thedrifter
08-03-06, 06:03 AM
August 3, 2006
Grief and Sacrifice Reach Into the Halls of Congress
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — “We loved him dearly, and we’ll miss him more than words can ever express,” said a man from Montana on Tuesday upon learning that his nephew had been killed in Iraq.
Words like those have been uttered thousands of times in big cities and tiny towns, heard mostly by friends and relatives. But the man from Montana is Senator Max Baucus, so his words attracted more notice.
Cpl. Phillip E. Baucus of the Marine Corps, dead at 28, was “like a son to Senator Baucus,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Tuesday on the Senate floor.
“Our family is devastated,” Mr. Baucus said after the Defense Department announced that Corporal Baucus, of Wolf Creek, Mont., was killed in combat on Saturday in Anbar province. Three other marines from his battalion were also killed there Saturday, according to the department.
Phillip and Katharine Baucus would have celebrated their first wedding anniversary on Aug. 19.
Since the Vietnam War era, it has been common to say that wars are begun by powerful men whose sons stay home, while the sons of men and women with calluses on their hands and dirt under their nails cross oceans to fight, and perhaps to die.
In his scathing 2004 documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Michael Moore said that only one of the 535 members of Congress had an enlisted son in Iraq. He was referring to Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, whose son Brooks served with the Army in Bosnia, Kosovo, South Korea and Afghanistan as well as Iraq before coming home.
Mr. Moore’s assertion may have been true at the time, especially since he referred to enlisted troops as opposed to officers. But the recent words of the senior senator from Montana, a Democrat who voted to authorize military force in Iraq, showed how grief can invade the halls of Congress as well as the living rooms of Main Street.
And while the cliché about who goes to war and who does not holds some truth, there have always been notable exceptions, on Capitol Hill as elsewhere.
Lt. Sam Bond of the Marines has just returned from Iraq “much to his father’s relief,” as an aide to the father put it on Wednesday. Lieutenant Bond saw combat in Fallujah. His relieved father is Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri.
Another relieved father is Representative Duncan Hunter, a Republican of California who heads the House Armed Services Committee and who served in the Army in Vietnam. His son, Lt. Duncan Duane Hunter, served two tours in Iraq with the Marines.
Alan Wilson, the oldest son of Representative Joe Wilson, spent a year in Iraq as a captain in the Army National Guard. The congressman, a South Carolina Republican, also has a son who graduated from United States Naval Academy, another in the Army National Guard and still another who will join the R.O.T.C. when he enters Clemson University this fall, Kim Olive, an aide to Mr. Wilson, said Wednesday.
Lt. Perry Akin served a year in Iraq as a combat engineer in the Marines, returning to the United States last fall. His father is Representative Todd Akin, Republican of Missouri.
And Maj. William Bunning, an Air Force electronics-warfare officer who is one of nine children of Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, served in Afghanistan as well as in the first Persian Gulf war.
During World War II, Senator Leverett Saltonstall, Republican of Massachusetts; Gov. Herbert Lehman of New York, a Democrat; Joseph P. Kennedy, the former ambassador to Britain; and Harry Hopkins, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s closest advisers, had a son die in the war.
A White House aide, who requested anonymity because his information was preliminary, said Wednesday that he knew of no top Bush administration official who had a relative who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For generations, it has been common for the children of generals and admirals to follow their parents into service. That was true for Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, whose father and grandfather were admirals.
Mr. McCain, who was a Navy pilot in the Vietnam War and spent more than five years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese after being shot down, has been a strong supporter of the Iraq campaign. The choice, he has said, is simple: “Withdrawal and fail, or commit and succeed.”
Mr. McCain’s youngest son, Jimmy, who is 18, has just joined the Marine Corps. “I’m obviously very proud of my son,” the senator told Time magazine, “but also understandably a little nervous.”
Ellie
Grief and Sacrifice Reach Into the Halls of Congress
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — “We loved him dearly, and we’ll miss him more than words can ever express,” said a man from Montana on Tuesday upon learning that his nephew had been killed in Iraq.
Words like those have been uttered thousands of times in big cities and tiny towns, heard mostly by friends and relatives. But the man from Montana is Senator Max Baucus, so his words attracted more notice.
Cpl. Phillip E. Baucus of the Marine Corps, dead at 28, was “like a son to Senator Baucus,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Tuesday on the Senate floor.
“Our family is devastated,” Mr. Baucus said after the Defense Department announced that Corporal Baucus, of Wolf Creek, Mont., was killed in combat on Saturday in Anbar province. Three other marines from his battalion were also killed there Saturday, according to the department.
Phillip and Katharine Baucus would have celebrated their first wedding anniversary on Aug. 19.
Since the Vietnam War era, it has been common to say that wars are begun by powerful men whose sons stay home, while the sons of men and women with calluses on their hands and dirt under their nails cross oceans to fight, and perhaps to die.
In his scathing 2004 documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Michael Moore said that only one of the 535 members of Congress had an enlisted son in Iraq. He was referring to Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, whose son Brooks served with the Army in Bosnia, Kosovo, South Korea and Afghanistan as well as Iraq before coming home.
Mr. Moore’s assertion may have been true at the time, especially since he referred to enlisted troops as opposed to officers. But the recent words of the senior senator from Montana, a Democrat who voted to authorize military force in Iraq, showed how grief can invade the halls of Congress as well as the living rooms of Main Street.
And while the cliché about who goes to war and who does not holds some truth, there have always been notable exceptions, on Capitol Hill as elsewhere.
Lt. Sam Bond of the Marines has just returned from Iraq “much to his father’s relief,” as an aide to the father put it on Wednesday. Lieutenant Bond saw combat in Fallujah. His relieved father is Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri.
Another relieved father is Representative Duncan Hunter, a Republican of California who heads the House Armed Services Committee and who served in the Army in Vietnam. His son, Lt. Duncan Duane Hunter, served two tours in Iraq with the Marines.
Alan Wilson, the oldest son of Representative Joe Wilson, spent a year in Iraq as a captain in the Army National Guard. The congressman, a South Carolina Republican, also has a son who graduated from United States Naval Academy, another in the Army National Guard and still another who will join the R.O.T.C. when he enters Clemson University this fall, Kim Olive, an aide to Mr. Wilson, said Wednesday.
Lt. Perry Akin served a year in Iraq as a combat engineer in the Marines, returning to the United States last fall. His father is Representative Todd Akin, Republican of Missouri.
And Maj. William Bunning, an Air Force electronics-warfare officer who is one of nine children of Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, served in Afghanistan as well as in the first Persian Gulf war.
During World War II, Senator Leverett Saltonstall, Republican of Massachusetts; Gov. Herbert Lehman of New York, a Democrat; Joseph P. Kennedy, the former ambassador to Britain; and Harry Hopkins, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s closest advisers, had a son die in the war.
A White House aide, who requested anonymity because his information was preliminary, said Wednesday that he knew of no top Bush administration official who had a relative who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For generations, it has been common for the children of generals and admirals to follow their parents into service. That was true for Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, whose father and grandfather were admirals.
Mr. McCain, who was a Navy pilot in the Vietnam War and spent more than five years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese after being shot down, has been a strong supporter of the Iraq campaign. The choice, he has said, is simple: “Withdrawal and fail, or commit and succeed.”
Mr. McCain’s youngest son, Jimmy, who is 18, has just joined the Marine Corps. “I’m obviously very proud of my son,” the senator told Time magazine, “but also understandably a little nervous.”
Ellie