Ohio War Veteran Running for Senate

Democratic War Veteran Who Ran for Congress This Summer Launching U.S. Senate Race in Ohio
By DAN SEWELL
The Associated Press

CINCINNATI - Paul Hackett, the Democratic veteran of the Iraq war who narrowly lost in a special election in a heavily Republican congressional district in August, prepared Monday to officially jump into the U.S. Senate race.

Hackett planned a noon news conference at his home in suburban Indian Hill. He faces a tough Democratic primary with Rep. Sherrod Brown in the race for the nomination to challenge second-term Republican incumbent Mike DeWine next year.

With only a stint as a small-city councilman for political experience, Hackett decided to run for Congress earlier this year after completing a seven-month tour of duty in Iraq. The special election in southern Ohio's seven-county 2nd District was to replace Rep. Rob Portman, who left Congress to become the U.S. trade representative.

Hackett won the Democratic nomination, then battled a former state legislator, Republican Jean Schmidt, in a campaign in which he tied her to embattled Republican Gov. Bob Taft while sharply criticizing President Bush's handling of the war.

Schmidt won Aug. 2 with 52 percent of the vote, though Portman consistently won re-election with more than 70 percent and Bush had carried the district in 2004 with 64 percent.

Hackett's strong showing in a state that was a pivotal presidential battleground solidified the attorney and Marine reservist as a likely 2006 candidate for Congress or statewide office. After deciding to oppose DeWine, Hackett was irked when Brown, with three decades of elective politics behind him, reconsidered and decided to run, too.

Brown, a former state legislator and secretary of state for Ohio, is in his seventh congressional term, representing northeastern Ohio's 13th District. He's expected to officially launch his Senate race in early November.

David Woodruff, Hackett's campaign manager in his special election campaign and now a spokesman, had confirmed his decision to run for the Senate earlier this month.

ABC News: Ohio War Veteran Running for Senate

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Another soldier in Iraq blog shut down....muted voices.

Noting this soldier's last post as his blog is shut down; but first read his story posted to Operation Truth as veteran of the week

Then contrast it with same soldier's last post in his blog which is being shut down All The King's Horses

Wishing you well soldier, get home safe; and when you do, I sincerely hope you and your comrades will apply your skills to taking back America; we seem to have lost her along the way.

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'Stop-Loss is not the only stealth tactic in use by the military' Special editorial by Congressman Jim McDermott at Seattle Times

Thank you Jim McDermott! I saw the Seattle Times editorial 'Don't ban recruiters at high schools' and immediately mentally composed a rebuttal. I also saw commentator, Ken Schram, on KOMO 4 news offer his ridiculous view on parents who took exception to military recruiters in the high schools. Well, I don't need to write another thing....Jim McDermott wrote it well at Seattle Times.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Guest columnist

High-school students and soldiers deserve more

By Jim McDermott

Special to The Times

The Seattle Times' editorial "Don't ban recruiters from high school" (April 15) does a disservice to every high-school junior and senior, as well as every soldier who would like some say over his or her destiny. That should have been painfully obvious following The Times' own coverage of Emiliano Santiago, a soldier who has served his country with distinction, but now faces a sentence to serve because the military cannot recruit enough soldiers.

Buried in the fine print of Santiago's recruitment paperwork eight years ago was a provision called stop-loss. It is meant to ensure that America has enough soldiers to defend itself in time of national emergency, but the Pentagon under Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has perverted the use of stop-loss because military recruitment is significantly below goals.

Stop-loss now affects 50,000 soldiers. Santiago could end up serving until Christmas Eve, 2031, 37 years after he signed up — a virtual lifetime.

Every student and every parent should remember Santiago's case because it could happen to you, and no one in the military is going to tell you beforehand. And stop-loss is not the only stealth tactic in use by the military.

A provision buried in the No Child Left Behind law forces high schools to turn over student contact information to military recruiters. Any school that balks can lose all of its federal money. The Seattle Times casually tells its readers that a student can sign a form to opt out. The reality is that young people have lost their right to privacy and The Times is stone-cold silent on restoring this fundamental right in a free society.

I served my country as an officer in the United States Navy, and I believe that every American has a responsibility to give back to our country. For some, a career in the military is the right choice. But a decision to even consider a military career belongs solely with the individual, and that's not what we have today. That's why I joined with the punk band Anti-Flag to launch a nationwide drive to alert students on how to opt out and demand that Congress restore student privacy. (More information can be found at www.militaryfreezone.org)

Meanwhile, don't blame the recruiters. These people were selected because they are role models, the best of the best to represent the military. Now, they suffer under a quota system, and recruiters are under increasing pressure to find soldiers. Army National Guard recruitment plunged 31 percent in February and fell another 12 percent in March.

Young people are the hope and future of this great nation. We owe them more than to casually compromise their basic right to privacy. According to The Seattle Times, students have the right to die in Iraq, but they don't have the right to privacy. With misguided opinion like this, is it any wonder that young people don't trust adults?

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, represents the 7th Congressional District in Washington.


The Seattle Times: Opinion: High-school students and soldiers deserve more

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24% of Troops Votes in Election 2004 Not Counted Study Says

By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, April 5, 2005

WASHINGTON — A national study suggests at least 24 percent of overseas military who voted in the 2004 presidential election did not have their ballots counted.

The National Defense Committee’s Military Voting Rights Project, which conducted the survey of local elections offices, called those results “unacceptable.”

It blamed the transient nature of troops in a battle zone, problems with the Military Postal Service Agency, missed mailing deadlines by state elections officials and litigation by Ralph Nader, which delayed printing of ballots in some states as major reason for the lost votes.

A Defense Department spokeswoman said the DOD is waiting for the results of official surveys before officials decide whether to make any changes.

Nader campaign manager Theresa Amato called blaming the third-party candidate for overseas voting problems “ridiculous.”

“That’s misplaced and misdirected blame,” she said. “They are blaming one of the symptoms of an unworkable process. We have a system where it’s not easy to register as a national candidate.”

The National Defense Committee is a pro-military organization that advocates the election of more veterans to Congress, according to its Web site.

Surveyors received statistics from 761 local election offices — about 10 percent of the total nationwide — which processed 131,772 requests for ballots from troops serving overseas.

Of those, about 4 percent were rejected outright because of lateness or errors in absentee ballot requests, and another 25 percent of those ballots weren’t returned, arrived too late to be counted or contained errors than invalidated the vote.

The new federal write-in absentee ballots provided a measure of relief, recapturing about 5,300 troops whose votes otherwise would not have been counted. But the report said that in the end, more than 32,000 servicemembers were still disenfranchised.

After the 2000 presidential election, the Government Accountability Office estimated that more than 29 percent of overseas military did not have a chance to cast their votes. The Federal Voting Assistance Project is scheduled to release a more comprehensive study of the 2004 election by the end of the year.

Joan Hills, co-chair of Republicans Abroad, which mobilizes GOP voters overseas, said she believes military officials did a better job than in 2000 and the best they could do in places like Iraq.

“We know of one battalion that kept moving and couldn’t receive some ballots, and we know of one major incident where a truck with ballots for a whole battalion was overturned in an ambush,” she said. “Those are war incidents.

“I think this time there was a bigger effort to get the word out about [support programs], and I think generally they did a good job.”

Their political counterparts, Democrats Abroad, offered a more critical assessment, saying in a statement they are “gravely concerned” about the balloting problems.


European and Pacific Stars & Stripes

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