Rep. John Murtha Passed Away At 77

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s first choice for majority leader, Pennsylvania Rep. John C. Murtha, died today of complications relating to a gallbladder surgery. Murtha was 77.

A decorated Vietnam War hero, Pelosi credited Murtha with helping to turn public opinion against the war in Iraq after he announced his opposition to the war in 2005. Murtha had voted to send troops to Iraq in 2002 but over the years changed his mind after no weapons of mass destruction were found and questions emerged about the intelligence leading up to the war. “The American public is way ahead of us,” Murtha wrote in November 2005 as he was sponsoring a resolution asking President Bush to set a timeline of withdrawal of troops from Iraq. “The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq, but it is time for a change in direction.”

Murtha “understood the misery of war,” said Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey in a statement on Murtha’s passing. “Every person who serves in the military has lost an advocate and a good friend today.”

Murtha was born in 1932 in New Martinsville, West Virginia, near the Pennsylvania border to an Irish American family. The Eagle Scout left William and Jefferson College to enlist in the Marines, becoming a drill sergeant at the Marine’s training facility on Parris Island before he was selected as an officer. He left the Marines in 1995, enlisting in the reserves, only to raise his hand for the Vietnam War in 1966-67, winning a Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross for Gallantry. Read more