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The Kerrey candor dates back to childhood. But it first registered strongly on Washington's political Richter scale when he defended the right to burn the flag, while George Bush, also a war hero, was leading a posse of television camera crews to the Iwo Jima Memorial in Virginia, where he grandly condemned such acts. More recently, Kerrey has questioned the Persian Gulf deployment and flatly opposed a $20 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Even before he first ran for office, Kerrey supported amnesty for Vietnam draft dodgers. These positions have not won much favor among generally conservative Nebraskans. Nor did his role at a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, where Kerrey so aggressively upbraided Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter (who is from his home state) that the chairman, Vermont's Patrick Leahy, whispered in Kerrey's ear, "We usually leave our grenades in the anteroom."
Born into a large (three brothers, three sisters) middle-class family in Lincoln, Kerrey received an early baptism in political discourse around the dinner table. The discussions "were always issue-oriented," recalls his sister, Jessie Rasmussen. "Never partisan. To this day I don't know if our parents were Republicans or Democrats." The younger Kerreys were taught by example to express and adhere to their beliefs. Before the 1960 presidential election, a dinner guest argued heatedly that if John Kennedy won, the Pope in reality would be running the country. When James Kerrey, Bob's father, persistently rejected the notion, the angered guest bolted out of the house.
Despite the family sport of wrestling with issues, Kerrey gave no early indication that within him beat the heart of a skillful, if unorthodox, politician. High school classmates remember him as bright, fun loving, outspoken and very competitive, but he was not a B.M.O.C. At the University of Nebraska he held a few minor student and fraternity offices, dated often and pursued a degree in pharmacy, which he was awarded in 1966. By then, U.S. participation in the war in Vietnam was escalating and Kerrey enlisted. "I was pretty gung-ho," he says now. In March 1969 he led his SEAL team on a night raid against an enemy unit holed up in a cave. Struck by a grenade, he suffered a wound that required amputation of his right leg just below the knee. Ironically, he was the only U.S. casualty during the raid. Kerrey has difficulty plumbing his own feelings about having been crippled at age 26. In 1986 he appeared before a 900-student class at the University of California at Santa Barbara as a guest lecturer on the impact of the Vietnam War. Recalls Walter Capps, who initiated the course: "He gave a textbook lecture. It was almost as if he was going for tenure. A woman student complained, 'You haven't told us how you felt.' Kerrey looked at me helplessly but I just stared at the floor. He told the class he couldn't tell them -- he would have to do something he usually does only in the shower -- sing." Then Kerrey in a steady baritone talked/sang And the Band Played "Waltzing Matilda," the mournful lament of a World War I Australian who lost a leg in battle. The lyrics include the gut-wrenching line "Never knew there were worse things than dying." Says Capps: "When he turned and limped off the stage, nearly everyone wept."