A watchful eye...
My election to Congress, never having held elected office, at the age of sixty-four, after not even being selected in the primary election, was, at best, a combination of unique circumstances. My leaving Congress after a single term, a clear indication that I am a lousy politician.
Most generals are. They may be good at the politics of the Pentagon, or the politics of their particular service, but as a general rule, in my humble opinion, they’re lousy elective politicians. That’s why you see so few of them in Congress or other elective office.
But this isn’t a story about why I believe flag officers make poor politicians. This is a story about my first day on the House Armed Services Committee.
Every Congressman with a military installation in their district wants to sit on the HASC, as it’s called. Easy to see why. All legislation dealing with the military must go through the HASC. Pity the poor Congressman with a military installation and no seat at the table. The HASC committee table, that is.
Since Scott Air Force Base is located in the congressional district I was elected to represent, I, of course, put in a bid for membership on the HASC.
Let me explain how committee assignments work. Newly elected congressmen and women put in a bid to serve on their committees of choice. The assignments are determined by their party’s leadership, so if the leadership likes you, or if you have a particular skill, or if the leadership believes you’d be a good fit on the committee, you get your assignment of choice.
The HASC is the largest committee in the house with sixty-two members, but even as the largest committee not everyone who wants to serve on it gets the assignment.
The Democrats were in the minority during my term and thus Nancy Pelosi, now speaker of the house, was the minority leader. As the only retired general serving in the house at that time, I was a logical choice for the coveted assignment.
During my nearly thirty-six years of military service, I lived by the military maxim, “if you’re on time, you’re late”. Congressional schedules are notoriously overbooked, so it’s hard, if not impossible, to live by that maxim, but for the first several weeks of my term I held to it, at least for committee meetings.
Although Congressmen, unlike Senators, do not have assigned seats in the House chamber, they do have assigned seats in committee rooms. Seating is based on party and seniority. Democrats always on the left. Junior members closest to the witness tables.
Entering the ornate conference room for the first time, a few minutes before the meeting was to begin, I quickly found my name tag at my assigned seat. Bottom row, all the way to the left. Sixty-one vacant seats to my right and behind me. A few staff members bustling about, but no other congressmen.
Microphone with red and green switch in front of each seat. A bottle of water to the right of the microphone and a file folder placed squarely in front of each plush chair. It needs to be a plush chair because sometimes you sit there for hours!
Although I’d been on Capitol Hill many times as a military officer, it had been to meet with senators, congressmen and their staffers to discuss military wants and needs. I’d never testified before the HASC and certainly never been on the side of the railing where the ranks of power-suited congressmen and women sat.
All or parts of my district had been represented by legendary congressmen. Congressmen who have dams and highways and federal buildings named after them. Congressmen like Kenny Gray, Jerry Costello and the unforgettable Mel Price. Congressman Price, or Mel, as he was known to every East-Sider, was of mythic proportion to not only his constituents, but all who served in the military, from World War II through the late 1980’s.
Mel was a corporal in the Army when he was elected to Congress in 1944. He served on the HASC form 1944 until his death in 1988. He served as chairman from 1975 until 1985. As a young airman at Scott Air Force Base, it amused me to see generals snap to attention when this short, paunchy, bald, bespectacled old guy in a rumpled gray suit would show up.
Mel’s ability to get things done for servicemembers and their families was known far and wide. I can’t count the number of stories I’ve heard about Mel getting a junior servicemember home for a family crisis. Stories that stretched back sometimes three generations. Entire families voted for Mel because of what he’d done for the brother or sister, or father or grandfather when they were serving. By the time I took my seat in the committee room I’d been hearing these stories for more than forty years.
Congress has many hallowed traditions. One of those traditions is that each committee chair has his or her portrait painted after their term in office. The huge oil portrait is then hung in the committee hearing room. The walls of the committee rooms are lined with these daunting portraits of past policymakers.
As I took my seat in the nearly empty hearing room, I glanced up and straight ahead. Staring down at me was Mel Price. Mr. Armed Forces Committee for more than four decades. Gone now for two and a half decades.
Mel Price watched every motion, every speech, every vote taken by me in that hearing room. Every time I took that seat under his watchful eye, I was reminded that my duties weren’t just to my constituents, nor just to my political party, nor just to the generals, but to all service members and to all of our great nation.
Sometimes I took votes my party leaders didn’t like. Sometimes I took votes some of my constituents didn’t like. Sometimes I took votes the Pentagon didn’t like. Every vote I took was under the watchful eye of Mel Price reminding me it didn’t matter whether my vote was liked. It mattered whether it was the right vote.
(c) William L. Enyart
Reflections From The River
www.billenyart.com
Email: bill@billenyart.com
