"Me, with a guilty conscience, you got to be kidding," he says. "I've said a hundred times, I have no apologies for being aggressive. We were directed to carry the fight to our enemy by orders and we did it, for real."
Hoffmann won five medals in Vietnam. At first, he would not discuss any of them. "Medals are overrated," he says. Then he reads the citations in a mock pompous voice: "Hoffmann was courageous in the face of point-blank fire, blah blah blah."
"Medals help you get promotions, and as far as I'm concerned that's the end of it. You don't go around parading it. Kerry makes a point of making his whole damned career over being a hero. I am not a hero. I was doing my duty."
Hoffmann doesn't see shades of gray when discussing what it takes to win a war, what loyalty means and what you don't air in public. He still pines for his small-town childhood near the Mississippi River, his dad a butcher, his mom playing a Rosie the Riveter role, "no resentment, no protest, just plain old patriotism, is the best way I can describe it."
He loves to tell the story about how one day in Vietnam, actor Jimmy Stewart showed up in his office, asking about troop morale.
"Morale isn't pretty good, it's damned good," he recalls telling Stewart. "It's not about the troops, it's about the American people. They just ought to take a damned 2-by-4 to the back and stiffen up.
"We have the same problem today, in the [Iraq] war," he continues. "The American people don't have the damned guts to stand up for it, the damned backbone."
A Voice on the Line
After Brinkley's book came out, Kerry called Hoffmann. It was a cordial conversation, there were no raised voices, Hoffmann recalls.
"I thought 'Tour of Duty' unfairly maligned you," Hoffmann remembers Kerry saying, adding that he'd always admired him for his leadership.
"Did you actually read the book?" Hoffmann asked.
"Yes."
"It sure as hell doesn't look like it," Hoffmann said, and recalls Kerry laughed.
Hoffmann talked about the "outrageous mistakes" in it. Kerry invited him to submit corrections, but Hoffmann declined. "He was just doing it to get me off his back," he says.
Hoffmann says the conversation ended when he told Kerry he'd never forgive him for his 1971 testimony, and asked again why he did it.
"His answer was very simple. It surprised me," says Hoffmann. "I didn't think he would be that forthright."
"That was my conviction," Kerry answered.
They haven't spoken since.
