On April 22, 1971—50 years ago to the day that U.S. President Joe Biden’s climate summit opened this week—a young Vietnam veteran named John Kerry first brought himself to national attention.
The 27-year-old former Navy lieutenant, his Silver Star ribbon pinned to his green fatigues, declared in Senate testimony that the Vietnam War was “an absolute horror.” Holding nothing back, Kerry bluntly catalogued U.S. war crimes, insisted U.S. troops be brought home immediately and questioned, in words that would be widely quoted and later inspire a Bruce Springsteen song, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
