In July, 2006, my family moved to northern Virginia from Cairo, Egypt. Our two years in Egypt were the best of our Navy career - we made friends that will last a lifetime, got to see and do things that most people only dream of, and my husband's job was one brought more personal satisfaction than almost any other tour in his (then) 18 years in the United States Navy. After spending our tour in a vibrant city halfway around the world, we were not thrilled about returning to the DC area for the 4th time.
Our tour in Egypt changed my husband and me, and when we returned here in the summer of 2006, I was fed up with the way things were going in this country. Living in a Muslim country and seeing things through a different set of eyes made me question what exactly our foreign policy was, what it was accomplishing and most importantly, where it would take us in the years to come.
I was following the Virginia Senate race closely, and remember watching the debate between then Sen. George Allen and his opponent, Jim Webb, at a hotel in Tysons Corner. My kids were bugging me to take them to the pool, but I wanted to watch and see what the candidates had to say. I was immediately impressed with Jim Webb and his thoughtful, reasonable responses to questions, as opposed to George Allen's 30 second soundbite answers and standby "I stand strong for freedom" blather.
One afternoon, after getting my youngest son on the bus for afternoon kindergarten, I drove down to Jim Webb's statewide headquarters to volunteer my time. I became one of about 30 "Office Assistants" - all volunteers - who did various office tasks like staffing phone banks, dealing with online requests for voting information and absentee ballots, general computer work, and whatever office assignments came up. I LOVED IT!! The feeling of working - for free - with similar minded Democrats who were at their wits ends with both a sitting Senator and a President who could barely put together two coherent sentences in a row....well, it was awesome.
One of the things I respect most about Jim Webb is how he treated his military service and that of his son during the campaign. He neither ran from it nor made it the centerpiece of his campaign. His campaign literature rarely mentioned the awards he earned in combat: the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts. He refused to release the citation he received for earning the Navy Cross - second only to the Medal of Honor for bravery in combat - so the Virginian Pilot ran it in their endorsement of him. Jim Webb missed a traditional Labor Day parade because he wanted to be among the families watching their sons and daughters deploy to Iraq.
People say that George Allen lost because of "Macaca", but I really believe he lost because Jim Webb has a way of speaking for solidly middle class Americans who believe in national service, who believe in being paid a fair wage for a fair day's work, who believe that their government should be trusted and not feared.
I'm proud of my very, very small role in electing Jim Webb to the United States Senate from the great state of Virginia. I consider it one of the best things I've ever done. He's done great work there; the first piece of legislation he introduced was the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act. As another veteran put it, Jim Webb did more in one day to help veterans than George Allen did in 6 years. That's why I supported Jim Webb for Senate in the fall of '06, and that's why I hope that Jim Webb is on both short lists for Vice President.
Here's is Sen. Jim Webb's response to President Bush's 2007 State of the Union address, in two parts:
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