thedrifter
08-29-08, 06:15 AM
Durham veteran: 'I believe the war was a bad idea'
Rob Christensen, Staff Writer
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DENVER - Jon Kuniholm, a wounded Iraq War veteran from Durham, helped warm up the Invesco Field crowd Thursday with his personal story of why he thinks the war was a mistake and why voters should turn out the Republicans in November.
"I believe the war was a bad idea and poorly planned at the highest levels," Kuniholm said to an eager crowd of Democrats waiting for Barack Obama. "Despite my views, I, as most Marines, would proudly serve my country again."
Kuniholm is a doctorate candidate in biomedical engineering at Duke University and is a retired Marine Corps officer. He lost part of his right arm in Haditha, Iraq, in a New Year's Day 2005 ambush of his patrol.
Kuniholm, the son of Raleigh lawyer Elizabeth Kuniholm, is one of more than 300 engineers working on the next generation of prosthetic arms. His mother is a former legal colleague of onetime Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
In endorsing Obama, Kuniholm said Republican Sen. John McCain would continue making the same mistakes as the Bush administration.
"Our president, with the support of Senator McCain, has made decisions that have set America on a course unsustainable in dollars, lives and military readiness," Jon Kuniholm said. "President Bush made a disastrous gamble in Iraq in 2003. Now Senator McCain proposes to double down with money and troops we cannot afford to lose."
He said Obama had showed good judgment in opposing the war and said he is "planning a reasonable and responsible drawing down of the war."
Later in the evening, Pamela Cash-Roper of Pittsboro was scheduled to speak. She is a Republican who is backing Obama, after nearly being forced into bankruptcy because of rising health care costs.
She introduced Obama at a rally in Raleigh in June. She originally had been scheduled to speak to the convention Tuesday night.
Cash-Roper and Kuniholm are among an array of ordinary Americans the Democrats have invited to Denver to dramatize their pet issues: health care, the war, unemployment, the sour economy -- the need for change.
rob.christensen@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4532
Ellie
Rob Christensen, Staff Writer
Comment on this story
DENVER - Jon Kuniholm, a wounded Iraq War veteran from Durham, helped warm up the Invesco Field crowd Thursday with his personal story of why he thinks the war was a mistake and why voters should turn out the Republicans in November.
"I believe the war was a bad idea and poorly planned at the highest levels," Kuniholm said to an eager crowd of Democrats waiting for Barack Obama. "Despite my views, I, as most Marines, would proudly serve my country again."
Kuniholm is a doctorate candidate in biomedical engineering at Duke University and is a retired Marine Corps officer. He lost part of his right arm in Haditha, Iraq, in a New Year's Day 2005 ambush of his patrol.
Kuniholm, the son of Raleigh lawyer Elizabeth Kuniholm, is one of more than 300 engineers working on the next generation of prosthetic arms. His mother is a former legal colleague of onetime Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
In endorsing Obama, Kuniholm said Republican Sen. John McCain would continue making the same mistakes as the Bush administration.
"Our president, with the support of Senator McCain, has made decisions that have set America on a course unsustainable in dollars, lives and military readiness," Jon Kuniholm said. "President Bush made a disastrous gamble in Iraq in 2003. Now Senator McCain proposes to double down with money and troops we cannot afford to lose."
He said Obama had showed good judgment in opposing the war and said he is "planning a reasonable and responsible drawing down of the war."
Later in the evening, Pamela Cash-Roper of Pittsboro was scheduled to speak. She is a Republican who is backing Obama, after nearly being forced into bankruptcy because of rising health care costs.
She introduced Obama at a rally in Raleigh in June. She originally had been scheduled to speak to the convention Tuesday night.
Cash-Roper and Kuniholm are among an array of ordinary Americans the Democrats have invited to Denver to dramatize their pet issues: health care, the war, unemployment, the sour economy -- the need for change.
rob.christensen@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4532
Ellie