Vets On The Hill AAR (Part II - The Halls of Congress)

I left off just before the introductory speakers began speaking. As things were getting set up, I made it a point to look around and see who was watching our noble endeavor. I figured it must have been cold for the fairweather protesters that like to counter our efforts. Surprisingly, even WBC stood this one out. It was going to be a peaceful event without distractions. This was the only one I could really find to talk with. Can anyone say Manson?

Medal of Honor nominee and Silver Star recipient David Bellavia got things started.


David Bellavia opened the festivities with a few words and introduced the keynote speaker at the event, someone you may have heard of - Senator (and Republican Presidential Candidate) John McCain.

Senator John McCain opens Vets On The Hill at the Capitol.

I’m not a huge John McCain fan by any means at all. I have my reasons, but I also know that there is no such thing as a perfect candidate for me. I’m sort of a one-issue citizen currently. My focus in on the military and protecting my country. I’m also concerned with winning the war against Islamic extremism. Yeah, the economy is important, “global warming” is an issue, immigration ranks up there, but I vote for who is going to secure my country and use me - a Soldier - to meet that end. Without security and peace that is guaranteed by those I serve with, what good is an economy, how do we manage the fictitious “global warming” and immigration won’t be an issue. With that in mind, there is only ONE candidate that meets my criteria for being a good president. How many of you that are not in the military but have real jobs are able to elect your boss? That’s one of the benefits I have as a Soldier. I’m able to vote for my next boss and I want it to be someone I’m going to agree with and who has my best interests at stake.

One of the things that I like about John McCain is his honesty and how he sticks his neck out regardless of whether he’s going to be popular. He says what he thinks is right and understands how to defeat this enemy (for the most part). He understands that “there is no substitute for victory in withdrawal,” as he said that day.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me be brutally honest here. War is single worst thing to plague mankind since Cain slayed Able. It sucks. It’s inhuman. It’s vile. It’s ugly. It’s literally hell on earth. Unfortunately, there are times where only violence and combat can overcome the greater ugliness of bullies, thugs, dictators, terrorists, and murderers. We have been labeled - oftimes by our own people - as imperialists. That just isn’t true. The reason our causes are always so honorable is that when the United States gets into a war, we don’t do it for land. We have given back every every country we’ve defeated since Mexico so graciously sold us the southwestern states. We don’t fight to take things from people; we fight audaciously to bring them hope. With Vietnam being the only exception (wonder why?), we have left behind countries that were better off. Vietnam COULD have had the same fate had the defeatists not intervened.

John McCain summed it up better than any Code Pinko ever could when he said that “no one hates war more than the veteran.” I’ve said this many times. I’ve quoted it to them during their smear meetings when I was in DC. And I mean it. I hate having to take another person’s life. But, I’m sure as hell not going to let them take mine when I still have ammo in the clip!! The purpose of a STRONG military is to PREVENT war. Ronald Reagan did this expertly by building our military to a point where no one would WANT to mess with us. Those years were peaceful. President George H.W. Bush maintained that and we were able to defeat Saddam swiftly when he invaded a friendly nation. Then, President William Clinton started slashing our personnel, our budgets, our intelligence capabilities, etc. And we are still paying that price. McCain ended his speech by reiterating that, under him, “we will NEVER surrender!”

Lindsey Graham is a United States Senator. What a lot of people don’t know is that he’s a Colonel in the United States Air Force Reserves. He’s been to Iraq as a deployed Soldier (he’s a JAG), not as a protected, insulated politician. He understands the reality on the ground in Iraq. Mr. Graham is also the recipient of the unannounced ASP Best Quote contest during the event.

“You know who wants you to come home more than anybody?” questioned Graham. “Al Qaeda! Because we’re kicking their ass!” Hell yeah! And we’re also kicking the ass of Al Sadr every time he wants to rear his ugly. But more importantly, the people who we are training to take over when we leave, the Iraqi military and security forces, are kicking their ass too!! But, we’re not done.

Me and Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

I don’t want to bore you with a bunch of quotes from the speeches. I’m going to jump straight into the event. Once everyone was finished, we all scattered and began taking over the halls of Congress. As Yankeemom reported, all the Code Pinkos were stinking up the General Petraeus hearings, so I didn’t see any of them as we went from office to office.

