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Campaign Diary home >>  Touching stories from the trail

Touching stories from the trail

Date: Saturday, February 7, 2004
Location: Bedford, Virginia

As I travel across America, I am surprised and impressed by the openness of strangers. Here are two stories that I found particularly touching.

Carol Mackey met Dick Gephardt in 1988. The Missouri congressman was campaigning for president in Mackey's hometown of Clinton, Iowa, when her father's house burned down.

When the candidate learned of the fire, he handed Mackey's father an envelope of money raised at the rally for Gephardt's campaign.

"This man," Gephardt told the crowd, "has done more for Clinton than anyone."

Sixteen years later, just two days before 89 percent of Iowa will reject him, Carol Mackey fights back tears to tell a small room in Clinton why she's still standing by Dick Gephardt.

I heard my second story while waiting for Wesley Clark at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va.

Bedford's population was a tiny 3,200 on June 6, 1944. The town sent 30 soldiers into Normandy that day. Nineteen died.

Roy Stevens was one of the 30 who sailed for France. His twin brother Ray was one of the 19 who died.

Roy and Ray grew up side by side. Roy tells me, "The only thing that ever separated us was June 6, 1944."

When I ask how he felt as he crossed the English Channel, Roy offers a sad smile: "I was kinda looking forward to some action … I didn't realize the real seriousness of it."

Sixty years later, Roy Stevens is a quiet man who says simply of the war that took his brother, "To maintain our freedom, we had to do that."

Next stop: Richmond

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