Former Rep. Pete McCloskey gives one of his Purple Hearts to

[hifiguy]

Rep. Jackie Speier. A great story.

Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey, the former eight-term Bay Area congressman, led six bayonet charges as the head of his platoon while in Korea. The holder of two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and the Navy Cross, he returned home to dedicate his public life to fighting for peace and the environment.

Now 84, with a square face and shock of white hair, McCloskey prefers not to recount the battles that twice left him wounded, telling a documentarian not long ago that recounting his experience would be "unseemly" braggadocio. Instead, the longtime Republican-turned-Democrat recounted a dream he can't seem to shake: Teenage faces of enemy soldiers in a trench gaze up at him before he fires.

Jackie Speier was a 28-year-old staffer who accompanied then-Rep. Leo Ryan to Guyana in 1978 to investigate Jim Jones and his People's Temple for alleged human rights abuses. Their entourage was ambushed as they shuttled defectors onto an airplane, and Speier was shot five times as she lay on the jungle tarmac in a polka-dot dress. She waited 22 hours for help. Ryan was killed.



http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-purple-heart-20120611,0,7093953.story

[Gregorian]

1. I always thought of him as a Democrat.

I will always remember the night I met him in a tiny rural grocery store. He was fit and youthful. And when he left, it was in a beat up little Volkswagen beetle. I can't believe how old he looks now. Shoot, time just keeps moving.

That's a hell of a gesture he made to Jackie.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

2. Amazing person.

McCloskey, a Stanford Law School graduate and former Marine Corps colonel, was elected to Congress in 1967. But his politics were far from party-line. He was the first Republican to oppose the Vietnam War and the first congressman to call for President Nixon's impeachment.

[Old and In the Way]

3. They don't make Republicans like Pete McCloskey anymore.

Or Bill Cohen. And we're a lot worse for that.

[Tx4obama]

4. K & R :) n/t