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Obama Honors The Fallen At Arlington On Memorial Day

Obama Honors The Fallen At Arlington On Memorial Day

By Connie Stewart, Los Angeles Times

Hours after President Barack Obama returned from a surprise visit to American troops in Afghanistan, he paid tribute to the nation’s fallen defenders on Memorial Day and alluded to the VA health care crisis, pledging to ensure that veterans “get the care … they deserve.”

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki was among those who accompanied Obama to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, where the president spoke at the amphitheater and laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Shinseki is under fire over allegations that some VA medical facilities falsified documents to hide long waiting lists for care.

Obama noted Monday that he had just returned from Afghanistan and pledged that the nation would always honor veterans, including “the nearly 2,200 American patriots who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan.”

“As we’ve been reminded in recent days,” he said, “we must do more to keep faith with our veterans and their families, and ensure they get the care and benefits and opportunities that they’ve earned and that they deserve.”

The VA has struggled to care for aging World War II, Korea and Vietnam veterans as those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan seek care.

Some lawmakers have called for Shinseki’s resignation, but Obama has stood by the retired Army four-star general, at least pending a probe into the allegations.

The VA’s inspector general is investigating 26 medical facilities, including in Phoenix, San Antonio and Fort Collins, Colo.; those findings are expected in August. Shinseki is to present a preliminary report to Obama this week.

At Arlington, Obama noted that this is the cemetery’s 150th anniversary.

“Here, in perfect military order, lie the patriots who won our freedom and saved the Union,” he said. “Here, side by side, lie the privates and the generals who defeated fascism and laid the foundation for an American century. Here lie the Americans who fought through Vietnam, and those who won a long twilight struggle against communism.

“And here, in Section 60, lie men and women who gave their lives to keep our homeland safe over more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Obama said.

“On these hallowed grounds,” he said, “we rededicate ourselves to our sacred obligations to all who wear America’s uniform. … These Americans have done their duty. They ask nothing more than that our country does ours — now and for decades to come.”

Drew Angerer/SIPA/Abaca Press/MCT

Do Not Leave This Prophet Without Honor

Robert D. Novak, a great and controversial political reporter, judged Eugene McCarthy’s nomination of Adlai Stevenson at the 1960 Democratic convention in Los Angeles to be “the greatest national convention speech I ever heard.”

The Minnesota senator’s words echo in my memory: “Do not reject this man who, his enemies said, spoke above the heads of the people, but they said it only because they didn’t want the people to listen. He spoke to the people. He moved their minds, and he stirred their hearts, and this was what was objected to. Do not leave this prophet without honor in his own party … .”

I re-read that speech because I was invited to give the Eugene J. McCarthy lecture at the beautiful campus of St. John’s University in Minnesota, where Gene McCarthy, an exceptional student and athlete (baseball and hockey), graduated at the age of 19. He entered the monastery of the Benedictine fathers who founded St. John’s, and when he left the seminary — to eventually become a husband, father, U.S. congressman, senator and, in 1968, the anti-Vietnam War presidential candidate challenging his fellow Democrat in the White House, Lyndon Johnson — the Rev. Colman Barry would tell author Al Eisele that “it was like losing a 20-game winner.”

On Nov. 30, 1967, I stood in the caucus room of what is now called the Russell Senate Office Building and heard Gene McCarthy launch his presidential candidacy: “I am concerned that the administration seems to have set no limit to the price which it is willing to pay for a military victory” and to state his support “for an honorable, rational and political solution to this war.”

He was, even his political enemies conceded, a man of the mind — yes, a man of biting wit, and a man of conviction. To him, politics was fundamentally a moral enterprise with emphasis on community, justice and the common good.

He was a man for whom you could feel more admiration than affection. But ultimately to me — even though I was proud to work that year for his antiwar Democratic opponent, Robert Kennedy — Eugene McCarthy was a man of courage, the kind of rare courage that was to change American history and to change, to this day, the way we select and nominate our national leaders.

When McCarthy began his lonely, long-shot campaign, only 19 percent of the convention delegates were even chosen in open presidential primaries. Eighty-one percent of all the convention delegates were chosen in procedures that were mostly not democratic, not open and not even timely.

More than half the delegates to the 1968 Democratic national convention had been chosen in 1966. (Hubert Humphrey would become the presidential nominee after having avoided running in every primary.) Because McCarthy’s insurgent campaign exposed both how closed and how rigged the system was to exclude rank-and-file voters, the old order became doomed. Every future president, because of McCarthy, would have to win the nomination in open, competitive contests.

In classical times, after Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, “How well he spoke.” But when Demosthenes had finished his speech, the people said, “Let us march.” McCarthy did not speak with the pre-tested applause lines of the practiced platform performer. But when he spoke, literally thousands did march in the campaign for peace he led. In 1968, the people found Eugene McCarthy.

As John Kennedy said: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” McCarthy effectively ended his own Senate career to make peaceful revolution possible and to end a war he deemed morally indefensible. For that, it should be said of McCarthy what he said of Stevenson: “Do not leave this prophet with honor in his own party.”

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

COPYRIGHT 2011 MARK SHIELDS

Let Us Pause To Remember

It’s mid-August, and millions of young adults are girding for the next big adventure of their lives.

Many are packing for college. Others are moving into their first home away from home, starting new jobs maybe, or setting up house with new spouses.

Life is unfolding under a canopy of new beginnings. “Onward!” cry the parents. Even if we don’t yet feel it in our hearts.

It’s been a few years since I was the parent who climbed into a suddenly empty car and drove away without the kid who consumed 18-plus years of my life. But this time of year always reminds me of just such a trip in another August, in 2005. I still wince in recalling how, in a single week, I went from a self-pitying empty nester to an unspeakably grateful mother after 20 young Marines were killed in Iraq.

