State Treasurer Mike Coffman admits that it was a difficult choice. For more than a year, he’d pictured himself as governor, imagining the campaign, the inauguration. He believed he’d do a good job.
But when Bob Beauprez revealed his intentions to run, Coffman had to face the reality of the second-term congressman’s formidable political muscle.
Reluctantly, he abandoned his dream.
“It was a hard decision,” he confessed.
But with that choice made, another opportunity arose. And the decision to go for it was easier – amazingly.
Re-upping in the Marines at 50, volunteering to help establish a civil government in Iraq and putting his political career on ice for a year was not that big a deal, he said. Honest.
You see, in a country overrun with poseurs, armchair patriots and chicken hawks, Coffman is the exception. He’s an authentic military man with the kind of war stories my grandpa used to tell.
Like the time his Desert Storm subordinates were urging him to order an artillery strike at about 80 Iraqis in the distance. “But something didn’t seem right,” he said.
He hesitated. Precious minutes passed and he was about to call for a strike when the cease-fire order came. The Iraqis were surrendering; they just couldn’t approach directly because of a minefield.
He’s not an adrenaline junkie, hooked on danger, he said. But he’s an experienced soldier at a time when they’re in short supply. “My heart and soul are connected to the Marine Corps.”
It wasn’t just a talking point.
When he was a boy, his father, a career military man who lied about his age to get into the Navy at 15 during World War II, taught him responsibility.
“He always told me, ‘If you’re capable of serving and you let someone else go in your place, it’s an act of cowardice.”‘
With 20 years in the military and his experience in private business and government, he said, he believes he has something to offer. “It’s a critical time in Iraq and I really want to make a difference.”
Not that he thinks it will be easy.
The military are no longer the insurgents’ prime targets, he said. Civilians in the new government are. And unlike a conventional war, this one is an unpredictable mess of improvised explosive devices, suicide bombers and ever-more-
innovative booby traps.
He’ll likely be in Fallujah, in Anbar Province, or one of the other locations supervised by Marines – none of which is as secure and protected as the Army’s Green Zone in Baghdad. And though he won’t be looking for the enemy like he was in Desert Storm, “if the bad guys find me, I have to be able to do a lot of stuff to handle it.”
So he’s practicing with a 9 mm pistol and cranking up his workouts.
Since he announced his decision last week, reporters have been asking if they can follow him around in Iraq. But, nice as that would be for his political career, he’s turning them down.
“I’ve really got to be focused,” he said.
In fact, with less than a month until he reports to Camp Lejeune, he’s already in the zone. He’s running hard and learning as much as he can about the situation in Iraq.
When he returns June 5, 2006, he plans to run for secretary of state. And he’ll be the darling of Colorado Republicans.
Back in 2002, the faithful at the Republican state assembly in Colorado Springs roared their approval when Coffman was introduced as a bona fide veteran of Desert Storm. It was the first big party event after 9/11 and, though the gathering was a giant military celebration complete with John Philip Sousa soundtrack, Coffman was one of the only people in the hall who’d been anywhere near a war.
He basked in the adulation, sure, but at least he’d earned it.
We’re all so accustomed to being hectored about personal sacrifice, duty and honor from people who ducked the draft, used family influence to get out of trouble and exploited every loophole to avoid paying taxes that we assume there’s not a sincere person left in public life.
I know it’s hard to believe, but Coffman’s the real deal. Let’s just hope he comes home in one piece.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
