The former VA chief died at his home in Atlanta from congestive heart failure, his personal assistant said
Max Cleland, who lost three limbs to a hand grenade in Vietnam and later became a groundbreaking Veterans Administration chief and a U.S. senator from Georgia until an attack ad questioning his patriotism derailed his reelection, died Tuesday. He was 79. Cleland died at his home in Atlanta from congestive heart failure, his personal assistant Linda Dean said. Cleland was an Army captain in Vietnam when he lost his right arm and two legs while picking up a fallen grenade in 1968. For decades, he blamed himself — until he learned that another soldier had dropped it. He spent many months in hospitals ill-equipped to help so many wounded soldiers. Fellow veterans cheered when President Jimmy Carter appointed Cleland to lead the Veterans Administration, a post he held from 1977 to 1981. The VA and the wider medical community recognized post-traumatic stress disorder — what had been previously been dismissed as shell-shock — as a genuine condition while Cleland was in charge, and he worked to provide veterans and their families with better care. Cleland’s 2002 Senate loss to Republican Saxby Chambliss generated enduring controversy after the Chambliss campaign aired a commercial that displayed images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and questioned Cleland’s commitment to defense and Homeland Security. Sen. John McCain was among those who condemned the move by his fellow Republican. Cleland also served in the Georgia Senate from 1971-1975 and was Georgia’s Secretary of State from 1983 until 1996. President Joe Biden, who served in the U.S. Senate with Cleland, saluted him Tuesday as someone with “unflinching patriotism, boundless courage, and rare character.” “His leadership was the essential driving force behind the creation of the modern VA health system, where so many of his fellow heroes have found lifesaving support and renewed purpose of their own thanks in no small part to Max’s lasting impact,” Biden said in a statement.
