In a Military Stronghold, a War Hawk Circles Back
By Paul Richter
Times Staff Writer
June 19, 2005
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — With its sprawling military bases and huge
population of military retirees, eastern North Carolina has believed in
the Iraq war, and sacrificed for it, like few other regions.
But as summer heat has settled over the piney lowlands in recent
days, a debate has unexpectedly come to life about a U.S. mission that
is two years old and counting.
New doubts and divisions have come into view.
It started this month, when Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones, an
original supporter of the war, said he had lost confidence in the
effort and would sponsor legislation calling on the administration to
more clearly define how, and when, it intended to bring the war to a
close.
Coming from the staunch conservative who renamed French fries
"freedom fries" on congressional menus, the announcement shocked many.
Back home, his change of heart brought denunciations and stirred
trouble for Jones within his local Republican Party.
But it also became clear that others in North Carolina's 3rd
Congressional District were uneasy about the war, for one reason or
another.
Service members' families, watching violence surge, fear it will
drag on indefinitely. Others worry it is damaging the military — or
that it has been prosecuted foolishly.
Jones "was right to go after the administration," said retired
Marine Col. Jim Van Riper, a veteran of Vietnam and Desert Storm who
supported the U.S. presence in Iraq but faulted the war plan. "Rumsfeld
and the neo-cons have fouled it up from the beginning."
The debate is occurring in a place where support for the military
is apparent to the most casual visitor. The highways around
Jacksonville, near the entrance to the Marines' huge Camp Lejeune, are
lined with car dealerships, military surplus stores, barber shops and
other businesses festooned with American flags. Signs urge Americans:
"Honk for the Troops" and "Pray for Our Heroes."
As tobacco farming has declined in recent decades, the military
has become more important as a part of the local economy. About 60,000
retirees live in the 3rd District, which in addition to Camp Lejeune is
home to the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, Seymour Johnson
Air Force Base, and New River Marine Corps Air Station.
But these days, residents' anxieties, as well as their pride, are near
the surface.
In the steamy parking lot of Jacksonville's Wal-Mart, Christy May,
the wife of a Marine serving in Iraq, loads plastic summertime toys for
her kids into the trunk of her car. She said she thought it would be a
mistake to set a fixed time for withdrawal.
"History shows that it wouldn't make sense for us to walk away all of a
sudden," said May, 42, of Jacksonville.
But she also acknowledges that she and her husband, a supply and
logistics specialist, are split over whether the United States should
be there at all. May is particularly anxious on this day, because her
husband told her that insurgents had blown up his unit's communications
hardware, forcing the Marines to travel by ground convoy rather than in
aircraft. "I'm really worried about him today," she said.
Nearby, Kerri Hassell of Jacksonville, a 32-year-old single mother
of three, said she was worried about the effect the war had on a number
of close friends who were Marines, including one who was godfather to
her children. She said she knew three young Marines who were about to
leave the service. All have doubts about continuing the war, she said.
"Every one wants it to end," said Hassell, a community college
student with a hairdressing business. "They don't know why they're over
there."
In her view, "the government uses the word 'terror' and it just sends
us all into a frenzy."
At the same time, the many in the area who support a continued
U.S. effort have been outspoken, and the debate has seeped into local
levels of government.
Joe McLaughlin, a former Army Ranger who sits on the Onslow County
Board of Commissioners, has proposed having the county board officially
declare its opposition to a fixed withdrawal date. He is pressing to
have the board vote on the issue at a meeting Monday.
"The worst thing we can do is to announce that we're going to pull out
by a certain date," said McLaughlin.
Tuesday, McLaughlin called for Jones to resign his post over his
proposal; later in the week, he reconsidered and withdrew that request.
McLaughlin's stance split the county commissioners. The board's
chairman, Lionell Midgett, argued that picking a fight with Jones could
backfire when the area needed federal money for dredging a wetland or
help in fighting a proposal to cut back military facilities.
