Heart of a Patriot

A veteran's 'Heart': Cleland book covers more than politics
By Press-Register Correspondent
November 01, 2009, 2:01PM
Heart of a Patriot: How I Found the Courage to Survive Vietnam, Walter Reed and Karl Rove

By Max Cleland with Ben Raines; Simon and Schuster, $26

Reviewed by SCOTTY E. KIRKLAND/Special to the Press-Register
The intoxicating lure of politics caught Max Cleland at an early age. In 1952, when he was only 10 years old, Cleland watched the televised Democratic National Convention and decided to campaign for Adlai Stevenson. He recruited the girl next door, and the two fashioned signs out of sticks and old pieces of cardboard. As cars drove past, the young politicos would run along side, shouting, “Adlai for President!” Before he even knew what it meant, Max Cleland was a Yellow Dog Democrat.


Cleland’s new book, “Heart of a Patriot,” tells a much more complex story than the typical political autobiography. Co-authored by award-winning Press-Register reporter Ben Raines, it is clearly more than simple campaign literature. “Heart of a Patriot” explores some of the darker periods in the senator’s life, from his near-fatal injuries in Vietnam and his bouts with depression, to the vicious 2002 campaign waged against him in his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate.

Max Cleland arrived in Vietnam in June 1967 as a second lieutenant in the First Air Calvary Division, and he was awarded a Bronze and a Silver Star for heroic service and gallantry in combat. In the spring of 1968, shortly after fighting in the battle of Khe Sahn, he was horribly injured, losing both legs and his right arm in a grenade explosion. Cleland recounts the weeks following the accident with vivid detail, including his first meeting with his parents. He spent the next year in Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., recovering from his injuries.

Even though all other veterans from past wars suffered the same kind of

When Georgia native Jimmy Carter was elected president, he named the 34-year-old Cleland head of the Veterans Administration. Cleland brought to his new position a personal knowledge of the needs of returning soldiers. During his four-year tenure at the VA, Cleland lobbied for the expansion of benefits to cover emotional as well as physical trauma.

eternal/internal wound, it took Vietnam veterans like Max Cleland to come home and fight for this wound to be treated. Don't be startled by use of the word "eternal" because it will never be cured, but what is most important is that it can be healed with help. Veterans can find peace with what has been so they can live lives instead of just existing in a body and suffering. They were the first to fight for this, but the last to be acknowledged for it.

Cleland writes frankly about his experiences following his defeat. He sank into a deep depression that only worsened with the beginning of the Iraq War in April 2003. The war brought back painful memories for Cleland and, for the first time, he sought the assistance of professional counselors. Ironically, such help might have been unavailable if he had not lobbied to expand the VA’s counseling program in the late 1970s. Now he benefited from the very program he had helped create.

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http://blog.al.com/entertainment-press-register/2009/11/a_veterans_heart_cleland_book.html