Posted on 07/28/2008 9:45:28 AM PDT by jazusamo
Merrill "Tony" McPeak of Lake Oswego advises the Democratic hopeful on military matters
LAKE OSWEGO -- Somewhere on the scale between swagger and shuffle, gruff and glib sits Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak, Oregon's answer to the Great Santini.
Santini was a fictional Marine pilot whose intense assessments of right and wrong, duty and cowardice got him crosswise with, well, almost everyone he encountered. But he was one heck of a pilot.
McPeak? He's Air Force, for starters, keeps his cool a little more and gets along better with others. But he exhibits the same curt impatience for ineptitude, be it moral or political. And, according to those who've seen him in action, he's also one heck of a pilot.
Which all helps explain how the Grants Pass High School grad and one-time President Bush-backer finds himself among Sen. Barack Obama's inner circle of advisers. As one of a dozen national campaign co-chairmen, McPeak has schooled Obama on foreign policy and military issues, introduced him at more than a dozen campaign rallies and stood in frequently as a campaign surrogate with news media.
"He's someone who understands what a commander in chief will have to deal with," says Nayyera Haq, spokeswoman for the Obama campaign. "He's a Republican who crossed party lines. He was an obvious choice."
McPeak, who admits his own flaws as readily as he condemns them in others, downplays his impact on the presidential race between Obama, an Illinois Democrat, and Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican.
But in a contest that could turn on issues of national security and the war in Iraq, McPeak, the former chief of the U.S. Air Force, has given Obama, who never served in uniform, valuable credibility on military and warfare issues.
Obama's fitness to be commander in chief, McPeak says, was an issue when he first entered the race and will continue to be a concern with voters right up to when they cast their ballots. It's not, however, an issue with McPeak.
"He has gut-fighting sidewalk smarts that have allowed him to prevail when people said he couldn't," McPeak says over a cup of coffee at Blue Joe, his favorite Lake Oswego cafe. "And he did it in a way that they didn't even know their throats were cut until they tried to smile."
No wonder the two hit it off.
It's the summer of 1954, a hot day in Grants Pass. Kids are diving off a log anchored in the middle of the bitingly cold Rogue River. Tony McPeak, on break from San Diego State College, is lifeguarding to earn the spending money he'll need when he goes back to school.
Bill Hamilton, a Grants Pass pharmacist who went to high school with McPeak and lifeguarded with him, recalls what happened next. "A kid comes up and says, 'Hey, there's somebody who's gone down.' "
McPeak, a tall, skinny guy who excelled on his school debate team, bolts into the river, dives to the bottom and heads downstream of the log. Somehow, he finds the boy, hauls him to the surface and up on the bank.
"He had actually stopped breathing," Hamilton says. "We pumped him. Someone called an ambulance. He made it."
McPeak, too, finds a way to prevail. He grew up poor, but got a scholarship that paid his tuition. He joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps in college because it offered $1 a day. Between classes, he pumped gas, washed dishes and "hashed" at a campus fraternity
The military wasn't exactly a calling, but the idea of flying intrigued him, so he joined the Air Force. Lightning reflexes, such as the ones that saved the boy's life that day on the Rogue, put him in the elite ranks of fliers.
During the Vietnam War, he became part of a secret flying squadron called "Misty" that served as forward observers along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, spotting targets and calling in airstrikes.
"You had to be rather fearless," says John Hammar of Montgomery, Ala., who served in Misty around the same time as McPeak. "Usually you were hunting trucks and convoys. Sometimes you'd take ground fire. Sometimes you get shot down."
McPeak flew 269 combat missions in Vietnam. Many vets came home shattered. Not McPeak. He moved up, becoming a four-star general who served four years on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"I spent 37 years either fighting somebody or getting ready to, and loved every minute -- including Vietnam," McPeak says. "But I was a professional. This was my job."
Yes, he thought U.S. policy on Vietnam was misguided, just as he thinks it now is in Iraq.
