Former senator Max Cleland
Posted on 08/11/2004 4:14:09 AM PDT by MadIvan
Max Cleland tells Alec Russell how he overcame losing three limbs in Vietnam to become a US senator and John Kerry's staunchest ally
Three months to go in the battle for the American presidency, and the gloves are well and truly off. Last week, the race for the White House turned nasty with the broadcast of a television advertisement accusing John Kerry of lying about his achievements as a swift boat commander in Vietnam. The ad campaign, on behalf of a group called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, claimed that during the incident on the Mekong Delta that led to Kerry being awarded a Silver Star, he had shot a retreating Vietcong soldier in the back.
Former senator Max Cleland |
Two weeks ago, as Kerry waited, no doubt nervously, to make his key speech to the Democratic Convention, the thousands of party delegates were being warmed up by a thickset, triple amputee who recalled the nightmare of returning from Vietnam minus three limbs. Party conventions are used to the heavily choreographed stage appearances of the disabled or ethnic minorities, but Max Cleland was not there as an extra to be whisked on and off for the cameras. The wheelchair-bound Vietnam veteran turned Democratic politician is the star turn on the Kerry campaign trail. But he says he would not be in the limelight now had he not been roused from a suicidal depression by reading the biography of Sir Douglas Bader, 35 years ago.
In 1969, Cleland, a young army captain, was recovering in Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
"I was fighting for my survival, physical, mental, emotional," he recalls. He had lost both legs and his right arm in a grenade accident, and was convinced he had himself to blame. He had just jumped off a helicopter when he saw a grenade on the ground. Believing it had fallen off his belt, he bent over to pick it up – and it exploded.
"The blast jammed my eyeballs back into my skull," he wrote in his memoirs. "When my ears cleared, I looked at my right hand. It was gone. Then I tried to stand, but couldn't. I looked down. My right leg and knee were gone. My left leg was a soggy mass of bloody flesh mixed with green fatigue cloth."
Forty pints of blood and more than a year later, he was still in hospital and in the depths of despair, struggling to come to terms with the future. Then he read Reach for the Sky, the account of Bader's overcoming the loss of both legs to become a fighter ace. "And I said, 'If you can do that, I can do something with my life.' I was alone in the hospital and I thought, 'By George, I can do it.'"
Cleland left hospital and went into politics, a career on which he had set his sights in the early Sixties while working as an intern on Capitol Hill. "I ran for the State Senate in Georgia. I said to my friends, 'I have no job, no hope, no girlfriend, no car, no future and no money. This is a great time to run for office.'" For the next 30 years, he pursued a political career.
As he sits talking in the Kerry campaign headquarters, in the Washington powerbroker's uniform of blazer and tie, it is easy to forget his disabilities. You only have to listen to him talk about Britain, America and, of course, "the candidate" to wonder what the strapping, 6ft 2in youth who volunteered for Vietnam in 1965 might have achieved had he not returned from duty hideously maimed.
"I feel about Bader as I do about Churchill," he says. "I keep going back to him for inspiration. I am a big Winston Churchill freak. If you come to my office, you will see three portraits: Franklin Roosevelt – he's a personal hero of my mine, he overcame polio and led our country through its darkest hours – Churchill and the Lone Ranger.
"The life of Churchill is relevant now. As he said, the only thing worse than allies, is no allies" – a dig at President Bush. "My favourite hero is the Lone Ranger, although I know you can't play the Lone Ranger on the international stage. We may think we should shoot silver bullets, but the rest of the world doesn't."
Cleland, 61, exudes energy. He has toured more than 20 states in recent months to press Kerry's case. Yet no one would pretend he has an easy time coping with his disabilities and the memories of April 8, 1968, the day his life changed. Next to his bed is a plaque that says, "I was given life that I might enjoy all things."
He pursues a vigorous exercise regime. He gave up drink in the early Seventies and he seeks solace in the Bible. Five years ago, he took a big step towards healing the wounds of the past. He had always thought he was to blame for his injuries, assuming he had failed to check one of his grenade pins was in place. Then, in 1999, a veteran called him after hearing him tell his story on a talk show and said: "Hey, I was there. It wasn't your grenade. I saw it."
"That changed everything. It wasn't me," he recalls. "It was the man behind me. He had straightened out all his pins," which had to be twisted to remain secure. "He was a walking time bomb."
For Democrats, the legend of Max Cleland has one more important chapter. Two years ago, he was plunged back into despair when he lost his seat in the US Senate after just one term. The Democrats and Republicans were battling for control of the Senate and Cleland was contesting one of the closest races.
To the outrage of Democrats and some Republicans, and in an early example of the tactics that are currently being used to discredit Kerry, his rival ran a ferocious television advert that questioned his patriotism for having voted in the Senate against new Homeland Security legislation. He had indeed voted against it, but only because of a particular clause inserted by Republicans. To ram the point home, an image in the advert showed Osama bin Laden staring off screen and Saddam Hussein shaking hands with one of his generals.
Cleland would almost certainly have lost the race anyway, but even by the dog-eat-dog standards of American politics, the advertisement was deemed beyond the pale.
Shortly after his defeat, he flew to the Virgin Islands and asked his long-term girlfriend to marry him. "I will be married to my fiancée, Miss Nancy Ross, after I retire," he said, in his closing address to the Senate. "There is life after the Senate, and it will be a wonderful life."
