Richardson Displays Presidential Courage
As the Iowa voters cuss and discuss the current presidential campaign leading to their state caucus, I had an opportunity this past week to meet and speak with many Iowa voters and veterans.
Coming from a Midwestern farm family, it was interesting to hear what veterans were saying about Bill Richardson and their reasons for supporting his bid for the White House.
I served in the United States Army Special Forces for nearly twelve years, including multiple tours in Vietnam, as well as assignments in South America. My years in Vietnam were some of the best and worst of my life and definitely the defining point in my life as a young man and soldier. As a result, I got to experience real courage, up close and personal while serving with my fellow "Green Berets".
After leaving the military, I went to work in the "bush pilot' business, flying for the United Nations and the International Committee for the Red Cross in conflict areas in Somalia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, The Congo and Sudan and other garden spots in central and eastern Africa. During one of these medevac mission in the Sudan in 1996, my aircraft, crew and patients were hijacked and held hostage by one of the rebel factions in the Sudanese civil war. For 38 days, the Red Cross and the rebel commander haggled over his ransom demands with no progress being made on either side. After being threatened with execution if the demands were not met, you can bet our morale was hitting rock bottom. After learning that two of our patients in the aircraft had been shot, we knew that our options had been reduced to escape or some sort of miracle.
It was at this point the "miracle" arrived in the form of Bill Richardson. My wife, Sherry, had been in Kenya trying to get the US Embassy to intervene, when one of my old Special Forces friends suggested contacting Bill Richardson. She called Richardson's office and within hours he personally called to reassure her that he was on the case and had a plan. Four days later, Bill walked into the compound where we were being held, amidst a rebel group of 14 and 15 year old AK totting boy soldiers to begin negotiating our release. Dressed in a blue blazer and gray flannel slacks in 120 degree heat, I have never seen anyone so out of place. Smiling and shaking hands with the rebels as though he were in some sort of town hall meeting, he walked up to me and said, "Hi John, I'm Bill Richardson. We're going to get you out of here."
He had no security detail, no body guards, nothing...just his lucky blue blazer, as he later told me. I was so surprised that the only thing I could think to say was, "well, we appreciate it, but don't feel bad if it doesn't work." He just looked at me a said, "This isn't a done deal and this guy isn't giving any ground, but I promise you, I will not leave here without you." And he didn't. Several hours later, the same kids who had days before been threatening us with their AK-47's, can back with one of Richardson's aides and escorted us to the table under the acacia trees where an agreement had been completed and we were formally released to Richardson and a Sudanese government delegation.
All during our captivity, I had told my crew, an Australian nurse and my Kenyan co-pilot, that someone would come for us. I was trying to keep our spirits up and I suppose still clinging to the old army credo of "no man left behind."
My point to this story is that Bill Richardson displayed the kind of moral and personal courage that we need and expect of our leaders. No other candidate has displayed courage anywhere near the scale of this man. No other candidate has the experience of this magnitude in international affairs. I wasn't the first or the last person Bill Richardson has rescued over seas and I probably will not be the last.
As veterans, we understand and value this kind of action. We know what courage looks like and we have been in its presence before and we know the "real deal" when we see it.
I hope when you go to your caucus meetings and later when you go to the polls, you will remember this story. This is the kind of leadership this country has been seeking and needing for the last eight years.
Bill Richardson did not leave me and my crew behind and he will not leave you veterans or this country behind.
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I don't know, I think of Richardson as yet
another calliope operator, who'd be more than
happy to parley things along for the duration
of his time in office, there's Mucho Dinero
being printed off by the minute for all of this
and he and his constituents would step right
into Bush's shoes and start lining their
pockets like it was going out of style,
in my estimation. Remember when Hillary
was saying, 'if I am elected, I will end the
war'? What IS Richardson's position on the
war? Under a Richardson administration, what
would happen in the middle east? What would
happen on our border? This is the Big Poker
Game, worth hundreds of billions of dollars,
what WOULD happen, there? I have my doubts.
While some here say he isn't a good campaigner, I would like to note two things. His warchest is not as big as those who make themselves pleasing to the Warbucks of the world. And as has been said elsewhere, one becomes charismatic by being thought charismatic. (Think Jimmy Stewart.) With funds to gain a bit more exposure of his quiet strength, his honesty, his courage, and his knowledge of the problems we face, and his experience in dealing with some of the toughest, Bill Richardson will beat any Republican hands down.
But Mr. Warbucks doesn't like one who doesn't kowtow. He is so used to having his way. Those who have the right message for US are not popular with him.
We "little people" need to band together behind such a one as Richardson and make America our country again.
The more I see of Richardson,the more I like what I see. He could win because he grows on one. Some of ther other candidates donn't wear so well. If he is nominated, he will have sufficient finds to get himself across. He would be a very good president and give us respoectability again among other peoples.
Thanks so much for this post.
Its the kind of details that need to be told to our country at large so they can tell the difference in all this big talk and smoke & mirrors.
