"Thorne and others who knew Kerry when he was at Yale from 1962 to 1966 describe a young man who was a contradictory mix of seriousness and impish risk-taking.
They remember him flying planes out of Tweed-New Haven Airport, driving his white Volkswagen on the sidewalks of New Haven to beat lines of traffic and drawing the attention of New Haven police officers when he climbed a tree on York Street to rescue his pet parakeet, Dodie N. Faustus.
But Kerry was so intent on his studies that he would regularly get up at 5 in the morning to hit the books. He was also president of the Yale Political Union and a dedicated Yale debate team member who researched the topics for many hours beforehand.
"(Then-President) John F. Kennedy was speaking on the New Haven Green," Bundy said. "I think I was heckling Kennedy about his sex life. John came over and tried to make me stop."
Kerry idolized Kennedy, whom he met when he dated Jacqueline Kennedy’s half-sister, Janet Auchincloss.
Thorne remembered that on Nov. 22, 1963, he and Kerry were playing soccer against Princeton when word filtered down to the bench that Kennedy had been assassinated.
"John was white as a sheet," Thorne said. "He went off by himself, to church."
"John spent the weekend about 4 feet away from the little black-and-white TV we had in our room," Bundy said. "He was absolutely dumbstruck."
But Kerry remained idealistic and, like many of his classmates, signed up to serve in Vietnam. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy, served in Vietnam and won a Bronze Star and a Silver Star."
http://www.newhavenregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10306604&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=517515&rfi=6
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