Skip to main contentA group opposing the re-election of Gov. John Kitzhaber today released a web-only video accusing the three-term governor of showing disrespect to the military and soldiers from Oregon.
In its video, the group, No Fourth Term, criticized Kitzhaber for failing to attend any of the 16 military funerals of Oregon soldiers since he took office.
Kitzhaber's predecessor,
Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a former Marine, made it a policy to attend every funeral
of an Oregonian killed in action. That policy took Kulongoski to dozens of
funerals. When Kitzhaber took office in 2011, he announced he would discontinue
the practice.
The video also talks about a military jacket it says troops gave Kitzhaber as a gift—and accuses the governor of throwing the jacket into the trash.
The video shows a camouflage jacket on the rim of an orange Dumpster.
"When the troops gave him this jacket," the video says, "he threw it away."
No Fourth Term posted the video on its Facebook page. It also included this comment: "The jacket is currently with a reporter at a local paper who has all the information to back up the claim."
WW is that paper. We were given the jacket last week by Rep. Julie Parrish (R-West Linn) who told WW that she had obtained what appeared to be an Oregon National Guard jacket that had once belonged to Kitzhaber.
We asked to see the jacket, and Parrish delivered it to us. The jacket is size medium and has a patch that says "Kitzhaber" above the right front pocket and another that says "Governor" over the left. It appears never to have been worn.
Parrish says she paid $80 for the jacket on eBay from a seller who said he'd purchased the jacket at Goodwill in Salem within the past year. Parrish showed us emails between her and the seller to support her account.
"My husband is a retired Army colonel who served 17 years in the Oregon National Guard and has worn that uniform proudly," Parrish says. "And for a military family seeing that jacket on eBay was a kick in the gut. It made my blood boil."
Last Thursday, when he was in
our office for an endorsement interview,
Kitzhaber was shown the jacket. The governor said he didn't remember it,
although he said he had been given a number of items from the National Guard
over the years.
Kitzhaber said he had no recollection of taking the jacket to Goodwill, or any knowledge of how it might have gotten there.
WW emailed photographs of the jacket to the Oregon National Guard to try to learn more about its history.
Sgt. April Davis, a spokeswoman for the Guard, says she doesn't know if the Governor returned items to the Guard but that if the Guard were to dispose of gifts to a public official, it would be customary to remove all patches first. But she said it's difficult to say anything definitive about the jacket in question.
Davis did say Oregon troops have not worn the model in question for a long time.
On Monday afternoon after checking further, a Guard spokesman said his agency had found no additional information. "We looked and at this time we have been unable to verify when or if the Governor was ever presented this jacket," Capt. Stephen Bomar said in an email. "We will continue to look through our archives and if we are able to identify something we will most certainly let you know."
The video posted today includes a disclosure it was paid for by the Freedom and Responsibility Political Action Committee, which hasn't yet reported a corresponding contribution or expenditure.
Amy Wojcicki, Kitzhaber's campaign spokesperson, says the video is "pathetic" and mischaracterizes the facts. For example, she points out that The Oregonian never printed words the video attributes to the daily—they came instead from Fox News—and that the video shows the jacket in a dumpster when Parrish claims that it came from Goodwill.
Wojicki says that any notion that the Governor does not respect the military is false. "Gov. Kitzhaber has always been a champion of supporting veterans and will continue to do so," she says.
WWeek 2015