Presidents pay tribute to late VA chief Max Cleland
ATLANTA – President Joe Biden and three former presidents paid tribute Wednesday to late Veterans Administration chief and U.S. senator Max Cleland, who lost limbs while serving in Vietnam.
Biden called Cleland a hero who “exemplified the best of the American spirit.”
Former President Barack Obama said Cleland was “someone who defied impossible odds to become one of our nation’s finest public servants.”
“Max wore the physical and emotional scars of war, but he never lost his drive to do right by the people of Georgia and Americans everywhere,” Obama said.
Obama, Biden and former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were not present, but sent letters that were read by Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter.
Cleland died of congestive heart failure in November at the age of 79, but his memorial service was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cleland was a U.S. Army captain in Vietnam when he lost his right arm and two legs while picking up a fallen grenade in 1968. He blamed himself for decades, until he learned that another soldier had dropped it. He also spent months in hospitals that were illequipped to help so many soldiers.
Speakers at the Atlanta church recalled how Cleland struggled to get up each morning and dress, but still remained buoyant and jovial.
“He was a man defined not by what had happened in his life, but he was defined by courage and maybe even more than that by one principle: to make a better world,” former U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said. “He lived that everyday. Yes, he had his demons but he dealt with them in a positive, inspirational way that set a model for all of us.”
Hagel, a Republican, said Cleland’s example was especially important today amid the country’s political polarization. Cleland was a Democrat.
Associated Press