Remembering two friends who served the people

In Congress, members often rise and ask for a “point of personal privilege.” When granted, they don’t have to deal with the question before the Chamber but can talk about any subject they want. I ask today for a point of personal privilege.

I think that getting old is vastly overrated. I say this after 95 years without any life-threatening illness. I have a good life. But one of the serious discomforts is watching family and friends die, one every couple of months, it seems.

In January, two special friends of over 50 years died after productive lives. I lost friends I admired. The country lost something more. David Durenberger and Thomas Hughes, Minnesota small town boys who became men of the world and distinction, died. They were public servants in the full glory of the words. They made a difference.

Public servants are too frequently dismissed by the unwashed, and some of the washed as well as almost as a lower specie. Bureaucrat or politician are favorite put-down labels delivered with a curled lip, and a sniff of disdain. “Their” favorite restaurant is the “Public Through” where they serve escargot and foie gras instead of lutefisk.

After three terms in the U.S. Senate, Dave, a moderate Republican, spent the rest of his life, among other good things he had done, teaching and advocating on health issues. He had no doubt about government having a role in ensuring care for everyone. He was a rare Republican in my experience, a man of good heart and good deeds.

I think Dave’s concern for others came out of Saint John’s University and what he learned in his church as well as at home. He took its teaching seriously and acted on it. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Gov. Tim Walz, both Democrats, delivered eulogies because they understood that. Until he died, he worked as an advocate for better health care for everyone who needed it. He worked as a gender equality advocate when few, almost no one in his party did. He was willing to say gay. One of his last honors was being thrown out of the Republican Party after publicly supporting Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

Tom Hughes had degrees from Oxford and Yale Law School. He worked on Hubert Humphrey’s staff and John Kennedy appointed him assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research.

He helped Humphrey prepare a memo to Lyndon Johnson in February 1965, later described by a Harvard historian as “one of the most remarkable documents” in the history of U.S. policy in Vietnam, one that argued “powerfully, presciently” against a major escalation. Had Lyndon Johnson accepted Tom’s advice, 50,000 Americans would not have died in Vietnam, another 150,00 would not have been wounded, and more than 2 million Vietnamese and Cambodians would not have died.

There have been people like Durenberger and Hughes holding office in Iowa, I think. It is unfortunate that none are currently serving us.

I’m lucky to have had Dave and Tom as friends. Seeing them go is painful. They were not saints helping from on high, but public servants on the ground who cared about our country and people everywhere.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.