Defiant Iraq War Foe Defined by Vietnam
2006-10-27
Source: Washington Post
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rss feedJames Webb will tell you that he is first a writer, with several best-selling novels to his name. He is also the descendant of brave-hearted Scots-Irish who stood up to English kings. He is a husband and father of four.
But above all, Webb is still in his heart a combat Marine. His defining moment came in Vietnam, and he remains loyal to the men he led and the memories he formed there. Once a year or so he reunites with former comrades. At Arlington National Cemetery, he visits the graves of others, often leaving Marlboro cigarettes for his buddy, Snake.
Now, Webb, a Naval Academy graduate who once dreamed of wearing a Marine Corps general's stars, has become a face of the movement against the Iraq war. The man who admired President Ronald Reagan and served his Republican administration as a cocky secretary of the Navy is one of the Democrats' best hopes to wrest control of the Senate from the GOP as he challenges incumbent George Allen.
That this warrior rails against the war is only one of the contradictions in Webb's life, just a hint of the complexities and ironies that make him an uneasy candidate. He has switched from Democrat to Republican and back to Democrat -- first in anger because of President Jimmy Carter's pardon of people who avoided the draft, and now because of the Iraq war.
At 60, Webb, who says he loves writing because of the independence -- "You can sit on a park bench, and no one knows who the hell you are" -- is running for a chamber where there is no anonymity, and people can't switch parties when things don't go their way. Even his good friends question whether he has the temperament to serve in Congress.
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