Democratic congressman John Murtha (PA-12th) died of complications following gall bladder surgery in a Virginia hospital today. He had served in Congress for 36 years, most of his time there from a heavily gerrymandered district that ensured his tenure. Good coverage of his life history is summarized in this article — Rep. John Murtha, Iraq war critic, dies at 77:

Born June 17, 1932, John Patrick Murtha delivered newspapers and worked at a gas station before graduating from Ramsay High School in Mount Pleasant….

He left Washington and Jefferson College in 1952 to join the Marines, where he rose through the ranks to become a drill instructor at Parris Island, S.C., and later served in the 2nd Marine Division.

Murtha moved back to Johnstown and remained with the Marine Reserves until he volunteered to go to Vietnam. He served as an intelligence officer there from 1966 to 1967 and received a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

After his discharge from the Marines, Murtha ran a small business in Johnstown. He went to the University of Pittsburgh on the GI Bill of rights, graduating in 1962 with a degree in economics.

He served in the Pennsylvania House in Harrisburg from 1969 until he was elected to Congress in a special election in 1974. In 1990, he retired from the Marine Reserves as a colonel.

“Ever since I was a young boy, I had two goals in life—I wanted to be a colonel in the Marine Corps and a member of Congress,” Murtha wrote in his 2004 book….

Clearly, he realized his two goals.

His later career was characterized by pork for friends and relatives, government favors in return for campaign contributions, allegations of corruption (he was an unindicted co-conspirator in ABSCAM), and untruthful criticism of our troops.

The mainstream media conveniently forget the sins of self-serving polititians when they depart this life, and deliver positive eulogies. So the fact that Murtha was a participant in ABSCAM, and saved his own bacon by testifying against fellow bribe-taking congressmen, is glossed over. A little over six months ago, upon Teddy Kennedy’s passing, the newsreaders gave him a pass on his cowardly abandonment of Mary Jo Kopechne, whom he left to drown in his car after a drunk-driving accident. Maybe John and Teddy can shovel coal together.