John F Kerry Research Paper

Biography

Family backround
John F. Kerry was born on December 11, 1943 at Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado outside Denver. His father, Richard Kerry, was an Army Air Corps test pilot during World War Two and his mother, Rosemary Kerry, also served during that war in the Red Cross in Paris.

Childhood years
Kerry’s family returned to their home state of Massachusetts shortly after his birth. Because his father was a Foreign Service Office the family moved often when John was young and so he attended several schools as a child. For example, he went to a Swiss boarding school at age 11 while his family lived in Berlin. As a boy, Kerry often spent time alone. For example, he biked through France or camped alone in Sherwood Forest.
Boarding school
In 1957, Kerry was sent to Massachusetts to attend Fessenden School in West Newton.
The following year, he enrolled at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, and graduated from there in 1962. There he learned skills in public speaking and he became deeply interested in politics for the first time.
In November of 1960 he gave his first political speech in favour of John F. Kennedy’s election to the White House.

Yale University
In 1962, Kerry entered Yale University. There he majored in political science and graduated in 1966. In his sophomore year Kerry became president of the Political Unit. There he won a lot of debate contests against other college students form across the nation. In March 1965, he won the Ten Eyck prize as the best orator in junior class for a speech that was critical of U.S. foreign policy because of the Vietnam War.

Military service
From 1966-1970 John Kerry volunteered to serve in Vietnam. There he served on a Swift Boat in the river deltas, one of the most dangerous assignment of the war. During his time in Vietnam he earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. On March 1, 1970 he officially left active duty.

Anti-Vietnam War
activism
Once back in the United States, Kerry joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). The members could speak with personal knowledge about what they had seen in Vietnam. On April 22, 1971, Kerry became the first Vietnam veteran who testified before a special Senate committee. There he posed the famous question: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” The day after this testimony, Kerry participated in a demonstration with 800 other veterans and there threw their medals and ribbons over a fence at the front steps of the U.S. Capitol building to dramatize their opposition to the war.
But there were also other members who were more militant and so the organization was becoming more radical. Kerry was trying to moderate the group, but that didn’t work and so Kerry quit the organization.

Early career
In the early 1970s, Kerry wanted to extend his political work beyond protesting. So Kerry wanted to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Lowell in 1972 but finally he lost the election against Paul Cronin

After Kerry’s defeat, he decided that the best way for him to continue in public life was to study law. In September 1973, he entered Boston College Law School at Newton, Massachusetts and so he received his law degree in 1976.

After that he decided to re-enter electoral politics by running for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. There he won the general election with Michael Dukakis as gubernatorial candidate without difficulty. Dukakis delegated additional matters to Kerry. In particular, Kerry’s interest in environmental protection led him to become heavily involved in the issue of acid rain. His work contributed for example to a resolution in 1984 that was a precursor to the amendments to the federal Clean Air Act in 1990.