Hood event with candidates is on hold - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Hood event with candidates is on hold

A proposed Aug. 11 town hall meeting near Fort Hood, Texas, in which it was hoped that the two presidential candidates would talk to audiences of military members, veterans and retirees is off, the event’s chief organizer said Tuesday.

But whether the event is canceled or simply being postponed is unclear.

“We are open to rescheduling, if they want to, but it was getting to close to Aug. 11 to leave it open,” said Carissa Picard, managing director of the Fort Hood Presidential Town Hall Consortium that was planning the event, planned for the Bell County Expo Center in Belton, Texas, near Fort Hood, the largest U.S. military base.

Picard had announced July 11 that the town hall meeting would be televised by CBS and that aides to Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential candidate, had indicated McCain was willing to attend.

Picard tried to bring pressure to get Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic presidential candidate, to agree to attend, but campaign officials said Obama had another event previously planned for that day.

A group of 15 national and local military and veterans’ groups had signed on to sponsor the event, including the Military Officers Association of America, the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States, the Fleet Reserve Association and Veterans for Common Sense.

McCain and Obama are both scheduled to speak before several veterans’ groups prior to the November presidential election, including a Disabled American Veterans convention in Las Vegas in early August, around the time the town hall meeting in Texas was to be held.