Last Thursday, the Department of Defense released the names of the 30 Americans — all but one of them well under 40 — who died Aug. 6 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, after their CH-47 Chinook helicopter crashed.

Please take a few minutes to read aloud this list of names, ages and hometowns. If you say their names out loud, the losses — and the lack of shared sacrifice — become far more real. That’s a warning and a promise.

Let us pause to remember:

Lt. Cmdr. (SEAL) Jonas B. Kelsall, 32, of Shreveport, La.

Special Warfare Operator Master Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Louis J. Langlais, 44, of Santa Barbara, Calif.

Special Warfare Operator Senior Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Thomas A. Ratzlaff, 34, of Green Forest, Ark.

Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician Senior Chief Petty Officer (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist/Freefall Parachutist) Kraig M. Vickers, 36, of Kokomo, Hawaii.

Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Brian R. Bill, 31, of Stamford, Conn.

Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) John W. Faas, 31, of Minneapolis.

Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Kevin A. Houston, 35, of West Hyannisport, Mass.

Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Matthew D. Mason, 37, of Kansas City, Mo.

Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Stephen M. Mills, 35, of Fort Worth, Texas.

Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician Chief Petty Officer (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist/Freefall Parachutist/Diver) Nicholas H. Null, 30, of Washington, W.Va.

Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Robert J. Reeves, 32, of Shreveport, La.

Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Heath M. Robinson, 34, of Detroit.

Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL) Darrik C. Benson, 28, of Angwin, Calif.

Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL/Parachutist) Christopher G. Campbell, 36, of Jacksonville, N.C.

Information Systems Technician Petty Officer 1st Class (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist/Freefall Parachutist) Jared W. Day, 28, of Taylorsville, Utah.

Master-at-Arms Petty Officer 1st Class (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist) John Douangdara, 26, of South Sioux City, Neb.

Cryptologist Technician (Collection) Petty Officer 1st Class (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist) Michael J. Strange, 25, of Philadelphia.

Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL/Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist) Jon T. Tumilson, 35, of Rockford, Iowa.

Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL) Aaron C. Vaughn, 30, of Stuart, Fla.

Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL) Jason R. Workman, 32, of Blanding, Utah.

Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL) Jesse D. Pittman, 27, of Ukiah, Calif.

Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 2nd Class (SEAL) Nicholas P. Spehar, 24, of St. Paul, Minn.

Chief Warrant Officer David R. Carter, 47, of Centennial, Colo. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), Aurora, Colo.

Chief Warrant Officer Bryan J. Nichols, 31, of Hays, Kan. He was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), New Century, Kan.

Sgt. Patrick D. Hamburger, 30, of Lincoln, Neb. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), Grand Island, Neb.

Sgt. Alexander J. Bennett, 24, of Tacoma, Wash. He was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), New Century, Kan.

Spc. Spencer C. Duncan, 21, of Olathe, Kan. He was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), New Century, Kan.

Tech Sgt. John W. Brown, 33, of Tallahassee, Fla.

Staff Sgt. Andrew W. Harvell, 26, of Long Beach, Calif.

Tech Sgt. Daniel L. Zerbe, 28, of York, Pa.

In a separate incident on that same day, a Marine from Canton, Ohio, was killed in combat in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

His name was Sgt. Daniel J. Patron.

He was 26 years old.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and an essayist for Parade magazine. To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM

China Worried About U.S. Default

As House Republicans continue to hold the United States hostage over raising the debt limit, China is using Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s (relatively empty) threats to downgrade the United States’ credit rating as a pretext to issue stern warnings on honoring our more than $1 trillion in debt to that country.

China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange, or SAFE, issued a statement on its website urging action to raise the debt limit this week.

“We hope the US government will earnestly adopt responsible policies to strengthen international market confidence, and to respect and protect the interests of investors,” it said on its website. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei echoed the sentiment at a briefing earlier this month.

There’s finally a deal on the table, though, with the Senate Gang of Six unveiling a proposal to slash spending and increase government revenue, and if it passes with a debt limit increase China will presumably resume buying up our bonds without reticence. After all, we at least have begun to bend the cost curve on healthcare, something that has worried the Chinese quite a bit over the last few years:

And yet, there was budget director Peter Orszag rushing to a lunch with Chinese bureaucrats on a Monday in late July. To his surprise, when Orszag arrived at the site of the annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), the Chinese didn’t dwell on the Wall Street meltdown or the global recession. The bureaucrats at his table mostly wanted to know about health care reform, which Orszag has helped shepherd. “They were intrigued by the most recent legislative developments,” Orszag says. “It was like, ‘You’re fresh from the field, what can you tell us?'”

As it happens, health care is much on the minds of the Chinese these days. Over the last few years, as China has become the world’s largest purchaser of Treasury bonds, the government has grown increasingly sophisticated in its understanding of U.S. budget deficits. The issue has become all the more pressing in recent months, as the financial crisis and recession pushed the deficit to record levels. With nearly half of their $2 trillion in foreign currency reserves invested in U.S. bonds alone, the Chinese are understandably concerned about our creditworthiness. And this concern has brought them ineluctably to the issue of health care. “At some point, if you refuse to contain health care costs, you’ll go bankrupt,” says Andy Xie, a prominent Shanghai-based economist, formerly of Morgan Stanley. “It’s widely known among [Chinese] policymakers.” Xie himself wrote a much-read piece on the subject in 2007 for Caijing magazine–kind of the Chinese version of Fortune.

A reminder that for all the Republican calls to cut spending, the only major piece of deficit reduction legislation passed in the last decade was Obama’s healthcare law, which reduces federal deficits by nearly $150 billion by 2020.

Follow National Correspondent Matt Taylor on Twitter: @matthewt_ny