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John Murtha, Hero of the War Protesters
Rep. John Murtha, an Iraq war critic and former Marine, joined Democratic colleagues to announce pullout legislation earlier this month. Below, Murtha in 1980 when he testified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam trial of two House members. Right, antiwar protester Medea Benjamin of Code Pink was with U.S. Capitol Police when Murtha intervened.
(By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)
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When Yvette Clark was running for Congress from Brooklyn last year, she brought Murtha to speak. In affluent Park Slope, with its bistros and chic baby boutiques, the former owner of Johnstown Minute Car Wash packed 'em in. "I had been quoting him throughout the campaign," said Clark, who won and is now a freshman lawmaker. "It was great to have Jack there. He added credibility to what I had been saying."
Murtha is in the unique position of being able to speak to both the antiwar movement and the Pentagon. But he makes it clear that his common ground with the liberals is limited strictly to the Iraq war.
"It's a marriage of convenience," said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College. "Once this is over, he's going to continue to vote for strong defense and they'll part."
Soon after the Iraq war started, Murtha began weekly visits to wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Medical Center, a ritual he continues. "I always ask, 'What happened to you?' " Murtha said.
As the war progressed, the answers alarmed him. Complaints about a lack of body armor. Tales of equipment shortages. Murtha returned shaken from the visits, his ruddy face set in a frown. Simultaneously, he was hearing private concerns from military commanders about the way the war was being prosecuted. "The reality didn't match the rhetoric of what the administration was saying, that everything was going well," Murtha said. "They lied so much."
He began to think Iraq was draining resources and damaging the country's military reserves, making it unable to respond to new threats. By November 2005, Murtha had had enough. "I was so frustrated that I had to speak out," he said.
The next two weeks, Murtha's office received about 18,000 letters and e-mails from around the country, 80 percent of them supporting him. Someone from California tucked a $10 bill into a letter, encouraging Murtha to fight on. Strangers stopped him at the airport to thank him.
He has barreled ahead, through his failed bid to be elected majority leader, to craft a strategy to redeploy troops out of Iraq, sparking weeks of internal wrangling within his party over how to end the war.
"We have the same goal, we absolutely want our sons and daughters home," said Tina Richards, the 44-year-old mother of a Marine, who came from Missouri to lobby lawmakers earlier this year. She thinks the Democrats' plan under consideration today doesn't go far enough, but adds, "I completely respect Mr. Murtha because he's trying to deal with the politics and find the best route."
Murtha sees redemption ahead.
"In the end, everything I've said is right," he said. "Every single thing I've said from the time I started out is right. I said it was going to hurt the troops, that the strategic reserve is going to be depleted, that we can't sustain this militarily, that we've got to do it diplomatically. All those things are coming about."
