Jim Webb
Jim Webb
James Henry "Jim" Webb, Jr.is an American politician and author. He has served as a United States Senator from Virginia, Secretary of the Navy, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, Counsel for the United States House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and Marine Corps officer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth9 February 1946
CountryUnited States of America
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From the time I left the Marine Corps after serving as an infantry platoon and company commander in Vietnam, I decided that I would focus on immediate goals that inspired me to devote all of my energy to them, rather than putting together the more cautious and traditional building blocks of a predictable career.
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I walk fast. I have an aversion to wasting time. My sense of constant motion is one of the reasons that my eldest daughter, Amy, nicknamed me 'the Tasmanian Devil' when she was in her teens.
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It's hard for me to think about this, but I first went to Southeast Asia as a Marine more than 40 years ago, as a young Marine. I was on Okinawa and then in Vietnam. I've returned in many different hats, which I think has helped me to form my own views about policy out there. I've spent a good bit of time in this region as a journalist.
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Your first six months in the Senate, you spend a lot of time wondering how the hell you got here. After that, you look around at your colleagues and wonder how the hell any of them got here.
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I was counsel on the full veterans committee, the first Vietnam veteran to serve as a full-committee counsel in Congress. It stunned me that there was a 600,000-case backlog of claims. During my time in the Senate, it became 900,000.
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I cannot conjure up an ounce of respect for Bill Clinton when it comes to the military. Every time I see him salute a Marine, it infuriates me. I don't think Bill Clinton cares one iota about what happens in a military unit.
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The Senate floor is and always has been the great arena of our democracy. I spent eight years in my younger life as a boxer, and sometimes when I enter the chamber, I think, 'This is the ring. The American people can see us here and listen to our arguments. This is where the fights matter.'
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Ronald Reagan came in - he was a leader. Some of my Democratic friends don't like it when I say that. He had a vision where he wanted to take the country, and things started moving again.
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Events such as the 1991 Tailhook debacle have been seized upon and used by feminists to attack the military culture and bring about major concessions.
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Contrary to assumptions in the law, white America is hardly a monolith.
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I was the principal negotiator for the Department of Defense, when I was secretary of the Navy, on the issue of Toshiba technology concerns with American submarines.
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I fought as an infantry Marine on one of the Vietnam War's harshest battlefields. After leaving the Marine Corps, I studied law and found a fulfilling career as an author and journalist. But again and again, I came back to the personal fulfillment that can only come from public service.
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If a minister can lead the Senate in prayer every day... what is so wrong with beginning every day of school with an ecumenical prayer?
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I am a junior senator, ninety-fifth on the seniority list, and so by Senate standards, my office in the Russell Senate Office Building is less than splendid.