Rating: 
Summary: Kerry risked others lives for his career
Review: The book is a whitewash on how Kerry & Jane Fonda helped North Vietnam. Kerry & Fonda's efforts encouraged the North Vietnamese to fight on. The NV leadership said they were ready to go for a conditional surrender after 1969 but decided to fight on thanks to the efforts of Kerry, Fonda and Ramsey Clark. Kerry is a hero in JFK's Vietnam War but a hero for North Vietnam. In 1975, the North Vietnamese rewarded Kerry with a sweetheart real esatet deal for Kerry's cousin.
Rating: 
Summary: Biased, but Necessary to Read in 2004
Review: Before anyone starts to read this book, it would be important to keep in mind the words of the North Vietnamese General Jiap who credits people like John Kerry for giving them the motivation to continue killing American soldiers and eventually enslave South Vietnam (setting off a wave of killings there and in Cambodia). That being said, althought this biased book never mentions the above comment from our former enemy, this book is a good way to know what Kerry did in Vietnam and what he was thinking at the time. It shows that he was courageous and a good leader...but also a leftist elitist even at that time. He was obviously trying to rack up points for his future political career. This book shows that Kerry clearly knew that he was going to try to beat conservatives at their own game by becoming a "war hero" and then using that as a "shield" to forward the leftist ideals of defeatism and pacifism that have always been so prevalent in the Boston area. I still respect that Kerry risked his life like that, albeit mainly for future political points. But he did more harm with VVAW than he did good for us on that SWIFT boat. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to see how the Democrats will try and fail to convince Americans to vote "far left" in 2004. And I say this as a moderate Democrat. Keep in mind that the leftist Village Voice of all newspapers, has condemned Kerry for abandoning MIAs in Vietnam in order to get a quick normalization with that poverty stricken Communist country. Most informed people will see present day Vietnam as a country ruined by communism because guys like Kerry didn't want to save it...and never did. This book makes it very clear that Kerry was a leftist defeatist before the moment he first set foot on Vietnamese soil.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book
Review: This is a well written and informative book. I've noticed that some of the reviews of the book do not review the book but advance a political outlook. Undoubtly the same reviewers rated books by Ann Coulter and others as great works even though they are poorly written and poorly researched. I severed 18 months in Viet Nam and when I returned in 1970 I also joined VVAW because it was an unjust, unwarrented war. Many of the reasons I chose to oppose this present war is bacause it is as assinine as Vier Nam. I am not opposed to war if the cause is just and the reasons clear, but any war based on lies and misinformation is wrong and does nothing but undermine the Nation.
Rating:
Summary: Oh Come Now!
Review: Okay, please allow me to point a few things things out: it is not only hypocritical but dishonest (and typical of the studied irrationality of the left) for those who have supported Bill Clinton (like almost all those who now applaud Kerry and this book), a man who ran away from any military service during Viet Nam, who participated in demonstrations against his country overseas, who is a personal physical coward, and who is on the record as "hating the military", to now turn around and try somehow to imply that service in the Texas National Guard (whether that included a stint in Alabama or not, who really cares?) by our President was somehow dishonorable. They also conveniently ignore that fact that he is now among the most successful war time commanders-in-chief in our history, certainly far more successful than the last Democrat to find himself in that position, Lyndon Johnson. Nor is it especially impressive that they feel empowered to attack the President because he and his family have been successful financially, especially as their "hero" John Kerry has never had a real job in his life and has only become hugely weathly by leaching off of lonely rich women. If you study Tour of Duty closely, it is clear that John Kerry is just another Massachusett's rich guy and opportunist, who enjoyed a privileged military service during which he gave himself purple hearts, and had his rich connections arrange for a higher decoration for a minimal accomplishment. Equally clear is that his life and world view has had nothing to do with those of the "people" he pretends to want to lead, a fact only underscored by his propensity to change his position with every variation of the political winds. No amount of verbage, even that by a skilled writer like Brinkley, or vituperation by those who write here, is going to change the truth. Hopefully after November we can look forward to John Kerry at last achieving something geniunely substantial by his assumption of the mantle of that other Massachusetts champion, Michael Dukakis.
Rating:
Summary: Kerry's Tour Of Duty For North Vietnam
Review: The book has no information on Kerry's "tour of duty" with Hanoi Jane and her gang. Nothing on how North Vietnam's leader dredit Kerry & Fonda for saving North Vietnam from defeat. Nothing on how Kerry's family financial benefitted from the normalization of relations with his old comrades in the "new" Vietnam.
