Max Cleland
American politician (1942 - )
- || At The Bottom
1968 -- Captain Max Cleland, a 25-year-old soldier from Atlanta, woke up five hours after a grenade shredded both his legs and one of his arms. He had been looking forward to leaving Vietnam and only had a month left of his tour when he was asked to set up a radio relay station during the battle of Khe Sanh. After being dropped off by a helicopter, Cleland stooped to the ground to pick up a grenade that one of his soldiers had dropped. It exploded. By the time Cleland regained consciousness, he had lost a tremendous amount of blood and was lucky to be alive, but as he drifted in and out of a haze of morphine and despair, he wondered how he could possibly live out the rest of his life. Over the next weeks and months, Cleland endured extraordinary physical and psychological pain. "Inevitably," he wrote in 2009, "I was left feeling like I had fumbled the ball. Game over, and I lost. No one had shot me. No one had thrown the grenade at me. I had blown myself up and ruined my life. It was all my fault."
- || At The Top
1997 -- After Max Cleland was sworn in as Georgia's newest United States senator, he choked up and cried while speaking to a group of supporters following the ceremony. As he explained to a journalist a few weeks later, he had found himself overcome by "the incredible feeling that dreams can come true, that our deepest heartfelt desires, believe it or not, sometimes can be met by the grace of God and the help of good friends." He saw his election as "the completion of a thirty-year journey, an odyssey." The 1996 election had been close -- with the difference of only 30,000 votes between the candidates -- and Cleland would only serve one term in office, losing a similarly close election in 2002. But during his six years in the Senate, he worked on important veterans' issues and has continued to be an advocate for veterans even after his defeat.
- || The Comeback
After his terrible injuries, Max Cleland spent the next two years acclimating himself to a very different life. It was a difficult transition, and when he set out to live on his own in 1969, he fell into some unhealthy habits, including spending far too much time drinking heavily and partying with a group of fellow injured veterans he'd met while at Walter Reed Hospital in Maryland. Eventually, Cleland realized that he needed to move forward with his life and be productive; he realized that it was his choice to live or die, to waste the rest of his life or to make something of the situation he'd been handed. He had recently testified before the US Senate regarding the difficulties Vietnam veterans were facing after returning to civilian life, and the experience renewed his interest in politics. Imagining that he might be able to do more for fellow veterans, Cleland decided to run for public office. In 1970, he won a seat in the Georgia state senate, becoming the first Vietnam veteran and -- at only 28 years old -- the youngest to serve in that legislative body. He happened to win his first election the year Jimmy Carter was elected governor of Georgia, and when Carter ascended to the White House in 1976, he brought Cleland on board to head up the Veteran's Administration. During his early years in public office, Cleland was a strong advocate for veterans as well as the physically handicapped. When he returned to Georgia politics in the early 1980s, he served more than a decade as secretary of state and led the way in establishing new ethical guidelines for state officials. His reputation for honesty as well as his long record of fighting for others positioned him well to make a run for the US Senate when longtime Georgia Senator Sam Nunn retired in 1996.
