Kerry's Experiences In Skull & Bones

[DrFunkenstein]

While a senior at Yale, Kerry had been inducted into the secret Skull and Bones society, an exclusive club for Yale men destined to do great things -- or at least for those who were or sought to be well connected. Only 15 students were chosen each year, and Kerry was picked mostly because he was viewed as a future political leader, according to John Shattuck, who was a year ahead of Kerry and recommended his friend's selection. Kerry spent hours inside the tomblike society headquarters. Girls and sex and money were inevitably discussed. But what fellow ``bonesmen'' most remember is how Kerry steered the talk toward Vietnam.

``You had this group of the elite of the elite selected out of the Yale senior class who probably were most adept at gazing at their own navels and probably thought the world rotated around them,'' said one of Kerry's fellow bonesmen, Dr. Alan Cross. ``You had this one among us who saw this growing quagmire in Vietnam we were heading into with good intention and certain results. His statements were really a clarion: `Hey, guys, this is happening, this is going to define our generation.' ''

Of the 15 members of Skull and Bones, an extraordinary bond formed between the four on their way to Vietnam: Kerry; David Thorne; Fred Smith, a Kerry flying partner who would later found Federal Express; and, Pershing, Kerry's close friend since age 13.

All four could have used their connections to avoid or at least delay military service. But Pershing set the tone. ``When a war comes along, you go,'' the grandson of the general of the US armies would tell the bonesmen. If this were a movie, Pershing would be the dashing heroic figure, the fun-loving troublemaker who always got the girl and didn't have a care in the world.



``John was very serious, very interested in politics,'' said Dr. George Brown, a fellow bonesman who was close to both. ``Pershing was the opposite. He was the fun lover, get us all into trouble. Pershing was the bon vivant. Fitzgerald would have enjoyed writing about Pershing. He was our hero, because of his charismatic personality. He would run up these incredible bar tabs. He took me to restaurants in New York City where all the women knew him.''

Pershing's dazzling girlfriend from Smith College caught everyone's eye: Kitty Hawks, the smart, witty daughter of the legendary Howard Hawks, who directed ``The Big Sleep'' and ``Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.'' Reached at her home in New York, Kitty Hawks described her time with Pershing and Kerry and the other bonesmen in romantic terms: ``To fall in love with one of them was to fall in love with all of them. It was an amazing time. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about it.''

Hawks added: ``There was an element of sobriety to Johnny, and Dick didn't have that. All of us thought John would be an important person in this country somehow. It didn't feel so much as ambition as destiny, that this was bound to happen to him in one way or another.''

With Pershing leading the way, the quartet of bonesmen headed into military training. In early February of 1968, Kerry shipped out to the Gulf of Tonkin aboard the USS Gridley, a guided-missile frigate. By then, the antiwar movement was heating up, and Kerry carried with him the memory of seeing demonstrators in Los Angeles beaten by police.

http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061503.shtml

[JI7]

1. nice

i like how kerry and clinton actually had the vietnam war in mind. they struggled over what to do. clinton protested the war and had questions about the draft, kerry served and came back to protest. it's the total opposite of bush who people say didn't care for the war at all. he had connections which helped keep him out and that's all that mattered. as long as it was others going and not him it wasn't an issue for him. i think one reason kerry had no problem with clinton was because as he said he saw the unfairness of the draft. most who had to go were those who grew up like clinton,without money and connections and many were minorities also.