The group’s leader implored lawmakers to listen to people who have been in the fight and “not those draft-dodgers down the road,” an apparent reference to President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Nine veterans, all affiliated with the increasingly partisan VoteVets.org, made the rounds of the Senate to drum up support for some legislative action that would prevent an increase in U.S. troops in Iraq. It was Jon Stolz, an Army Reserve captain who served in Iraq in 2003, who made the jab at Bush and Cheney. Bush served in the National Guard during the Vietnam War but did not deploy, while Cheney received multiple draft deferments and never served.
Stolz, national chairman of VoteVets.org, has been involved in forming a new umbrella group, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, that involves veterans, anti-war groups, MoveOn.org Political Action and other groups. Two of the veterans making the visit ran for Congress in 2006 but lost their election bids.
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Stolz said the veterans include Democrats, Republicans and independents who all agree that sending more troops to Iraq is a mistake.In a sign that they are being taken seriously, they appeared at a press conference, flanked by Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, and they had meetings with Senators from both sides of the aisle, including my Senator, Claire McCaskill, and presidential hopefuls Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Sam Brownback.
“We are here to meet with senators on both sides of the aisle,” he said. “We are here to tell them why this is, frankly, ridiculous.”
Indiana Army National Guard veteran Sam Schultz, another of the veterans, called the Bush plan “delusional,” while Army Spec. Robert Loria, who lost his hand in Iraq in 2004, said he also disagreed with the plan.
“How many more men and women have to lose a limb or a life?” Loria asked.
“This is a policy that has nothing supporting a solution,” said Army veteran Jeremy Broussard, a field artillery officer who deployed in 2003 to Iraq.
