Following the news that retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Leo K. Thorsness died last Thursday at age 85, most news stories focused on his heroism in the Vietnam War. As lead pilot of the "Wild Weasels" F-105 fighter bombers whose mission was to destroy North Vietnam's Surface-to-Air , Thorsness was shot down, captured, and imprisoned by the North Vietnamese Communist enemy in 1967.
The New Hampshire Union Leader has long wielded an outsized influence on national GOP politics, being a conservative thought leader in an early-primary state. Tomorrow, on its front page, the paper will for the first time in a century endorse a non-Republican for president: Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson.
Hearing of Ab Mikva's death brought back vivid memories of autumn 1974. A newly-minted lawyer, I had moved to Chicago to practice law, but shaped by the turbulent events of the civil rights revolution, Vietnam and Watergate, I dreamed of being in politics, government and public service.