Published on Monday, February 08, 2010
By PETER JACKSON
HARRISBURG, Pa. - Rep. John Murtha, a retired Marine Corps officer who became the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress and later an outspoken and influential critic of the Iraq War, died Monday. He was 77.
The Pennsylvania Democrat had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery. He died at the Virginia Hospital Center, spokesman Matthew Mazonkey said.
Murtha was an officer in the Marine Reserves when he was elected in 1974. Ethical questions often shadowed his congressional service, but he was best-known for being among Congress' most hawkish Democrats.
He wielded considerable clout for two decades as the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending.
Murtha voted in 2002 to authorize President George W. Bush to use military force in Iraq, but his growing frustration over the administration's handling of the war prompted him in November 2005 to call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops
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