On Tuesday, Kos prominently featured this story about Tim Walz and other veterans running as Democrats in the upcoming mid-term elections.
My goal is to extend the ‘life’ of it as much as possible because Walz’s experience epitomizes the ugliness, the hypocrisy, the strong arm tactics and the arrogance that is the Bush Administration.
In fact, it also exemplifies the life of George Bush prior to his assuming the presidency.
For those of you groaning at an accusation of such wide sweep, simply connect the dots. It’s all there. A lifetime of excess, bluster, contempt, a public-private disconnect, utilizing power, money and intimidation to re-write or delete the nasty from the ‘resume’–it simply and expectedly has continued into the presidency..
Sadly, this is all due to fear. We have elected one of the most cowardly and insecure of individuals to the most powerful office in the world. One who will brook no dissent, no challenge. Never has, never will. George Bush’s lifetime struggle with fear and inadequacy continues to this day.
Basically, Tim Walz was ordered by his Commander In Chief to go to Iraq and put his life on the line so that Iraq could become a so-called free and democratic country.
In return, he was deemed untrustworthy and told to shut up and stay quiet.
That’s the Bush mojo. Always has, always will be.
Them’s some values.
The Atlantic Monthly | January/February 2006
Company, Left
There’s something different about the latest crop of military veterans running for Congress
by Joshua Green
Command Sergeant Major Tim Walz is a twenty-four-year veteran of the Army National Guard, now retired but still on active duty when a visit from President George W. Bush shortly before the 2004 election coincided with Walz’s homecoming to Mankato, Minnesota. A high school teacher and football coach, he had left to serve overseas in Operation Enduring Freedom. Southern Minnesota is home to a large Guard contingent that includes Walz’s unit, the First 125th Field Artillery Battalion, so the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are naturally a pressing local concern–particularly to high school students headed into the armed services.
The president’s visit struck Walz as a teachable moment, and he and two students boarded a Bush campaign bus that took them to a quarry where the president was to speak. But after they had passed through a metal detector and their tickets and IDs were checked, they were denied admittance and ordered back onto the bus. One of the boys had a John Kerry sticker on his wallet.
Indignant, Walz refused. “As a soldier, I told them I had a right to see my commander-in-chief,” the normally jovial forty-one-year-old recently explained to a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party dinner in the small town of Albert Lea, Minnesota.
His challenge prompted a KGB-style interrogation that was sadly characteristic of Bush campaign events. Do you support the president? Walz refused to answer. Do you oppose the president? Walz replied that it was no one’s business but his own. (He later learned that his wife was informed that the Secret Service might arrest him.) Walz thought for a moment and asked the Bush staffers if they really wanted to arrest a command sergeant major who’d just returned from fighting the war on terrorism.
They did not.
Instead Walz was told to behave himself and permitted to attend the speech, albeit under heavy scrutiny. His students were not: they were sent home. Shortly after this Walz retired from the Guard. Then he did something that until recently was highly unusual for a military man. He announced he was running for Congress–as a Democrat.
Later in Green’s article, Tim Dunn, a Marine Lieutenant Colonel, is mentioned. Dunn is running as a Democrat in North Carolina’s eighth congressional district. He talked with Green regarding concerns over health care and economic assistance for veterans.
Green summarized his experience of of talking with Dunn as well as other veteran declared candidates:
“Above all there was a diffuse and mounting frustration with Washington, most often summed up in military idiom as a “crisis of leadership.”
Highly recommended. Walz’ story was one I didn’t know. Thank you.
I have said this more times that not! It is the grunt themselves that know the most of what is going on…I regret to even say the leadership in-country is just as bad for the most part, too. For the most part they are looking forward to the promotion as opposed to the leadership of the group. NO ethics in this group of ppl, IMHO. NOw I am for the most part referring to the officer, whether flag or line. HOpe you get my jest. Remember, I am not saying all officers are this way…but more than I would like to see is this way. I do not know where to go with the nco’s and downward in rates.
ps: this is a very young comand sgt. mj. in my opinion
Brenda,
What is a command sergeant major? Is that someone with wider authority than a regular sergeant who would, I’m assuming, be responsible for a relatively small group of people? From the title, I’m guessing that it’s someone who perhaps reports directly to the generals, or some such.
He is the highest ranking non commissioned officer in the army…There are very few of them as a matter of fact. Each branch has their own.. As I read the article I thought he was 27 years old, but now that I have re-read the article, he is a 27 year veteran. That makes a whole world of difference. It takes a lifetime of being career military and good accomendations to get to this rank. He is still considered nco. but more respected than some generals ever could think about. This person is held to be in great regard. My hat goes off ot him!
change accomodations to recomendations..sorry for that one. As a matter of fact, I would hold him in regard more than any general, IMHO! GREAT RESPECT!!!!!
I happened upon a story on buzzflash.com. Apparently the “reauthorized” Patriot Act will establish a “permanent police force, to be known as the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division”.
I googled this using “House Report 109-333-USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005”. Well, actually I just used up until after the USA part.
Apparently if the Patriot Act is reauthorized we will have federalized SS who will “legally” carry out the actions described in this diary. They will be armed, and some sites speculated that anyone the SS thinks “might” cause a disturbance at an event could be arrested.
This scares the bejeebers out of me.