I think I almost got some of my men killed that night." Instead, in a 90-sec. fire fight, seven V.C. were gunned down--but not before a grenade landed on Kerrey's foot, shattering his leg and wounding his groin, chest and face. Declining morphine for the pain, Kerrey refused to relinquish his command until he had got his men to safety.

The disastrous mission that one SEAL called a "bumbling overf___" was deemed a success by the brass. Ambrose put Kerrey in for a Silver Star, but as the request moved up, senior officers embellished the description and elevated the recommendation. The next year, Kerrey was awarded the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry.

They all knew it was ridiculous, Ambrose told Karen Tumulty, then with the Los Angeles Times, in 1992. "Bob wanted to turn the medal down ... It was just another night out," he said. "We just got hit." Kerrey and the others believed the "honor" was politically motivated: Nixon's unpopular war needed a few more heroes. Kerrey's buddies told him to accept the medal for the sake of all those who had fought and lost more than he had. Kerrey's sister Jessie Rasmussen says he was still struggling with a decision as the family gathered in Washington for the ceremony. But on May 14, 1970, just 10 days after National Guardsmen shot and killed antiwar protesters at Kent State University, Kerrey allowed Nixon to pin the country's highest military honor on his chest.

More than 20 years later and running for President, Kerrey talked about that decision. "I accepted on behalf of other people that didn't get it," he said. "I'm very uncomfortable with the introduction, 'Here's Bob Kerrey, an American hero.'"

Now we know one reason why. Thanh Phong puts so much in context, especially the competing pulls of public life and Vietnam: why Kerrey never seemed entirely comfortable with one, why he kept being drawn back to the other.