Sonny Montgomery

¶ … Autobiography of Sonny Montgomery Montgomery, Sonny. Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran's Champion. With Michael B. Ballard and Craig S. Piper. University Press of Mississippi. In an election year, it is common to become cynical about the motivations and the limited ability of the political process to enact real and serious changes to the nation's ideological and social infrastructure.

However, the story of Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran's Champion is a powerful reminder of how politicians, specifically congressman Sonny Montgomery, a veteran of World War II and a beneficiary of the first GI bill, can indeed use the memory of powerful past personal experiences to motivate them to create positive political changes for the present and future generations. In Montgomery's case, as the title of the book implies, the source of the congressman's passion was his commitment to the nation's veterans, young and old.

Even before he came to congress and to public, political service, Montgomery was considered to be an American hero. In 1945, Sonny Montgomery was instrumental in capturing a nest of German machine guns in a critical tactical move, and he earned the Bronze Star Medal for Valor as a result of his service. He also served during the Korean War. Montgomery says that military service is an important reminder that no heroics are purely individual. One must always work as part of a core, a unit, and a team.

This lesson served him well not just in the United States army but also in the United States congress, where compromise and negotiation are just as important as contention when passing crucial legislation. As this autobiography, constructed with the help of historians and biographers Michael Ballard and Craig Piper makes clear, Montgomery's early experiences were formative in creating a strong sense of values regarding serving his country. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966 as a Democrat.

From then on, Sonny Montgomery represented Mississippi's Third District in Congress for fifteen terms. Although he served in congress for many continuous years, sometimes contentiously, he always served loyally as an America as well as a partisan Southern conservative Democrat. During his congressional experiences, Montgomery saw seven presidents come and go. Over the course of his autobiographical work, Montgomery comments on the Presidents he knew. He calls Richard Nixon unpredictable and emotional, but Nixon's vice-president and subsequent successor, Gerald Ford, kind and easy to know.

This marks Ford in direct contrast to fellow Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter, whom Montgomery never seemed to really 'bond' with, unlike the senior Republican Texan George W. 'Pappy' Bush, with whom Montgomery enjoyed a congenial rapport. In fact, although a Democrat, like many Southern 'Dixie-crats' Montgomery seemed to feel most comfortable with Ronald Reagan's terms in office. Montgomery explicitly calls himself a 'Boll Weevils' a Southern senator who encouraged those of his ideological ilk to break party lines to support a Republican President's legislative agenda.

Montgomery actually formed a club of such Democrats. Regardless of what one feels about the ideological legacy of the Reagan Revolution of the 1980's, Montgomery's stress upon organization and teamwork in Congress is commendable and reflective of his communal experiences in the United States army. Alone, a man is just a man, but with other human beings, one individual can move mountains, Sonny Montgomery always believed.

Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran's Champion is mostly thus a chronicle of Montgomery's public life, once he was elected and after his wartime service, but Montgomery states that for him his public commitment to service was the most important thing he accomplished in his life, and cannot be separated from his personal commitment to the United States and its values and government. The book is affectionate towards Montgomery's home life in its tone, but although respective and appreciative, it ultimately retains his family's need for privacy.

Montgomery cites, as his proudest accomplishment, the Montgomery G.I. Bill that reformed the original 1947 GI Bill. The first GI Bill gave all of America's soldiers the benefit of obtaining a free college education. Historians today in retrospect give this bill credit with instituting an important leveling.