BUSH
AT PEACE
the bend, pedaling with only his
left leg.
Gade is a dominating figure,
both on and off the bike. His
wounds were the most visibly dramatic of any rider in the group,
and his intellect and eloquence
stood out as well. Gade earned his
master’s and his Ph.D. in public
policy and public administration after he was wounded, and
now teaches political science and
public policy at the U.S. Military
Academy in West Point.
He was almost bursting to talk
and expressed his ideas clearly
and colorfully — as when he compared the debate between right
and left over the military to an
Afghan game played on horseback, in which a dead goat is, in
essence, a football, and each team
tries to get it across the other’s
goal line.
“They carry it on horseback,
and then somebody else will run
their horse into that guy, and he
falls off and drops the goat. It’s
actually a real thing,” he said.
“But the soldiers in our society, the wounded warriors, become the dead goat in this game
between the left and the right.
The left has a natural inclination to view them as victims, like,
HUFFINGTON
06.16.13
“I think the atmosphere
[for immigration reform],
unlike when I tried it, is better,
maybe for the wrong reason.”
‘Oh, you poor thing, you got sent
to war against your will and now
you’re maimed, and so because
you’re maimed, society should
take care of you forever and you’re
a victim.’ And that’s dead wrong.
“On the other hand, the right
has the same problem, where they
say, ‘Oh, because you served, in
whatever capacity, in whatever
job, whether you were a file clerk
or an infantryman, because you
served, because you put on your
uniform, a uniform, you’re a hero.’
And the problem with that isn’t
that it honors people who served,
because that’s great,” Gade said.
“Look, I mean, if you’re a file
clerk, you’re serving your country and that’s super. But the term
‘hero’ should be applied very carefully, selectively, to people who
are truly heroes.
“So for instance, with respect
to myself and my very serious injuries, I don’t use the term ‘hero,’
and I don’t like it when others do.
Because I was a soldier doing a