John Kerry's tour of Vietnam

Get a fresh look at the man who could be president. George Butler's documentary Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry is now showing in theaters.

A Salon review says:

"Going Upriver covers the college years of John Kerry, his four-month tour of duty in Vietnam, and, most significantly, his leadership role in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) upon his return. Whether Kerry is your kind of leader or not is immaterial: Going Upriver is really an exploration of what we used to call, when our leaders actually had them, leadership qualities. And it underscores a seemingly basic and essential idea that has somehow been lost over the past four years and continues to be obscured in the campaign currently being waged: that politicians are our servants -- not our bosses."

David Segal writes in the Washington Post:

"If it does nothing else, Upriver will lay bare the calumny that Kerry never truly put himself in harm's way. The Swift boat mission was about as close to suicide duty as the modern U.S. military has ever devised. The job was simply to draw and return fire from Viet Cong hiding in the dense greenery that lined the Mekong Delta, a perfect perch for snipers. As one of the veterans notes in the film, the casualty rate of those killed or wounded ran to 75 percent, in part because the vessels were lined not with armor, but easily pierced aluminum, and their motors were loud enough to be heard two miles away. Footage of the fighting, some of it shot by Kerry, is terrifying."