But, he says, "you don't want fighter pilots who spend all their time in introspection."
It's midwinter in Iowa. The roads glisten with ice. McPeak relaxes in the cushy seat of a charter bus. The only other riders are Obama and a couple of top campaign staff.
"I got to know him in the context of cold pizza and Diet Cokes," McPeak says. "That was a highlight for me because it was so personal. We're not talking national security. We're watching NCAA basketball on satellite TV. We're betting on the games."
Not so long ago, McPeak wagered on Republicans to run the country. He was Oregon co-chairman of "Veterans for Bush" during the 2000 campaign. He was a staunch conservative and had advised the elder President Bush as a member of the Joint Chiefs.
Former Rep. Denny Smith, R-Ore., also a fighter pilot, was the other co-chairman. He says McPeak was deeply interested in Republican politics, even attending a precinct meeting in Clackamas County.
Then, Smith says, "something happened that he was very unhappy about."
Smith says he doesn't know what triggered McPeak's decision to leave the party. McPeak says he was turned off by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney's go-it-alone policies, which he says helped alienate the United States from the rest of the world. But the clincher, he says, was the invasion of Iraq -- a decision he opposed from the outset.
"I didn't leave" the Republican Party, he says. "I was tossed out. I was tossed out by foolishness in Washington."
He registered as an independent and started helping Democrats. He first signed on with Howard Dean's presidential bid. Then, after Dean self-destructed, he joined Sen. John Kerry's campaign.
McPeak, now a registered Democrat, says he regrets endorsing Bush without doing his homework. "If I had met him I would have understood immediately the guy was kind of shallow."
Meeting Obama for the first time, McPeak says, was electric.
"I sound like a case of puppy love," McPeak says. "I'm a 72-year-old guy with scar tissue on top of my other scar tissue. I'm not that easy to impress." But, he says, "this guy has just got 20,000 volts running through him."
Three months after Obama scored big in the Iowa caucuses, his campaign bus rolls into Oregon and down the Willamette Valley to Salem. McPeak's on it. During a break, a reporter asks him about a statement by former President Clinton that a campaign between his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and McCain would involve "two people who loved this country."
"It sounds more like Joe McCarthy," McPeak says, comparing Clinton to the communist-hunting senator of the 1950s.
The comments prompt immediate scorn from the Clinton camp. McPeak calls Obama and offers to resign. Obama declines, but dispatches aides for a gentle chat, suggesting that the brusque McPeak choose his words more carefully.
Back at the Blue Joe coffeehouse, McPeak assesses his shortcomings. "I'm blunt, and bluntness is not the name of the game in politics," he says. "It's careful calibration, and I'm not very good at it."
He also admits to a reckless streak. About a year and a half ago, he was stopped and cited for driving under the influence of intoxicants. He pleaded guilty and was ordered to a diversion program.
"It was a bad mistake, very stupid," he says. "I had to go to rehab. I haven't had anything to drink since."
At a rocky outcropping on the Willamette River, McPeak, still as tall and lanky as his Rogue River days, tosses a rubber float into the water and watches as his yellow lab, Sophie, leaps in to fetch it. The river's a short walk from McPeak's Lake Oswego condo. It's clear he relishes the time with his dog.
With the primary over, McPeak has cut back on his work with the Obama campaign, spending more time on his own pursuits. He's a member of nearly a dozen corporate boards and travels frequently to attend meetings. He has started a biotech company that's working on a product he's not ready to discuss publicly.
Earlier in the week, he says he saw a diminishing role for himself in the campaign, but Haq, the Obama spokeswoman, disagrees, calling him "still a valuable member of the team."
As Sophie drops the rubber float at his feet, McPeak acknowledges he may be called on to attend the Democratic National Convention next month.
"You know, I don't go around trying" to get invited to campaign events, he says with typical candor. "When they want me, they call. They usually give me about five minutes notice."
