Written by Brendan Flynn

We’re currently on the road between Norton and Blacksburg, VA — and I’m finding it hard to believe that it’s the next-to-last day of the 2009 edition of the Veterans for American Power tour.

We’ve had quite a week in West Virginia and Virginia.  Things kicked off on Monday in Huntington, WV, where we had the honor of assisting members of a local VFW as they commemorated the 68th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  Afterward, we spent some time with the assembled World War II and Vietnam veterans to talk about the relationship between our current conflicts and our energy policies.  It was one of our Marines, Glenn Kunkel, who said it best:

“Back in those days, we were in a two-front war.  Everyone pitched in — people planted victory gardens, women wore their skirts shorter to conserve fabric for the war effort.  Once again, we are in a two-front war.  We’re not asking you to grow your own vegetables, or to change the way you dress, but we do need to develop more clean domestic energy.  Today’s victory gardens will be built out of windmills and solar panels.”

After leaving Huntington, we headed north; after a quick stop in Vienna (near Parkersburg), we ended up in Wheeling, where we held a roundtable with VFW members including a Marine veteran of Guadalcanal.  (A photo of Glenn with this Marine graced the front page of the Wheeling Intelligencer the next day.)

As we’ve gone through West Virginia, we’ve sensed a palpable feeling of frustration.  People know that we cannot afford to continue along the same energy path we’ve taken for so many years, but they are concerned about whether Washington is capable of making such a profound change.  At every stop, we have urged everyone to contact Sens. Byrd and Rockefeller to urge them to support the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act so that we start making this transition to clean energy sources.  This will be a gradual transition, but one that is absolutely essential to our security and economy in the years ahead.

Will it be easy?  Not necessarily.  Will we need to harness American ingenuity and entrepreneurship?   Of course.  But America has faced challenges before, and we’ve never backed down yet.  I wouldn’t bet against us.

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