Two Georgia senators and one U.S. House member are among those who want to name the Atlanta VA Medical Center for Max Cleland, the former Georgia senator and veterans administrator who died in November at 79.
Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff announced the proposed naming of the veterans’ hospital Friday, along with U.S. Rep Nikema Williams. All three are Democrats. The proposal is being co-sponsored by 11 other senators, including two Republicans.
Both Georgia senators and all 14 of the state’s U.S. House members must agree to the move. In addition, a statewide chapter of a veterans’ group must support it.
Cleland was a U.S. Army captain in Vietnam when he lost his right arm and two legs while picking up a fallen grenade in 1968. He blamed himself for decades until he learned that another soldier had dropped it.
Fellow veterans cheered when then-President Jimmy Carter appointed Cleland, a fellow Democrat, 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.
