Joseph Sabino Mistick: Max Cleland, American hero

When Max Cleland died last week in Atlanta, America lost a hero, in this case a man who also left a blueprint for how to live a life of service. Cleland was a U.S. senator, Veterans Affairs administrator, state senator and Georgia secretary of state. And he was a constant reminder of the sacrifices that we demand of young Americans at war.

In 1968, Capt. Cleland stepped from a helicopter in Vietnam, picked up a stray grenade that he thought he had dropped and lost an arm and both legs when it exploded. That would have been the end for most of us, but three years later the 25-year-old Silver Star and Bronze Star winner ran for the state Senate and won.

Starting at the state level and throughout his federal career, Cleland was a natural champion of veterans, but he was not a one-issue politician. A moderate Democrat by the standards of those days, he supported Republican budget proposals, but he was pro-environment and pro-choice. He supported free trade, even with Vietnam, and held the middle ground on defense and national security.

Cleland was a political mixed bag for Georgians, but he was an honest broker and he brought home the bacon. Still, when he ran for reelection to the U.S. Senate in 2002, Republican Saxby Chambliss ran an ad with pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden that questioned Cleland’s patriotism and claimed that he broke his oath “to protect and defend the Constitution.”

It was breathtakingly outrageous, especially coming from Chambliss, who stayed out of the war with a student deferment and claims of football injuries. But it worked, and Cleland was defeated, even after Republican senators John McCain and Chuck Hagel — Vietnam War heroes, too — demanded successfully that the ad come down.

The Chambliss loss triggered Cleland’s PTSD, reminding us that not all veterans’ injuries are visible. After group therapy helped him recover, he went public with military writer Thomas E. Ricks, saying, “I went down — physically, mentally, emotionally — down into the deepest, darkest hole of my life. I had several moments when I just didn’t want to live.”

If you were a post-World War II baby boomer like me, you revered those who sacrificed in that war and returned home to raise families, work in the factories and become volunteer firefighters. They were your Little League coach who was severely burned in the tank corps and the dad across the street who lost a hand in the infantry. Each one was a living civics lesson.

And that was Cleland’s gift to us, too. When you saw him, his injuries were so severe and his sacrifice so great that you might want to look away. But he held his place among us, and looking away was never an option. It was as if he was saying, “Here I am. This is the cost of freedom. This is what sacrifice looks like.”

That is why Veterans Day and Memorial Day and Flag Day are big deals. That is why war memorials and veterans’ graves must be maintained and visited. And that is why we ask our veterans to parade down main streets across America, to keep teaching us the value of freedom, just like Max Cleland.