As I was leaving the rally, I was fortunate enough to meet up with Concrete Bob, Taco’s Mom, and Yankeemom! I can’t say enough (obviously, since I mentioned this in Part I) how much I admire those individuals. They are true patriots who do so much for the troops directly. They don’t rest on their bumper stickers, magnets, and laminated signs. They get out there and meet with troops one on one to express their appreciation through words AND deeds. Their service to those who serve is greatly appreciated and I’m proud to call them my friends!

As Badger and I wargamed our strategy for “attacking” capitol hill, we realized that we had a time crunch. Both of our Senators had scheduled to have us meet with their assistants, but both weren’t until after 1500. The problem was that Badger had a 1755 flight and I had a 1900 flight. We had to board the bus no later than two hours prior in order to beat traffic and make our flights. So, we decided to head to Senator Shelby’s office first and see if they could squeeze us in. Since we were originally scheduled to meet with him at 1100, we thought it was worth trying. We reported to the secretary and within a few minutes, Donald Watson, Shelby’s military legislative assistant was greeting us and bringing us into the office.

The Alabama had a cherry mission. We live in a very conservative state that is very friendly and supportive of the military and it’s mission. Almost everyone we had to speak with was already on board with the theory of “victory” as a conditional for withdrawal. So, our meetings didn’t take that long. We tried to talk just so that VFF wasn’t wasting money sending us in, but we weren’t convincing our leaders of doing anything differently - they are already doing what we’d like them to.

Since our first meeting was over fairly quickly and first officially scheduled meetings wasn’t slated until 1430, we decided to tackle those representatives that thought they could hide from their veterans. Our first stop was to Rep. Terry Everett’s office. Everett is Badger’s representative for the Enterprise, AL area. Again, preaching to the choir. However, since this was Badger’s first experience in DC, I asked the assistant if I could take a picture of him sitting at Everett’s desk. He hadn’t thought about that and was thankful I asked. I told him that these are HIS offices too!

Immediately following the Everett visit, we proceeded to meet with another representative who didn’t think it was important to meet with us - Rep. “Bud” Cramer. Cramer is MY representative and Redstone Arsenal falls within his jurisdiction. You’d think he’d be more than interested to meet with one of his veterans. However, he isn’t running for reelection in November and could care less about his constituents obviously. Even his staff didn’t seem to want us there.

Cramer was one of those that voted for immediate withdrawal from Iraq when the bill was introduced in July of last year. To be fair, he did vote FOR a bill to fund the troops in May “without setting withdrawal deadlines for troops.” He’s also been very strong on military issues in the past. He doesn’t always vote along the party line, which is what I expect from ALL my representatives. Neither party is right 100% of the time. My only problem was that I felt like Mr. Cramer’s staff was bothered by our presence. I didn’t feel welcome at all. I felt the same way when we met with Ron Paul’s people later in the day.

While walking between office in the Rayburn building, I saw three individuals walking towards me. I instantly recognized on of them as retired Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki. The first thing I did was make an arse of myself by addressing him as Gen Schoomaker. If you know who these two individuals are, or you looked at the links, you’ll see that they look nothing alike. I knew it was General Shinseki because the moment I saw him walking down the hall, I had to resist the urge ask him what he was thinking making us wear these berets. But, I realized I’d be out of line and that ultimately it doesn’t matter. What can he possibly do about it now?

So, after I spit out Schoomaker’s name, I instantly realized that wasn’t what I meant to say. I corrected myself just as the lady accompanying him corrected me. I apologized and assured him I knew he was not Schoomaker, but that my brain cells misfired and I had to do an immediate reboot. We chatted for a few moments as I fired questions at him about whether he missed the military, was enjoying retirement, keeping busy etcetera. I also asked him if he was there campaigning for a job and he answered that he was not. We parted as casually as we met and we went on our way. I don’t get star-struck very easily. I treat Generals just as humanly as I treat privates (I just never make them push!).

In part three, I’ll talk a little more about my encounter with the Code Pink weirdo in Part I. After I told Emily about the encounter, she asked how I can always find that ONE protester no matter where I go. I explained that they stink so bad, they’re impossible to miss. Besides, the guy was wearing a PINK shirt!! And had ink on his face!! And looked like his last hit of acid was wearing out!! They aren’t hard to find.

This entry is filed under Military News, Top Posts and tagged No Tags. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

RSS Feed Subscribe | Get the You Served Widget