Seeing A Man, Not An Icon Veterans, War Protesters, Students All Drawn To See Mccain

FROM FOR THE RECORD (Friday, February 24, 2000): Correction Title incorrect: Naomi McCrea is the commander of Foreign Legion Post 9. She was misidentified in Thursday’s Spokesman-Review.

They came to see a white-haired, Luke Skywalker kind of guy who had just pulled out twin victories at a moment when defeat could have been fatal.

One of the first in line to see John McCain at Gonzaga was student Allen Wiemer, 21, an Al Gore supporter who showed up at 5:30 a.m. with the understatement: “I’m really into politics.”

Two hours later, a couple hundred people stood in the cold and damp waiting for McCain’s 9 a.m. arrival. Some carried books for him to sign; others wore painted faces for him to notice. Some had firsthand memories of the bitter war in Vietnam; others had no memory of that war at all. They wore costumes, they wore McCain stickers - some stuck on foreheads - and they relished the opportunity to see a man who might become president.

Independents, Democrats, traditional Republicans and Republicans who hadn’t voted for a Republican in years - they were all there to see the guy who had just won the Michigan and Arizona primaries over an opponent who has spent far more money.

“I’m a moderate Republican, but I haven’t voted for a Republican in 18 years. But I’m voting for McCain,” said Bob Weibly, 64, a retired TWA pilot who has seen McCain survive in tougher spots than a presidential primary.

Weibly attended the Naval Academy with McCain and then saw him crash into the Gulf of Mexico at the controls of an airplane. The plane sank. McCain was inside. The canopy didn’t completely blow off, Weibly said.

“Looking at the wreck afterward, none of us could figure how he got out of there,” Weibly said. “He’s a tough individual.”

The sense that McCain is an individual standing up against the Republican establishment drew many on this dour morning.

“That fact that all the Republicans are lined up against him is an endorsement to me,” said Elliot Wallach, 30, a Internet entrepreneur and a self-described political independent.

“America loves the underdog. Nobody likes having a guy just handed to us. You just can’t buy us off with tax cuts,” Wallach said, making reference to McCain’s opponent, George W. Bush.

“If McCain were a Democrat, I’d vote for him,” Wallach said. “With him it’s not about being on the right or the left, it’s about what’s right and wrong. He’s an outsider with an insider’s knowledge.”

Scattered in the crowd were a number of men whose caps or jackets bore military insignia.

Jesse LaVoie, 52, who served three tours of duty in Vietnam and came home with a leg full of lead, said he feels like he has a brother in the race.

“There’s a feeling in the air that I haven’t felt since I was 12 years old” and John F. Kennedy was running for president, LaVoie said. “To me, the only hope is McCain.”

LaVoie said he knows veterans who are registering to vote for the first time since the war. LaVoie has not voted in a national election since 1992, when he cast a protest vote for Ross Perot.

Patricia Kowal came early for a chance to see McCain for the first time in 27 years.

In 1973, Kowal was an Air Force flight nurse on a C-141 transport plane that flew into Hanoi to transport prisoners of war who were being released by the North Vietnamese. One of those prisoners, she said, was McCain.

“Some of them couldn’t walk. Most of them had parasites and bad teeth,” she said as she clutched a bar of soap and a pack of cigarettes - items she had saved from those given to prisoners on the plane. “We couldn’t give them anything to eat” because their systems weren’t ready for food.

Kowal, who recently retired from the Air Force reserves as a colonel, said she was supporting McCain “100 percent.”

“He’s refreshing. I can appreciate his integrity.”

Laurie Carlson, 48, said she protested the war as a college student. A McCain presidency would help war veterans shed the unfair image that they’re shellshocked wrecks, said Carlson, an Eastern Washington University history professor.

“I think this is going to be our catharsis, help us get over Vietnam,” she said.

Carlson said she’s only voted for one Republican, but plans to vote for McCain even though she disagrees with him on many issues. She trusts him, she said.

Also in the crowd was a new generation of students who have only read about Vietnam.

“It blows my mind to think about what he was going through as a POW, compared to what we go through at our age,” said Tim Erford, a 22-year-old philosophy and communications student from Whitworth.

“I’m impressed by what he did in the war. Instead of having a draft dodger in office, he’d be a hero,” Erford said.

Erford and fellow Whitworth student Jon Hedin, 21, came as patriotism incarnate, sporting faces painted blue with white stars, and red and white clothes.

“We’re hoping they’ll let us in,” Hedin said.

The pair did make it in, only to be escorted out of the packed hall. They managed to shake McCain’s hand coming and going.

“He gave us cool handshakes,” Hedin said.

“And he said: `Looking good guys,”’ Erford said. “He’s a down-to-earth guy.”

Staff writer Jim Camden contributed to this report.