Friday, October 5, 2007

Iraq vet to challenge Kline in 2nd District

This appeared in the Star Tribune:

A 19-year Army veteran who recently returned from a 22-month deployment in Iraq with the Minnesota National Guard filed papers on Thursday as a Democrat candidate to oppose incumbent Republican John Kline in Minnesota's Second Congressional District.
Steve Sarvi, the former mayor of Watertown and currently the city administrator of Victoria, said he gave a great deal of thought to running while serving with the Minnesota Guard in southern Iraq. His father, acting as a surrogate, crisscrossed the district to find out what the issues were and what chances Sarvi might have against Kline, a 25-year Marine veteran serving his third term in Congress.
"Sometimes when you are away as long as I was, you get a chance to think about things that are really important in life," Sarvi said. "I'm just worried about the way we're going not only internationally but domestically as well."

Read it all here

Best quote in the article:
"It's time for us to start stepping back out of there [IRAQ], pulling our forces back and making the Iraqis step up and take charge of the country," said Sarvi, who did civil affairs work with Iraqis and helped to train Iraqi police as a first sergeant. "At some point we're getting in the way."

How's that for listening to the troops on the ground?

Check out the campaign here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The United States needs to end it's occupation of Iraq. We know why we are there. It's because of oil, arms, and investments. We have to close the enduring military bases and allow the iraqi people to have control of their oil resources. I'm glad that this soldier is going to hold Kline acoutnable by running against him. The soldiers were put in a terrible situation and did what they were told the best they could. I had the soldiers in mind during all of the anti-war activities I participated in since before the war started. It was irresponsible to send them off to fight in Iraq when it was not absolutely necessary to defend our country. We should honor their service by bringing them home asap. If it were up to John Kline they'd stay over there for ever.