When John Kerry recently decided to step down as the U.S. special envoy for climate—ending a yearslong marathon of globe-trotting and 11th-hour negotiations—his daughter suggested organizing a ...

But more importantly, it made me an activist. Five decades ago, I spent two years of my life working with other young veterans to end a war that had gone wrong. We were attacked. We were criticized.

Twenty years ago, John Kerry suffered the worst fate possible for an American politician: He lost a one-on-one battle for the presidency. I was there in Huntington, W.Va., in March 2004 ...