Be back later. Thanks for the ping.
LOL! I’ll bet you’re right.
Lake Ego?
ygbsm ... !
What I remember about McPeak is that he kept everything in constant chaos and turmoil. He changed the regulation numbering system, he changed the specialty codes, he changed the uniforms, he mandated that all regulations be only a single page - and they ended up being 5 pt type with no margins to meet some capricious standard that he made up. His decisions were arbitrary and not well thought out. They cost the taxpayers billions and wasted incalculable time and resources when the Air Force didn’t have them to spare. Every regulation in the Air Force had to be rewritten to meet his ridiculous whims. All of this detracted from the mission and hurt readiness.
I was goint to read this just to see why oregon needed a “general”, but as soon as I saw the name McPeek, I stopped reading.
Hah! I was only going to read a little of it but it was so comical I had to read it all.
LOL So true
Someone should let Harry Esteve know who the “fictional character” the Great Santini was.
http://www.taiyin.net/conroy/santinieulogy.html
Thanks for linking that, Pam. I’ll send that to Esteve and maybe, just maybe he’ll realize the fictional Santina was based on a real person.
Ah Yes Ole Maggot Infected Weasel Clark, the perfumed pink panty wearing pentagon poster boy of the Clintoons, aka the killer of innocent Americans civilians at Waco and innocent Christian civilians in Serbia.
Clark is shown below enjoying a gay happy moment, with no socks while being very light in his loafers!”
So are McPeak and Clark really good friends?
I have no idea but it really wouldn't surprise me if they were.
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I myself was never in SAC.. and I use to think that it was alright that it went away... but now I think a bit differently.
I was SHOCKED when Cyber Command was standing up... and saw that they used the Old SAC shield for its emblem..
It appears that I am not the only one who has bad memories of Chief of Staff McPeak.
I can remember being in Korea in 1990 just before the DESERT STORM lit off.. and being dragged down into SongTong Si for a big party.. When I asked what it was for.. I was told that it was the celebration that General McPeak was leaving PACAF to become the Air Combat Command Commander...
Every person at the party hated his policies and him.. and the person who took me down there as a E-4 Sergeant was a O-6 that I worked with frequently.
Then General Dugan was removed from the Chief of Staff position by George Bush, Sr. for saying to the press that our forces were going to take casualties when the conflict started.. and McPeak was named as his succesor.. That very same O-6 took me down into the ville with a bunch of other people.. and we had a wake for the nomination.
The Colonel later resigned his commission nearly 9 months after Desert Storm ended.. and he wrote me a email.. and told me that I should consider getting out because the changes were going to hurt.. But I stayed on.. but he was right, it hurt later on...
You mean he did not really fly 200+ missions over Vietnam? Did he embellish his War record like John Effin Kerry?
“What kind of a veteran career military man would support John Kerry?”
A military man just like John Kerry, that’s what kind.
You mean he did not really fly 200+ missions over Vietnam? Did he embellish his War record like John Effin Kerry?
No I meant to say that the picture painted him out to have just dusted off the grease and blood from his jump suit after being the cold-hearted, steely eyed ace of a fighter pilot... and by the grace of God and his fine psyche was able to avoid combat related "PTSD" or some other malady that "shatters" vets. Puhleeze, I'm sick of all the cr#p that everybody in a FAO comes back needing a psych evaluation and medications.
War changes everybody. Combat changes your outlook and effects everybody, differently. But this constant mantra by the left that all the men that are rotated to overseas assignments is just another attempt to weaken our resolve and put doubt in our men serving.
I really don't give a rat's a## if McPeak flew 400 missions. From what I've read, he screwed up the USAF and was a clown. Reading on what he supports and the manner in which he conducts himself, he needs to join the weasel, Clark.
The guy set the AF back 20 years and they’re still trying to recover.
ROTFLOL!
Excellent!
You have to know that this state is Union Owned now...
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