WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (AFP) - John Kerry is known as a man in a hurry. Opponents call him over-ambitious and opportunistic but supporters say he is best with his back to the wall in a battle like a US presidential election.
The 60-year-old Massachusetts senator showed his mettle fighting in Vietnam and later when his political career and presidential hopes seemed in tatters.
Disillusioned by American motives in Asia and after half a dozen friends from Yale University were killed in Vietnam, Kerry came back to join the anti-war movement.
"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" he demanded before the Senate foreign relations committee in April 1971, securing nationwide fame and a place on President Richard Nixon's "enemies" list.
Having fought to get a place in the US Senate, Kerry hit a new low point in 1996 when he had to inject 1.6 million dollars of his own money into his campaign to fight off a Republican challenge.
Last year, Kerry came back from prostate cancer surgery to launch his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination when that also seemed headed for the rocks.
Kerry was trailing fiery liberal Howard Dean in polls and had to mortgage his half of the family home in Boston as part of attempts to raise more than six million dollars to relaunch his campaign.
"I believed I could fight back. I believed in the message," Kerry said after making a stunning comeback to beat Dean in the primaries.
There have been times in the battle with President George W. Bush that Kerry has also looked on the verge of losing his grip.
But again the Democrat responded with a diamond sharp performance during the election debates and is now in a neck-and-neck race with the Republican ahead of what both sides have called the most important US election of recent decades.
Kerry comes from an upper crust family. Born on December 11, 1943 in Denver, Colorado, his mother Rosemary was part of the Forbes shipping empire. She had spent much of her early life on an estate in France.
His father, Richard, was a pilot in the Army Air Corps, who went on to join the US foreign service.
A childhood spent in private schools in Switzerland and New England fashioned the character of the so-called "Boston Brahmin" who has been on the receiving end of blistering Republican attacks for his internationalist views.
Kerry has told how World War II and following his father to Cold War diplomatic postings in Berlin and Oslo taught him the importance of the United States being at the head of international alliances to fight conflicts.
Now he is fighting for the presidency on a promise to make "America respected in the world" again after the divisions caused by the Iraq war.
Kerry went to the prestigious Yale University, where he was a member, like Bush, of the secretive and elite Skull and Bones society.
After graduating with a law degree in 1966, Kerry joined the Navy and volunteered to fight in Vietnam, where he served two tours of duty.
During the second 48-day tour, as a lieutenant in charge of a "Swift" gunboat on the Mekong Delta, Kerry was awarded three Purple Hearts for wounds suffered and a Bronze Star and a Silver Star for valour.
The Boston Globe newspaper wrote in a profile that "Kerry often would go beyond his Navy orders and beach his boat, in one case chasing and killing a teenage Viet Cong enemy who wore only a loin cloth and carried a rocket launcher.
"Kerry's aggressiveness in combat caused a commanding officer to wonder whether he should be given a medal or court-martialed," it added.
Kerry's comments to the Senate jolted a nation that was becoming increasingly weary of the disastrous conflict.
Some accused him of opportunism and his war service has become an election controversy, with some veterans running television adverts condemning Kerry as a virtual traitor for highlighting US atrocities in Vietnam.
But friends say he is a true American hero. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Kerry said he felt "bitter disappointment" that "people will stoop to those depths of lying -- for their personal reasons."
Kerry had declared his ambition to become president to his family and friends whilst still a schoolboy.
Early attempts to secure a congressional seat after winning national fame, however, were frustrating failures.
In 1970, Kerry married Julia Thorne, another well bred socialite. The couple had two daughters, Vanessa and Alexandra.
Kerry became a prosecutor in Massachusetts in 1972 but had to wait a decade before getting a foot on the political ladder as the state's lieutenant governor. It was the year he split with his wife.
In 1985 he was elected to the US Senate and he has been re-elected three times since.
Kerry soon became a thorn in the side of President Ronald Reagan's administration, investigating illegal US help for rebel Contra armies attempting to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government of Nicaragua.
Kerry and another Democratic senator went to Nicaragua to meet Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega. Secretary of State George Shultz ridiculed Kerry for being "used" by the Nicaraguan communists.
Republican opponents have scoured his Senate voting record to find inconsistencies and have highlighted Iraq in particular.
Though sharply critical now of what he calls the "wrong war," Kerry voted to give President George W. Bush permission to use force against Iraq.
Other critics have questioned Kerry's championing of American blue-collar workers when he had such a privileged upbringing and is now married to ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz.
10/31/2004 02:34 GMT - AFP