Bob Parson, Lifelong Republican and Retired Army Veteran

Bob Parson, lifelong Republican and retired Army veteran, is Gabrielle Giffords’ supporter of the week. “We have to send people to Congress who won’t be afraid to stand up for the courage of their convictions and face the problems that our country is facing,” he said.

Bob grew up in Fairfield County, CT. After graduating from Brown University in 1959, he joined the Army Reserves. During the Berlin Wall crisis, his Reserve unit was called up to active duty. “I received a General Delivery letter from JFK, calling us up,” he said, and he served for a year in Ft. Bragg in an 8-inch Howitzer Unit.

After his military service, he went back to work at General Electric. He made his career in sales and marketing, for GE as well as Philips, Norelco, and Panasonic. He has lived across the U.S., from Los Angeles, to New York, to Washington, D.C.

Upon retiring Panasonic in 1998, he and his wife of 36 years, Teruko, moved to Southern Arizona.

Bob decided to take advantage of his retirement to enrich himself and further his education. “There was a wonderful resource in the University of Arizona, and with my love of history and my wife’s encouragement, I went back and got my Master’s degree,” he said. His thesis was titled “Western North Carolina Mountain Men in the Confederate Army: An Analysis of How Battlefield and Homefront Events Influenced their Participation in the American Civil War, 1861-1865.” In the process of writing this thesis, he read more than 1,000 letters from the Civil War era.

Bob was awarded his Master’s degree earlier this year. After that distinction, Bob decided to work for a change in this country, and stopped by the Gabrielle Giffords for Congress headquarters at 5704 E. Broadway in Tucson. “When I walked in the
door, I said I was a card-carrying Republican and I want to volunteer for Gabrielle Giffords,” he said.

Since then, Bob has been knocking on Republican doors and soliciting votes for Giffords.

Bob supports Giffords for many reasons, including her business background, the issues she fights for, and her common-sense approach.

He points to Giffords’ experience as a businesswoman as a tremendous asset. “Gabrielle Giffords came back to run the family business. She learned that you have to take in more than you send out. That’s not the way the Republican administration is acting. They’re not acting in a fiscally responsible way — not only now but for our children. Tax breaks for the richest 1% of Americans are morally unjustifiable.”

He also cites the lack of foreign policy leadership in Washington as a prime reason for change. “We should not have gone into Iraq based on the evidence we had — WMDs and the false tying of Saddam and Al Qaeda,” he said. He supports Giffords’ common-sense approach to the Iraq War. “We can’t just walk away from it, but, as James Baker said, it’s time to look for alternatives — not cut and run.”

Additionally, Bob applauds Giffords’ leadership on renewable energy. “We need to have a way to wean our reliance on foreign oil, whether it’s from the Middle East or Venezuela,” he said.

Bob also supports Giffords’ common-sense approach to immigration. “The illegal immigration crisis is a huge problem,” he said. “It causes lots of stress on the State of Arizona. As Gabrielle says, it’s enforcement, with more Border Patrol, and the surveillance equipment has to be implemented. You have to have strict penalties to the businesses that hire illegally. You have to have a pathway to citizenship, if they’re willing to pay their back taxes and don’t have a criminal record.”

Finally, he applauds her common-sense approach to leadership. “She’s a reasonable person,” he said. “Her program is well-rounded. I love the way she expresses herself as a public servant. We have to send people to Congress who won’t be afraid to stand up for the courage of their convictions and face the problems that our country is facing.”