By PETER HECHT
Friday, November 03, 2006
In 1975, during the last, tragic battle of the Vietnam War, a young helicopter rescue pilot and U.S. Air Force Academy graduate named Charlie Brown was summoned into action.
On May 12, Khmer Rouge forces from Cambodia seized a U.S. container ship, the SS Mayaguez. The ensuing days would shape the life and politics of Brown, the Democratic candidate now running against Republican Rep. John Doolittle in Northern California's 4th Congressional District.
While the embattled Doolittle faces scrutiny over his association with disgraced Washington D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Brown, 56, is drawing national attention for giving the long unbeatable incumbent the toughest challenge of his political career.
The retired lieutenant colonel is one of 50 congressional and U.S. Senate candidates _ military veterans dubbed "the fighting Dems" _ who were recruited by veterans or encouraged by the Democratic Party to run.
But Brown says he likely wouldn't be in this race had it not been for harrowing events he faced in combat in 1975 _ and disturbing parallels to what he sees unfolding now.
He is a critic of the Iraq War who rails against flawed intelligence, against corrupt or inept defense contractors and against the loss of life of U.S. troops in a mission he calls a wrong-headed diversion from the war on terror.
With steely eyes, he draws parallels to his own experiences as he rattles off names of fellow pilots and Air Force Academy graduates killed in the waning days of the Vietnam War.
"I've got way too many dead friends," he says. "Brian Rye and Larry Frolich didn't need to die due to shoddy parts on their helicopters. Rich Vandegeer - the last name on the Vietnam Memorial - didn't need to die due to faulty intelligence.
"And you're seeing the same things happening again."
Doolittle assails Brown as a "cut and run" candidate dangerously soft on Iraq and the war on terror. Brown calls Doolittle a "coward" who "hides behind the flag" yet used church deferments to avoid military service.
Brown supports a conditional timetable to gradually remove U.S. troops _ not a rapid withdrawal _ "to put Iraqi politicians on notice that they've got to take control of their own country."
And while Doolittle insists weapons of mass destruction are still to be found, Brown says his assignment coordinating mid-1990s surveillance flights in Iraq's "no-fly zones," convinced him such weapons _ the rationale for war _ no longer existed.
Brown, whose wife Jan is a former military nurse and son Jeff an Air Force transport pilot entering his fourth tour of duty in Iraq, says he sees in the Iraq War a repeat of failures he witnessed in 1975.
Months before the Mayaguez incident, his friend, Rye, crashed when a bolt failed in his helicopter flight control system.
Responding to the seizure of the Mayaguez, Frolich crashed with nearly two dozen troops when a helicopter rotor blade came loose. Vandegeer was killed when his chopper was shot up after U.S. Marines stormed the Cambodian Island of Ko Tang, acting on a false report the Mayaguez crew was there, said retired Lt. Col John F. "Joe" Guilmartin, author of "A Very Short War," a book on the incident.
Brown said a commanding officer, misreading intelligence briefings, said the island was lightly defended. But the Marines were pinned down by more than 300 heavily armed Khmer Rouge troops, Guilmartin said.
Brown's HH-53 helicopter went to retrieve the Marines. Guilmartin said two other helicopters were aflame when Brown and fellow pilot Charles Green landed on the beach _ and were fired on from bunker-mounted .50 caliber machine guns.
"I could see the muzzle flashes and a wall of flames erupting on my side of the helicopter," said Brown. His chopper, on fire with its fuel lines punctured, pulled back, making an emergency night landing on a remote road in southern Thailand.
Forty-one U.S. servicemen died in the Mayaguez incident. The Air Force awarded Brown the Distinguished Flying Cross, but he was bitter over fatal intelligence and equipment failures.
"For a whole group of young people, it most certainly was a transforming experience," said Guilmartin, a history professor at the United States Military Academy and a fellow pilot who debriefed colleagues after the events. "...It was a common feeling: the most frightening thing in combat is poor leadership and poor planning."
Brown, 56, went on to a 26-year Air Force career, serving in reconnaissance missions in support of combat operations in Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, and Libya and coordinating surveillance flights from Saudi Arabia and Japan. After his retirement, he worked as a Roseville Police Department records clerk.
In 2005, he re-registered from Republican to Democrat. He says he was angry Republicans broke a pledge to cut government spending and offended by "Swift Boat" attacks on the war record of John Kerry, whom he supported for President.
Brown attracted attention speaking at a "Leave No Veteran Behind" rally at the state Capitol, decrying inadequate benefits and care for Iraq veterans. He said veterans _ not the Democratic Party _ urged him to run against Doolittle, who won with 65 percent of the vote in 2004 and operates a formidable political machine.
The race is now sufficiently competitive that national Republican and Democratic campaign committees _ which long ignored the district _ are funding attack mailers and automated phone calls in an aggressive closing push to sway voters.
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