Rating: 
Summary: John Kerry risked his life to save others
Review: John Kerry served bravely and with honors in Vietnam. He risked his life to save others. During a mission to insert troops on a riverbank, a Vietcong soldier fired a rocket at his boat. Lt. Kerry beached his boat, ran into the jungle, took out the enemy and returned with the rocket launcher, earning a silver star for gallantry in action. During another mission Lt. Kerry turned his boat around and headed back into the same enemy fire he had just escaped from to rescue a Navy Seal from certain death. While wounded in the right shoulder, Kerry pulled the Seal into the boat before leaving the scene. Kerry didn't even know the Navy Seal. He wasn't part of Kerry's crew, just a passenger but John Kerry brought him back alive. When John Kerry returned from Vietnam he protested to end the war, to save the lives of the soldiers that were still in a mistaken war. He risked his own future and fought the political establishment to save lives. In comparison, George Bush disappeared from duty when the air war heated up in Vietnam. On April 10-14, 1972 Richard Nixon began carpet bombing North Vietnam. Fighter planes were used as a slow moving screen to protect the B-52 bombers. Pictures of captured US fighter pilots appeared on the front pages by April 15. George W. Bush's last paid day as a fighter pilot with the Texas Air National Guard was the very next day, April 16, 1972 (according to records released by the White House). Bush stayed in Alabama for FIVE months before he received authorization to transfer there. In Alabama, Bush stopped flying, failed to take a required physical exam and allowed his flying status to lapse. He never went back to Texas until he received his discharge six months before his required end of service date.
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Summary: TRUE story of a REAL hero
Review: If you want to read a true and fascinating story of a real hero--both during and after the War--this book is for you. If you want to rant mindlessly against Kerry, like a lot of wackos who reviewed this book have done here, then skip it. Perhaps they'd prefer to be led by an overprivileged bozo who slid into the Champagne Corps of the National Guard--the unit where all the rich boys hid out--and then went AWOL even from that, to work on a pro-war Senate candidate's campaign. As for me, I'll stick with the real heroes.
Rating:
Summary: History? No!
Review: Any historian who is attempting to write history is obliged to be as objective and professional as possible. Further, history must be based upon the historians thoughts not upon his or her feelings. He or she is obliged to present all the evidence, and to address any significant contradictory data to his or her interpretation. He or she is also obliged to acknowledge and respond to contrary interpretations. If he or she does not do this, he or she is not writing history but is writing a political tract or something even less centered upon the historical truth (like out and out propaganda). Brinkley fails to meet this standard period, and consequently, Tour of Duty is NOT a "piece" of history. The fact that is an election year actually only made it more incumbent upon him to have admitted his limitations and prejudices which should have been followed by an even more determined effort at objectivity because, after all, he is supposedly writing for the historical record (not of course to get Kerry elected). If Brinkley has political views that inhibited a balanced account, he simply should not have published this book as a work of history. We must never forget that tyrants (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, Saddam, you name it)ALWAYS attempt to have history rewritten to make it more flattering or to comform to their own selfish interests, and even in inclusive societies such as ours, there are those who surrender to this temptation, a point Tour of Duty only makes too well!
Rating:
Summary: A genuine combat vet - who went wrong
Review: I don't have the slightest problem with regarding John Kerry as a hero for his service in Vietnam. Everybody who served in Vietnam was a hero, from the combat soldiers to the military nurses, the WACS, the Red Cross Donut Dollies and even the USO entertainers such as Martha Raye, Connie Stevens and Bob Hope who risked their own lives to support the young combat soldiers, whose average age was 19 (in WW II, it was 26). John Kerry served his country, for however long, in a combat vessel which repeatedly engaged the Enemy at a time when 100,000 Draft Dodgers had fled the country, 90,000 to Canada alone, and at a time when Bill Clinton was hiding in England and generally doing his level best to avoid the Draft. Trashing the man's combat record is inappropriate. True, taking a rocket launcher from a VC who had been hit by a 50 cal (imagine a Mac Truck) is like taking candy from a baby, and maybe it was reckless to take the boat in as he did. But whether bad tactics or not, he risked being raked with AK-47 fire while Bill Clinton was hiding away with a bunch of anti-War people (who probably didn't inhale either, right?). Yes, Kerry seemed to be a gong magnet, and yes, he got himself out after receiving three relatively minor wounds, and no, he ain't Hack, but I know of an Air Cav pilot who was shot down six times before his luck ran out. Maybe Kerry instinctively knew that the fourth wound would not be a scratch. As it is, any one of the minor wounds could have taken his eyesight or damaged his spinal column. We all know how little it takes to devastate the human body. Vietnam was a dumb war fought by a lot of very brave men, supported by a lot of very brave women, and when crippled Vets like Ron Kovic (Born On The Fourth Of July) protested the War on their return, it was more because they cared about their comrades who were still out there, than that they had a desire to align with the cowardly Stalinist flag burners who had hijacked the Peace Movement. It is AFTER Vietnam that John Kerry goes wrong. Any association whatsoever with that treasonous reptile Hanoi Jane Fonda cannot be seen as anything but signing a pact with the Devil to give aid and comfort to the Enemy. Trash Kerry if you will, but trash Kerry the fool, not Kerry the combat veteran. Let's at least leave him with that.
Rating:
Summary: A piece of the historical record
Review: Can anyone expect an unbiased treatment of this subject matter during an election year? I have only one response. You can't expect an honest answer from an open hand. Furthermore, what is really being reviewed here. Is it John Kerry's bid for the presidency or Douglas Brinckley's merits as a historian. The two are not inextricably linked. This is a piece of scholarship to be added to the historical record. It is an excellent book. How dare anyone bring anything else into a review of the book. (Somethings Fishy). This book is about war and not the 2004 presidential election.
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