He took a teaching role at American University, where he studied as a 21-year-old in 1963. But the attack on his record still rankles. Memories of "Georgia 2002" have fired up Democratic activists for revenge – and fuelled Cleland's determination to help Kerry unseat Bush. He laughs when I ask if the campaign is therapy. "It's very therapeutic," he says. "But John has taught me again the lesson that I learned after Vietnam. Turn your bitterness, frustration and anger into something positive and constructive. The campaign has been positive for me and it has given me hope."
The relationship has clearly worked both ways. Cleland's speech to the convention capped almost a year of his marketing the more wooden Kerry. The key moment came when he recalled, on stage, how he had given Kerry his Bible on the day he announced his candidacy last September.
"I grabbed his arm and pressed a Bible into his hand," Cleland told the audience. "It was the Bible I once read from as a child. I knew he would need its strength, its guidance and comfort in the days ahead. I told him, 'Hold on to this. You'll need it like your country needs you now.'" For Kerry, who needs to burnish his religious credentials if he is to seduce the heartland, this was a powerful testimonial, although Republicans might have dismissed it as theatre.
Cleland, a huge Anglophile, speaks fondly of visits to the Cabinet War Rooms, of taking tea at Number Ten with Tony Blair and his "old friend" Jonathan Powell, and of the importance of the Special Relationship.
"Under John Kerry, our relationship with our friends in the UK will be restored. We will be the strong alliance we once were," he says. "And we will listen to one another as friends in the family listen to one another around the dinner table and not jump off half-cocked on some crazy mission in the world without fully understanding the views of our allies."
That's all very well, but doesn't he think Kerry is just a little bit stiff?
"It's not so much that he throws a knock-out punch, one-liner, or whatever. We'll leave Bush to do his one-liner stuff. The truth of the matter is that Kerry grows on you. He has depth, courage and leadership ability. He's got skill and he knows what he's doing. It comes across slowly, but it will come across."
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
I always knew the libs needed therapy. The DEMS are nothing more than a roiling hive of seething rage.
"Kerry grows on you"
It's official....John F'n Kerry is SLIME MOLD!!!!!!!!!!!
Someone get me some Lysol and I will fix it!!!!!
I get very tired of this crap being repeated. Cleland ran as a conservate Zell Miller type Democrat in 1996 and was elected with a 49% plurality because there was a Libertarian in the race to siphon off enough Republican votes. He became a predictable liberal vote on most issues, something his opponent had the gall to point out in 2002, when the voters sent him packing decisively.
You see, to a Democrat, a war injury is supposed to entitle them to a free ride in elective office for life. Anything else is smear tactics.
I feel bad about Cleland's war injury and all but the guy's still a total jackass.
Its not my fault! That guy MADE me reach for that grenade! It all makes sense now! I AM NOT RESPONSILE!
Something happened as he ascended to higher office, and he became a mouthpiece for the left wing- but he was not always like that. I feel embarassed for him.
Regards, Ivan
Note to self: DO NOT PICK UP LIVE HAND GRENADES!
"...and the gloves are well and truly off"
Well, one glove anyway...
As I have said before, I would like to see a crash up derby match between him and Larry Flynt, just prove they are not the same person.
Maybe they could have a grenade tossing match. You know, like its an egg.
I'll go farther...the meds he takes for the "ghost" pain and feelings in his "legs" have gone to affested his mind. His shrink brainwasher probably tells him that it's time to stop blaming himself for his nubs and blame Bush.
Sorry. I don't let..."feel sorry for me cause I ain't got no legs and I fought in some war and now I vote for the enemy and you should too cause you have legs and I don't", shpeel fool me.
The rest of the story: "He had just jumped off a helicopter, on his way to do a little drinking (not running into battle as the article implies), when he saw a grenade on the ground. Believing it had fallen off his belt, he bent over to pick it up – and it exploded."
"To the outrage of Democrats and some Republicans, and in an early example of the tactics that are currently being used to discredit Kerry (funny, no mention of Dems using the tactics, and the fact that they are usually the innovators of the techniques), his rival ran a ferocious television advert that questioned his patriotism (actually, it questioned his poor judgement) for having voted in the Senate against new Homeland Security legislation. He had indeed voted against it, but only because of a particular clause inserted by Republicans (and there had never been a bill with a debatable clause in it before. Pardon my sarcasm. Ever look at the highway bills?). To ram the point home, an image in the advert showed Osama bin Laden staring off screen and Saddam Hussein shaking hands with one of his generals."
Hey, we were at war, time was of he essence, and political posturing was ill timed and ill advised. Play politics when lives are not at stake.
Appreciate that insight. When I was an early Christian I was inspired by Cleland's testimony. He was head of the VA at the time, and I had read a condensed _Strong At The Broken Places_. And I have half a mind to read the Bader biography.
But I can hardly reconcile all that with what Cleland has become now. I understand the 2002 "attack" ad in question merely criticised his anti-Patriot Act vote, legitimately placing it in the context of international terrorism (I'd like to see an online copy of that ad, if someone would point me to one). He conveniently, and unconvincingly, waves away much of the character of one of his heros, the Lone Ranger, because it would not fit his anti-Bush stance. More importantly, he seems completely blind to Kerry's shallow religious hypocrisy and opportunism.
A very tragic devolution, and the Dems are eating it up. Mr. Cleland, you can do better; much better.
Laughing at liberals is very therapeutic
Max "homeplate" Cleland
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