For Chuck Hagel, overcoming adversity again
Battle-tested for a fight
By Dana Milbank, WashPost, Monday, January 7, 6:26 PM
In Vietnam in 1968, two separate mine explosions left Chuck Hagel with shrapnel in his chest and burns on his face and arms.
This is not a man who is going to shrink from a fight with the chicken hawks of the Senate.
President Obama hit the right theme in nominating Hagel on Monday to be secretary of defense — the first enlisted man and the first Vietnam veteran to be so honored. “To this day, Chuck bears the scars — and the shrapnel — from the battles he fought in our name,” Obama said during an appearance with Hagel and other officials in the East Room.
“Maybe most importantly,” Obama added, “Chuck knows that war is not an abstraction. He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that’s something we only do when it’s absolutely necessary.”
Behind the men was the Washington Monument, concealed by the East Room’s gold curtains. In front of them, on Pennsylvania Avenue, workers were finishing the parade reviewing stand for Obama’s second inauguration. For the president, who has too often shied from forceful leadership, the Hagel nomination was a welcome sign that he is willing to pick a fight in his second term.
(More here.)
In Vietnam in 1968, two separate mine explosions left Chuck Hagel with shrapnel in his chest and burns on his face and arms.
This is not a man who is going to shrink from a fight with the chicken hawks of the Senate.
President Obama hit the right theme in nominating Hagel on Monday to be secretary of defense — the first enlisted man and the first Vietnam veteran to be so honored. “To this day, Chuck bears the scars — and the shrapnel — from the battles he fought in our name,” Obama said during an appearance with Hagel and other officials in the East Room.
“Maybe most importantly,” Obama added, “Chuck knows that war is not an abstraction. He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that’s something we only do when it’s absolutely necessary.”
Behind the men was the Washington Monument, concealed by the East Room’s gold curtains. In front of them, on Pennsylvania Avenue, workers were finishing the parade reviewing stand for Obama’s second inauguration. For the president, who has too often shied from forceful leadership, the Hagel nomination was a welcome sign that he is willing to pick a fight in his second term.
(More here.)
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