Senator Webb Opens Up About His Marine Son|ABC 7 News

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Senator Webb Opens Up About His Marine Son

posted 8:24 pm Sat June 16, 2007 - Washington

tags: webb • marine • father's day • fishing

ABC 7 News - Senator Webb Opens Up About His Marine Son

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U.S. Sen. Jim Webb and his son plan to trade board rooms and bombs for rods and reels this Father's Day. Webb refused to discuss his son, Marine Lance Cpl. Jimmy Webb, while campaigning this time last year. He wore his combat boots on the campaign trail, but wouldn't talk to the media about Jimmy because he said he didn't want to politicize his son's service. Jimmy is home on leave following a nine-month deployment to Iraq. He heads back to Camp Lejeune, N.C., on June 25.

But on Sunday, the Webbs will be fishing.

"He and I are very, very close," Webb told the Richmond Times-Dispatch of his 25-year-old son.

Webb, a decorated Marine Corps combat veteran of the Vietnam War, is one of the Senate's staunchest critics of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But that doesn't stop him from voicing pride in his son's service and unit, the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment.

"What they did has kind of become the hallmark for how to operate out of Anbar province," said Webb, who served as secretary of the Navy under President Reagan and has written fiction and nonfiction about war.

Webb said his son's input has been helpful to him as Congress debates the war. But he said he tries to keep his jobs as senator and father separate.

"I feel very strongly that the proper role of leadership is you can't mix the two, in terms of trying to make judgments about national policy," Webb said. He said he would be pursuing the same issues if Jimmy were not in the military or in Iraq.

Webb said he's pretty unique in Congress: he deployed in wartime, his father fought in a war, and his son deployed. Webb's father, a career Air Force officer, flew cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift.

During his time home, the trim, sandy-haired Jimmy has used the spare desk in an outer office adjoining his father's on Capitol Hill as a base for going out and about, including jogging on the National Mall.

Webb has taken Jimmy to some events to "kind of share with him what this part of my life is like," he said.

When it comes to his son's experience in Iraq, the senator summed it up: "He's a tough kid."

Then, correcting himself, he added, "He's not a kid any more. He's a tough young man. I'm very proud of him."

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