By Kevin Cramsey, Harrisburg Political Buzz Examiner
February 3, 2010
Congressman John Murtha, back in the news because of ongoing health problems, draws some rather stern invective from those who post comments on web sites that this writer tends to scan.
“Traitor” and “thief” were among the epithets directed toward the congressman. Other persons commenting were not exactly wishing him a speedy recovery.
The vitriol generally stems from Murtha’s anti-war comments of a couple years back, when he emerged as the Democratic Party’s spokesman against the Iraq War and the policies of the Bush administration.
Murtha’s stance and the national coverage it was receiving had reached a zenith in spring/summer 2006.
Interestingly, this is the same time frame during which Murtha traveled to the headquarters of the Pennsylvania National Guard at Fort Indiantown Gap, Lebanon County, to celebrate the “roll out” of the Guard’s Stryker Brigade Combat Team. He was the keynote speaker and the biggest VIP of the day.
The Pennsylvania Guard is the only National Guard unit in the country to be funded and trained for the Army's Stryker program. Murtha, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, was a major reason the PA Guard was selected.
The conversion to Stryker was a financial juggernaut for Pennsylvania in a variety of ways, including hundreds of millions of dollars in new construction across the commonwealth in communities where Guard Stryker units are located. The Stryker cost to taxpayers was estimated at about $1.5 billion.
It also resulted in the Pennsylvania National Guard playing a beefed-up role in the very war Murtha had spoken out against. Approximately 4,000 Pennsylvania guardsmen deployed to Iraq for nine months as part of the 56th Stryker Brigade.
Murtha’s Iraq posture and his role in bringing Stryker to Pennsylvania seem to be at odds, but politics is, after all, a funny business. Few things are cut and dry.
On one hand, you had Murtha the statesman doing his party’s bidding and tapping into a growing disenchantment with the Iraq War. On the other, you had Murtha, a king of pork barrel spending, bringing home the bacon to his home state.
For many years, long before Stryker, Murtha has been closely tied to the Pennsylvania Guard. Ever wondered why there were so many Guard assets in little old Johnstown, Cambria County? Wonder no further.
The PA Guard's grateful brass has been bowing down to Murtha for years. Last year, they went so far as to enshrine him in the state's military Hall of Fame.
When Murtha cancelled out on attending the ceremony at Fort Indiantown Gap, the new plan was to fly the Guard’s adjutant general and other appropriate brass to Johnstown to induct Murtha on his own turf. A case of the mountain going to Mohammad, if you will.
That my friends, is clout.
And it pretty well sums up the relationship between Murtha and the Pennsylvania National Guard.
The “get well soon, congressman” cards, courtesy of the Guard brass, are probably in the mail as I write. A stark contrast to sentiments expressed in cyberspace.