Iraq Vet Becomes A Soldier For Kerry

Jonathan Soltz's perspective as an Army captain has made him a Pa. VIP in Boston.

BOSTON - Jonathan Soltz's unlikely journey into presidential politics began with a graduate-school term paper titled "Secure Intentions, But a Less-Secure America."

Soltz, 27, a Pittsburgh-area Army veteran, argued from a unique perspective: He landed in Baghdad in May 2003, the month he survived a roadside ambush and President Bush declared major combat over in Iraq.

The 16-page paper, forwarded from one e-mail inbox to another, eventually made it to Sen. John Kerry, who recruited Soltz to head Pennsylvania Veterans for Kerry.

Now, Soltz is a veteran VIP at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, sitting on stage with Kerry's Swift-boat crewmates at a brimming rally yesterday, mixing with members of Congress at private parties, and learning ways to spread the campaign's message around the state this fall.

He is also accepting accolades from former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, a Vietnam veteran who lost three limbs.

"His leadership is unquestioned," Cleland said in an interview. "The struggles he is having are the same struggles we had when we returned."

It's an improbable rise for Soltz, a political novice and stoic soldier who was deploying convoys in Baghdad as an Army captain a year ago, his doubts deepening over America's involvement in Iraq.

Soltz left the country in September 2003, finished a 4 1/2-year activation in December and returned to Allegheny County, where he enrolled in the University of Pittsburgh's school of public and international affairs. A native of Maryland, he had moved to Western Pennsylvania after high school to attend Washington & Jefferson College.

While at Pitt, he began questioning Bush's war policies, in class and in private with his professor, Donald Goldstein. Eventually, Soltz put his thoughts on paper. "A foreign policy too vast, an army too small," he said was the gist of what he wrote.

"You go it alone, that burdens the military," Soltz said, referring to Bush's decision to go into Iraq without U.N. approval. "How do you keep good people in?"

In April, a campaign aide unexpectedly called Soltz, told him Kerry read his paper and wanted to meet him. A 10-minute private talk at Pittsburgh International Airport carried over to a cell-phone call the next day, said Soltz and campaign aides.

"He helped me realize I relate more to a combat vet like him than people my own age," said Soltz, whose job as state coordinator is to recruit thousands of veterans into the campaign.

He will be challenged by State Sen. John Pippy, another veteran of the Iraq war who heads Veterans for Bush in Pennsylvania. "The world will be a safer place because we got involved" in Iraq, Pippy said yesterday.

Soltz said removing Saddam Hussein was "morally right," but with no weapons of mass destruction found - Bush's main reason for going into Iraq - the President has lost credibility, Soltz said.

That's been the rallying point among veterans in Boston, some of whom gathered with Soltz at a chic mansion Sunday with Cleland and former Sen. Bob Kerrey.

Another view.

Observations by an Air Force Pilot.

I'm confident that in approximately 15 minutes this article will be in the inboxes of every resident of the free world and maybe even a few people in France. Chris Thomas, Air Force Pilot:

I would like to add my two cents about my John Kerry experience. During my career as an Air Force pilot, I spent two years flying a small twin engine prop plane around the Pacific from my base in Okinawa, Japan. On one trip we had to fly Senator Kerry, his congressional aide, and a Navy Captain (Vietnam, A-4 fighter pilot) who was also in Kerry's party to various locations in Vietnam and Cambodia as part of the MIA/POW talks.

When I met him, he was wearing a shirt with a picture of his sailboat on it. I told him I had a 27' sailboat in Okinawa, he remarked "Oh I never sail on anything less than 135 feet."

Thanks, Senator, "I feel even better about the meager salary I get paid for flying you around the Pacific." When we first flew him into Phnom Penh, he went to the back of the airplane and grabbed the pizza that was put aside for the crew and passed it around to his staff. He was never offered any pizza because they were supposed to have lunch with the Cambodian government when we landed. The pizza was the crew's only meal for that day and he ate it.

Then when we picked him up in Cambodia, he was an hour late getting to the airport. Because fuel was an issue, we could not start the engines and therefore the air conditioning until he arrived. Phnom Penh at that time was over 100 degrees with 95% humidity and we were basically sitting in a greenhouse behind the cockpit windows.

When he finally did arrive, we were wringing out our clothes from the perspiration. He walks out of the air conditioned car, into the airplane and asks us "Could you guys get the air-conditioning running, I'm a little warm?" The other pilot had to physically restrain me from going back there and picking a fight.

Then we took him into Noi Bai airfield in Hanoi.

After we picked him up the next day (he stayed the night in Vietnam, we stayed in Bangkok) we taxied out, ran up the engines for take off and noticed that our prop rpm was vibrating all over the place. We taxied off to the side to look at it, but there was a good possibility that there was an engine malfunction and the engine may fail if we took off with it.

Well, Mr. Senator sticks his head up in the cockpit and says "This plane WILL take off, I have a press conference in Bangkok in three hours!" (Maybe this is an indication of how he will run the FAA).

American service members lives be damned, we had our Senatorial orders. We ran the engines again, and did not have the problem, so we took off and made it back. During the flight, he told everyone how he had taken a Cessna (a small General aviation plane)up with a fighter pilot, and the fighter pilot remarked that Kerry was one of the best pilots he had ever seen. I don't know about other pilots out there,but it's hard to imagine a little, single-engine prop plane pilot being able to show the "right stuff."

After Kerry left the plane, the Navy Captain came up to us, apologized and said basically that "he knows Kerry is a jerk" and that we should be glad we don't have to deal with him every day. Your choice folks. Elections in November. You want a mega-millionaire ego-maniac it's-all-about-me crew-eating-pizza-ite like Kerry or maybe a Green Party candidate like Ralph Nader? Or, God forbid, maybe even re-elect George Bush, a nice God fearing Christian bent on protecting us from terrorist attacks on US soil? Hmmm, let's see?

Soltz said removing Saddam Hussein was "morally right," but with no weapons of mass destruction found - Bush's main reason for going into Iraq - the President has lost credibility, Soltz said.

He thinks it was morally right for the U.S. to remove Saddam. Regarding WMD's no one can see into the future - most intelligence agencies around the world believed Saddam did indeed have WMD's. Without the invasion we would still be wondering. This guy is probably a Democrat and is letting himself be used by the Kerry campaign. It is not all that unusual. He is young and impressionable and probably enjoys having people in the campaign fawn over him. Sad thing is that this young man's views don't seem all that unreasonable but he is letting himself be used by people who expound super-heated rhetoric and irrational conspiracy theories that ultimately weaken America's resvole while our soldiers are in comabat.

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