• Office Sought: Senator, Massachusetts
• Birth Date: Dec. 11, 1943
• Occupation: Attorney
• Spouse: Julia Thorne (divorced); Teresa Heinz Kerry
• Religion: Catholic
• Web site: http://kerry.senate.gov

Education

• Boston College Law School, JD
• Yale University, BA

Offices and positions held

• Assistant district attorney of Middlesex County, Mass., 1977-1982
• Lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, 1982-1984
• Senator, United States, Senate, 1985-present
• Chair, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
• Commitee on Small Business, 2001-2003
• Democratic presidential candidate, 2004

Military service

• United States Navy 1966-1969, with service in Vietnam
• Awards: Four Purple Hearts

Businesses Owned, Past Careers, Board Memberships, Etc.

• Leader, Vietnam Veterans Against the War
• Co-Founder, Vietnam Veterans of America

Book(s)

• The New War: The Web of Crime That Threatens America's Security by John Kerry
• A Call to Service: My Vision For a Better America by John Kerry

John Kerry was born in Denver and resides in Boston. He graduated from St. Paul's boarding school in Concord, N.H. in 1962. He received a bachelor's degree in 1966 from Yale University and a law degree from Boston College Law School in 1976.

The son of a foreign service worker and wealthy Massachusetts Yankee, Kerry has largely lived the life of a high patrician. He went to boarding school overseas and then spent his undergraduate years at Yale.

After graduation, he volunteered for the Navy, serving from 1966 to 1969, eventually commanding a swift boat in Vietnam. Kerry was awarded three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star for his duty aboard warships off Vietnam. On his return from Vietnam as a military hero, Kerry helped found Vietnam Veterans Against the War and became its leading spokesman.

He tried to use his newfound celebrity to run for Congress in 1972. He lost, went to law school and became a prosecutor in Middlesex County, Mass. But he returned to politics in 1982, when he was elected lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. He was elected to the Senate in 1984 when he beat Democratic Rep. James M. Shannon for the nomination to replace retiring Sen. Paul Tsongas. He won the general election and re-election to the seat in 1992, 1996 and 2002.

He won the Democratic nomination for president in 2004, but lost the presidential race to George W. Bush.

After divorcing in the mid-1980s, Kerry's personal life ended up on the society pages, as the senator dated such starlets as Morgan Fairchild and Catherine Oxenberg. In 1995, he married for a second time to Teresa Heinz. The widow of Kerry's former colleague, the late Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., she has a fortune from his ketchup empire that has been estimated at $550 million or more, putting her among the 400 richest Americans on Forbes Magazine's list last year.

Kerry has two children from a previous marriage.