Martin Aragona Sr., the county Republican chairman, said he had
been polling members of a key party committee to decide how to respond
to Jones' proposal. He said all those he'd reached wanted to take a
position strongly opposing Jones. "This is not the time to be
second-guessing the commander in chief," Aragona said.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Hugh R. Overholt, who practices law in
nearby New Bern, describes himself as a strong supporter of Jones who
"has some concerns" about setting a fixed date for withdrawing from
Iraq.
But Overholt, a former judge advocate general of the Army, said he
was concerned about what the fight had been doing to the military, both
the reserves and the active-duty force.
"I'm very concerned about our force," he said. The administration
should do what's required and "get it over as soon as possible."
The signs of anxiety in North Carolina's military heartland come
at a time when national polls suggest that more Americans are turning
against the war as the insurgency flares and costs to taxpayers show
little sign of abating.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Congress that has been reluctant to challenge
the administration on the war is suddenly pressing for answers. Jones
was joined last week by a bipartisan group in favor of a proposal that
would require the White House to submit a plan for withdrawal by the
end of the year and to begin troop reductions by October 2006.
In some ways, Jones' own history shows what makes the issue so tough
for people in his district.
The son of a 14-term House member, Jones has built his
congressional career in large part on advocacy for the military. He
voted to authorize the war, displays pictures of the dead outside his
Capitol Hill office, and has written condolence letters to the families
of hundreds of service members. The anguish of the families was a major
reason he turned against the war.
"After 2 1/2 years, it's right to take a fresh look," he told
reporters Thursday. "We have a right to ask, 'What are the goals?' "
The doubts are part of the discussion in other parts of Jones'
district, including the resorts on the Outer Banks of North Carolina,
an area that includes many wealthy areas and newcomers from the North.
Sometimes, arguments here head in a different direction.
Jack Ubert, a retiree from Amityville, N.Y., who owns a home on
the beach in well-off Emerald Island, N.C., admires Jones for "taking a
pretty tough stance." Yet he fears that in the end the United States
will "probably not win anything" from the Iraq fight — "like in
Vietnam."
"Saddam deserves whatever he gets," said Ubert, but added: "I was
never sure why we had to go in there and dictate to them. It's just
like with nuclear weapons: We think we're the only ones who should have
them. We want to make all the rules."
The debate is intensifying in North Carolina, as it is in other parts
of the country.
"Members are hearing more from people who are patriotic and really
want to see this thing turn out right, but are worried about how long
it's going to go on," said Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.). "They don't see
that light at the end of the tunnel."
Some congressional strategists said that while they still didn't
expect large numbers of Republicans to break with the president over
the war, there was a palpable nervousness as members looked to next
year's midterm elections and worried that opinion might be shifting.
Lawmakers want the administration to lay out specific goals they
can point to as a way to reassure uneasy constituents, said one
Republican strategist.
"You're hearing from some members, 'We don't know what these
[upcoming] milestones and markers are,' " said David Winston, a GOP
pollster who advised the congressional Republican leader. What they are
seeking is "not so much an exit strategy, but the sequence of things
that are going to move us closer to safety and security."
While the public's deepening pessimism is beyond dispute, it is
not clear whether the country has reached a turning point, as it did
with the Vietnam War in 1968.
Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People
and the Press, said polls were showing that people were paying close
attention to developments in Iraq, and that the number of people who
preferred withdrawal was steadily rising.
"What I see in Iraq is a steady drip, drip, drip of eroding
support for the war as the casualties mount and the instability
continues," Kohut said.
Yet he noted that Pew research showed that 52% said the troops
should stay, and he said the polls could still move in a more favorable
direction. Other polls are more pessimistic.
"I don't think opinion is entrenched," Kohut said. "There is still a
public capacity to rethink Iraq."
In North Carolina, public opinion is anything but entrenched.
Andrew deGrandpré, city editor of the Daily News of
Jacksonville, said
that although the city's bonds with the military made it distinctive,
the sentiments resembled the uneasy national conversation.
"I think deep down this place is a lot like any other in America,
and people have been debating the war and the human cost that's being
paid," DeGrandpré said. "Nobody wants to back out … but these
questions
are out there."
*
Times staff writer Tyler Marshall in Washington
contributed to this report.