Richardson understands that our involvement in Iraq is not by any means a war, but an occupation and that the rightwingers have absolutely no business calling it a war where they can pretend to have any moral high ground. They are a farce, and dont deserve it, rather, deserve to be made out to be the liars and hypocrites that they are. I believe that Richardson should tag on to this moral outrage a bit more fircely, and come at them hard and heavy. The nation would appreciate it, because he would be speaking them!!
Yes, Richardson has a great foreign policy: he wants to continue to allow the invaders to flood over the Mexican border until they just take over the southwestern United States.
I have less a problem with a lack of polish than an over-abundance of it. The guy has mispoken, like Dean did, and people immediately write him off as unpresidential. Yet his accomplishments are real.
I wonder how Truman would do in today's Democratic party. I suspect he'd be seen as too common.
Thank you for sharing this. Bill Richardson really is the real deal.
The more we see of the 'anointed one', the more we should realize how fortunate we are to have someone like Bill Richardson as a candidate.
'Full withdrawal with no residual troops' ftw!
Yeah this Bill is the best one we could have but the truth is what he and others have said, it takes a whole lot of money now days to get past the first hurdle and that money has gone to those who the big guys think will have the best chance to win. The woman and the dark kin guy to be a first for the US. Qualifications never really enter the conversation in the debates as the question asked and answered by Bill or Joe Biden always get turned to something more like gossip than the reality. Hillary and Obama are who someone with money thought we should elect and who are we to have a brain and back someone with qualifications?
Sadly, our corporate media hacks wont let that happen. Why is Obama being PUSHED by the media and some in the establishment, and yet the Gov. is stifled? Why did Chris Matthews dismiss the Gov.'s ambassadorial experience with a wave of a hand? simple, he is not corruptible and he is an honest broker. From N. Korea to Sudan, we see his footprint, yet he is not featured like the johnny come lately.
Our country will be at a great disservice, for it is now that we need a President who can and needs to bring us back to respectability.
Much to my displeasure I have watched Politics become less and less about ideas and policies over my lifetime then I care to think about. From the start it was clear to me that Richardson was the most qualified man for the job, but in this atmosphere of Veneered Teeth, $10,000.00 suits and the rest, personality has become the name of the game. I am fearfull that my closest neighbour the US will elect another duzzi like George Bush, who will preach the ideological gosepel while being kept in the dark by a staff of those who aren't commited to the truth but rather to loyalty. God help us all.
Lary Waldman
Qualicum Beach BC
Richardson would make a great Secretary of State.
I've been on the Richardson bandwagon for a long time and it is nice to see some people finally taking notice. He has the most experience, courage and heart of any of the candidates of both parties and would make an excellent president. Don't count him out.
Here is a wonderful article in the Boston Globe about the media's inability to report on all the candidates running.
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So here’s the question: why then is Biden still in single digits? Light years away from Hillary, Obama, and Edwards, the three top Democratic contenders?
The answer’s “pretty simple,” said Biden in a telephone interview yesterday with the Herald and 96.9-WTKK. “Money ... we will have raised $12 or $13 million by the time this is over,” he said, an amount that would have been competitive not long ago. “Now we’re talking about two candidates spending that much in Iowa alone (Hillary and Obama) ... a state with just 3 million people.”
In any case, in the national newspapers that set the national political coverage of the day, here’s how often reporters of the main stories mentioned Hillary and Obama vs. Joe Biden. The New York Times [NYT]: Clinton, at least 21 mentions; Osama, 9, Biden, 2. The Washington Post: Clinton, at least 25 mentions; Obama, 17; and Biden, 0. USA Today:Clinton, at least 14 mentions; Obama, 6;Biden, 1.
“We pushed for three or four months to have just one debate about Iraq and the only one who would take us up on it was Dennis Kucinich,” who’s hardly mentioned either. Said Rasky, “The trending of America toward celebrity culture, it’s a huge problem for the future of our democracy.
Joe Biden’s son Beau, by the way, is Delaware’s attorney general and a National Guardsman likely to be deployed to Iraq in 2008. But Beau is not a celebrity. So most of us didn’t know that, either.
The article goes on to conclude that others have come back in Iowa such as Carter, Kerry, and Bill Clinton a month before the primaries.
To be noted: What is happening to Joe Biden is equally happening to bill Richardson - the media black out.
Great story, and I never doubted the fine character of Governor Richardson.
Alas, Richardson's problem in this campaign is that he is a working governor who is running in a very competitive field. He can't be lazy when it comes to being prepared for public appearances, but by the evidence, he has been. He won't win the primary.
As I learn more about Bill Richardson, I continue to be more and more impressed by this man. I have followed his work as governor of Arizona, and while I don't agree with some of the things he does, agree or disagree, I admire his courage to fight for his state's rights, and I think he will fight for this country if he were president. He is not afraid to throw the crap dished out by the GOP right back over the fence. He doesn't even stop to put on any gloves before doing it, either. He reminds a little of
Truman that way. I hope he serves this country in the next administration, be it President or otherwise.
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