History > 2006 > USA > States > Politics > Houses

Up for Re-election,

and Backing His Stand on Iraq

by Deploying

September 5, 2006
The New York Times
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

TUCSON, Aug. 31 — Jonathan L. Paton is preparing to go to war in Iraq.

Mr. Paton has told his 77-year-old father, in a telephone conversation punctuated with sobs and pauses, how he wishes to be buried, if it comes to that.

He has shot endless rounds at a police firing range, courtesy of the president of the National Rifle Association, who lives here.

He has endured hugs, sometimes uncomfortably long, from well-wishers who offer prayers, concerned looks and forced smiles.

And, of course, he has been to send-offs, like the one the other night at Pima County Republican Party headquarters, where he was saluted for public service and received assurances that he would win the election.

Election?

Mr. Paton, running for his second two-year term in the Arizona House, is one of four Republicans in his district’s primary on Sept. 12 who are competing for two seats. The balloting occurs five days after Lieutenant Paton, an intelligence officer in the Army Reserve, is due at Fort Benning, Ga., to prepare for a five-month to six-month tour in Iraq and, maybe, Afghanistan.

An untold number of mayors and city council members in the National Guard and the Reserves have served in the war, along with, according to a survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures, a handful of the 57 state legislators nationwide who are in the military.

Five members of Congress serve in reserve branches. But by law and Defense Department policy their status as federal officeholders automatically places them in the Standby Reserve, making it less likely that they will be called to combat duty.

Mr. Paton, 35, stands out. Unlike most of the others, he has asked to go, a decision that surprised and shocked some family members and friends, though he said most had expressed support.

Mr. Paton said he did not want his status as an elected official to excuse him from combat, something instructors in a training program he attended last year suggested would happen. He decided that his full-throated support of the war would seem contradictory if he was not willing to serve.

“I had to put my money where my mouth is,” said Mr. Paton, who first asked to go last year, after a stateside active-duty deployment, and received word in late July that he would.

Mr. Paton, who lost elections twice before winning his seat in 2004, professes some concern about possibly losing his seat, though supporters do not expect him to.

Republicans hold an edge of 18,000 voters over Democrats in his district. Many of them are members of the military associated with Fort Huachuca and other nearby installations or veterans and their family members.

As for the primary, he has the advantage of incumbency and has won notice as part of a group of young up-and-coming Republicans making their mark in the statehouse. Mr. Paton, whose district approaches the border with Mexico, has made headlines as a chief sponsor of measures that made the smuggling of illegal immigrants a state crime.

While on active duty, Mr. Paton, in accordance with a 2004 Pentagon directive, cannot campaign or work as a lawmaker, though he can remain on the ballot and hold office.

A friend, State Senator Timothy S. Bee, Republican of Tucson, will stand in for him at campaign events, and others have promised to help. Mr. Paton’s staff will handle constituent concerns and advocate for bills on his behalf, along with Mr. Bee and Mr. Paton’s ally Representative Marian A. McClure, another Republican who is seeking re-election.

“We got your back,” Ray Carroll, a Pima County supervisor and political patron, assured Mr. Paton at the party.

It is not clear whether Mr. Paton’s mission will be especially dangerous.

He said he could not give details about his work, partly because he had not received his orders and partly because he had to maintain secrets. But intelligence officers generally help commanders assess the battlefield and the enemy, using technology, field reconnaissance and other means.

Mr. Paton said concerns about his safety had not set in until everybody kept giving him looks that vaguely suggested doom.

The big question he has faced is why would a promising young legislator deliberately head for a combat zone?

Mr. Bee said some people had speculated that Mr. Paton was grandstanding, angling for some political advantage, a notion that angers him and his supporters. They say that the seat is relatively secure, that no obvious higher office is open to him in the near future and that there are safer ways at home to score points.

“Political motivation is not a reason to risk your life,” Mr. Bee said.

The only reaction from opponents has been encouragement.

“We wish him the best,” said Frank Callegari, another Republican in the primary who said Mr. Paton’s deployment had not been raised at public forums. “Service to country is a big plus, but you also have to look at our positions in terms of how we want to address public issues.”

The lone Democrat in the race, Clarence Boykins, did not respond to messages for comment.

Like many another soldier headed to combat, Mr. Paton has seen his decision to serve affect his personal life.

Strangers have asked why he would serve in that “stupid war,” as one put it. He has worked to soothe his girlfriend, who supports him but opposes the war. His father, John, still seems to be coming to terms with the whole thing.

“I am aware he could be lost over there,” said John Paton, who has peppered his son with questions and comments about the risks and wisdom of his choice. “I do have confidence, but I will always be apprehensive.”

His son, the elder Mr. Paton said, has long had a penchant for unconventional choices.

As a high school senior in the waning days of the Soviet Union, he bused tables at a restaurant to save money for an exchange program to Russia, though he ended up going to Germany when he learned that was the sole spot available.

Even in the village where he stayed, he witnessed effects of the German reunification, including a crush of East Germans swarming into the town and leaving with bags of meat.

He ended up majoring in German at the University of Arizona, graduating in 1996, and studied for a master’s degree in the field. But Mr. Paton, whose father and mother (she died two years ago) used to take their four children on road trips to state capitals in the West, caught the political bug for good after an internship in 1995 with a State Senate committee.

A self-described “punk kid” convinced that he could do better than the legislators he had worked with, Mr. Paton ran a quixotic and losing campaign against two incumbents for the House in 1998. After a second unsuccessful effort in 2000, putting 25,000 miles on the Honda Civic that he still drives (now with 157,602 miles), he won office in 2004, in a newly drawn district.

He said he had given up a “six figure” job as a lobbyist for the building industry for the $24,000-a-year part-time legislative post, also performing occasional political consulting on the side. “It is the best decision I ever made,” he said.

After his first “crushing” loss, Mr. Paton joined the Army Reserve, seeking a change of direction, he said. A brother had been a Naval intelligence officer, and his campaign manager was in the Army Reserve.

In the end, he said, the Reserve gives him a connection with people in his district. He now serves on the House military affairs committee.

Although he sees his choice to go to Iraq as a natural progression, he said he had grown weary of the attention, concerned that it runs counter to military principles that all soldiers are equal.

Still, Mr. Paton was all smiles at the Pima County event.

It came time for speeches.

Paula Maxwell of the Tucson Republican Women gave him a tiny pewter elephant to keep in his pocket as a good-luck charm.

Boyd Hershman, a family friend and a Vietnam veteran, called out, “All the way to glory, Jon!’’

Mr. Paton kept his remarks brief.

He spoke of the inspiration he had received from a servicewoman he encountered on a training mission at Fort Benning who was preparing for her Iraq mission even though her husband had lost a leg there in combat. He talked about duty, honor, “service above self.”

And, he closed, “I look forward to a big party when I come back.”

Up for Re-election, and Backing His Stand on Iraq by Deploying, NYT, 5.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/washington/05deploy.html