malskid

Senator Mark O Hatfield…An American Hero….

Senator Mark Hatfield, from my home state Oregon, was against the first Gulf war in Iraq. He passed away in 2011… Mark Odom Hatfield was born July 12, 1922, in the rural logging town of Dallas, Oregon, and graduated from Willamette University in Salem in 1943. He joined the Navy and served as a landing craft officer during the World War II invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He was one of the first U.S. troops to enter Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped. In the day, he told majority leader, Bob Dole that he would offer to resign as a Senator rather than support then first Iraq war. Dole said no and he would respect his decision… another honorable WW II Statesman. In my opinion, those who have seen war up close and personal, like Iwo Jima and Hiroshima, should be given great consideration for their insight. Here is a guy who saw the real horrors of war… not the HBO series…. and stood up against a war that most of us were for…at the time. The moral of the story is…those who do not know the evil and cruelty of war, are quick to make the decision to enter war…. I was mad at Mark Hatfield at the time… I have reconsidered my sentiment…