In hospice care for weeks, longtime Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., passed away Sunday at the age of 76. His death is a great loss, first and foremost for his family and friends, but also a sad event for his constituents and those outside his district who have worked with him in the past.
Jones was more than one congressman out of 435. He was a man who long distinguished himself as a public servant and who cared deeply about the corporals, sergeants, and lieutenants who formed the backbone of the armed forces; the men and women who volunteer to risk their lives in defense of the country. In many cases, those soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are ordered to execute a war strategy crafted by their superiors in Washington that is wasteful, misplaced, naive, and downright illogical.
This made it all the more important that the Marines of Camp Lejeune in eastern North Carolina had Jones to represent them for nearly a quarter-century. And represent them he did. Using his perch as a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, Jones repeatedly pressed the Pentagon for transparency on how U.S. taxpayer money was being spent in Afghanistan; why American troops were still fighting and dying in Afghanistan on behalf of an often corrupt, inefficient, and dependent government in Kabul; and why policymakers still believed that the U.S. could transition countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan into utopias of democracy.
While many of his colleagues were patting the generals on the back, Jones was peppering them for explanations. “After 16 years, I do not think we’re having any successes” in Afghanistan, Jones told then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during a February 2018 committee hearing … “No one has ever conquered Afghanistan, and many have tried. We will join the list of nations that have tried and failed.”
It’s a purely legitimate statement to make, one no U.S. administration has been able to explain away.
One of the issues Jones approached with a laser-like focus was the legislative branch’s role on matters of war and peace. The last time Congress debated and voted on an authorization for military force was in October 2002 on the eve of the Iraq War, a vote Jones would come to regret and spent years atoning for through letter writing to families of the fallen. That vote more than 16 years ago taught the North Carolinian a lesson he would spend more than a decade pushing: Before a single member of America’s armed forces is deployed into a combat zone, Congress needs to come together and deliberate on whether the nation is prepared for it.
In essence, Jones was just calling on lawmakers to do their constitutional duty. A president who refused to do theirs by coming to Congress in the first place, he said, should he impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Jones has left big shoes to fill. With his passing, Americans have lost a deeply sincere elected official who actually apologized when he was wrong, held executive branch officials to account, and understood that when mistakes happen, the country needs to learn from them in order to prevent bad history from repeating itself. Congress is a worse place without him.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
