The Three Conversions of Walter B. Jones
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THE KETTLE DINER is as close as you'll get to the center of daily social life in Jacksonville, North Carolina. It sits astride Marine Boulevard, the city's main drag, which is lined with tattoo and piercing parlors, thrift stores, pawn shops, Saigon Sam's souvenir shop, and Crazy Cuts ("Specializing in military haircuts"). Inside the Kettle Diner on an overcast fall afternoon, Mac McGee, a 26-year veteran of the Marines and a leader of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, is sipping coffee. McGee is 68—his hair, still buzz cut, is gray now. He served three tours in Vietnam. On Iraq, he says, "We need some sort of exit strategy. We don't want another Vietnam, and let's face it, that's where we're headed." Do the boys at Camp Lejeune want out of the war? "They haven't said it," he says. "But I'm sure they're starting to feel that way. I think they're starting to get tired."
Randy Reichler, who shows up at the Kettle later that afternoon, works at Camp Lejeune; he says that when Jones first announced his shift, the anger on the base was palpable. A thin, angular man with blue eyes and gray hair that tumbles down into sideburns, Reichler runs Camp Lejeune's Retired Affairs Office, helping Marines plan their transition back to civilian life. Many people on the base "believe that Jones' statements did hurt us," he says, and some have accused him of wanting "to cut and run, give aid to the enemy." But still, he adds, "some of them say, ‘You know what? We do need an exit strategy.'"
In his office, Jones keeps a portrait of six-year-old Tyler Jones, whose father was killed in Iraq in 2003.
Around the district, reaction to Jones' shift was similarly mixed. "It was about half and half," Jones guesses—an estimate that dovetails with a statewide poll last summer by the Raleigh News and Observer, which found that only 42 percent of Tarheel voters felt the war had been worthwhile. Jones' staffers recall fielding outraged phone calls from veterans, military retirees, and conservative activists. "The phone would ring, and you could tell what was coming just by their tone of voice," says Lilley. There were murmurs about a primary challenge in 2006. But Jones made repeated trips to Jacksonville and explained his stance, holding no-holds-barred town meetings and confronting his critics.
The strategy worked. At the Barnes & Noble café in Greenville, Steve Moore, a beefy retired teacher, says that "what Jones did made my eyes pop open." But, adds Moore—a longtime Democrat who has been voting Republican the past few years—opinion in Farmville is no longer uniformly pro-war. "I'm totally surprised," he says, "at how much opposition to the war there is." A few tables over, Bohdan Leskiw, whose brother served in the Marines, says pushing the president on a timeline for withdrawal "doesn't sound like a bad idea. We can't really send out men to fight and die in that situation."
Brian Colligan, editorial page editor of the Greenville Daily Reflector, says he too has noticed a change. "Especially in the areas around the military bases, you tend to get the expected blind support of the troops and of the war, at least until recently," he says, sitting in his sun-filled office at the paper. "Now people are beginning to separate the two. And it's interesting that Jones has been on the leading edge of that change in sentiment."
In Washington, the congressman's shift has been greeted with less enthusiasm. "Lately, we've been hearing a lot from the ‘blame America first' crowd," says Rep. Robin Hayes (R.-N.C.), without naming Jones specifically. "It is wrong to cut and run on the Iraqi people." The pro-war writer Chris- topher Hitchens called Jones a "moral and political cretin." And when President Bush came to Fayetteville, North Carolina, to give a speech on Iraq last June, Jones was not invited.
The snub from the commander in chief didn't faze the congressman, who has begun disagreeing with Republican leaders on other hot-button topics. He remains one of the House's most visible Christian conservatives; among his legislative goals is a bill—prompted by his discovery of a children's book on two kings who get married to each other—that would create local councils to monitor books in libraries and schools. But on other issues he regularly departs from the party line; he has clashed with the GOP leadership on environmental legislation and voted against the No Child Left Behind Act as well as President Bush's prescription drug plan. The wave of scandals and investigations currently rocking Washington, he says, "might be an opportunity for a purge. The sun has got to shine."
Mostly, Jones has been busy recruiting other Republicans to support his push to hold the administration accountable on Iraq. He's won over at least a half-dozen. "All we're trying to do," he says, "is to start a debate about bringing an end to the war." He insists he isn't worried his independent streak might lose him favor with the White House, party leaders, constituents, or anyone else. Sitting in his Capitol Hill office, the Faces of the Fallen standing sentry in the hall, he has the air of a man utterly convinced of his decision. "I didn't come up here to seek power or to get a chairmanship," he says. "I want to do what I think my Lord wants me to do."
Robert Dreyfuss is a contributing writer for Mother Jones.
Photo: Michelle Asselin/Corbis
