The news came in a brief email sent to Senator Kerry’s staff list last week:

Hello Kerry family,

I wanted to share some news with you all. I have been mobilized as a Naval reservist to go to Iraq and serve our country for one year. It is with a heavy heart that I tell you all this because I will miss all of you! I leave October 26. You all should know that I am very proud and honored to take this on. We’ll be in touch and I look to seeing you when I return!

Best,
Setti

Setti Warren has been part of the extended Kerry family for quite a while now. (And, yes, it really does feel like you’re part of an extended family when you work for JK— he’s very loyal to the people who work for him, and they return the favor in spades.) Setti joined the Senator’s staff in 2003, serving as Trip Director for JK as he criss-crossed the country campaigning for the presidency. He’s the Deputy Director for our Massachusetts office now, having served a stint as press secretary along the way.

But what the heck is a Trip Director, you may ask? Here’s how Setti described it in a typically light-hearted piece he penned for the Washington Post’s ‘First Person Singular’ feature in August of 2004:

I’m responsible for the senator’s schedule on the road, managing his time, knowing where he has to be at every minute and who he’s supposed to see along the way. I contact the contacts at each stop, make sure everyone knows he’s coming. Is he an easy person to keep on schedule? Let’s just say he’s a guy who loves to stay in a room as long as possible. My job is to make him leave the room. So I got to be the bad guy. I have to give him the time-to-go look when he’s swapping war stories or about to hug someone. But if we get off schedule, that’s worse.

Later in that same piece, Setti explained how he came to meet JK for the first time:

I met Senator Kerry when I was 14, in Massachusetts. At Boston College, I ran Students for Kerry in 1990 and one time spent at least four days working on a speech before he came to campus. Big moment came, and I introduced him as John F. Kennedy. Everyone fell silent. [But] Kerry came up and gave me an enormous hug. I think I’ve been committed to him ever since.

Like I said, loyalty and camaraderie go hand in hand around here. So does a sense of duty, honor and commitment to service. As Peter Gelzinis explained in his Boston Herald column over the weekend,

At the dawn of this endless presidential campaign, Sen. John Kerry announced he would not join the scrum of candidates – primarily because he wanted to focus his energy on forging some rational conclusion to the bloodshed in Iraq.

Not incidentally, in a couple of weeks, Kerry will bid farewell to Setti Warren, the deputy director of his Massachusetts office, who is leaving to spend the next year in Iraq as a Navy intelligence officer.

Warren, 37, is just the latest in a long line of Kerry staffers who are presently stationed, or have served, in Iraq. Kerry’s scheduler, Jackie Kohn, is on the front lines for the second time, serving in a combat support hospital unit.

Brady Van Engelen, Kerry’s adviser on veterans affairs, was a platoon leader with the “Tombraiders” of the 1st Armored Division. He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart and spent the better part of a year at Walter Reed Army Medical Center coming back from a head wound.

At a time when we tend to reach for the nearest stereotype and hide behind red or blue banners, Setti Warren goes off to war calling his boss, an impassioned critic of the current strategy in Iraq, “a true patriot.”

[ ... ]

“In the course of those journeys across New Hampshire and Iowa and the other campaign states,” Warren said, “I saw the fundamental connection he had to this country through his military service as well as his public service, and it mirrored how I felt. Being able to work for him was a kind of perfect match.

“There is also a family history of service,” Warren noted. “My father served in Korea with the Air Force and then spent almost 20 years as a commander in the Naval Reserves. And my grandfather fought at the Battle of the Bulge with the Army.”

For his part, Kerry said he told his deputy director that regardless of how one felt about the war, this was a rare moment to serve our country, to wear the uniform and stand with your brothers and put yourself to the greatest test of sacrifice and commitment.

“The experience is something that stays with you the rest of your life,” Kerry said. “It hones your leadership skills as well as grounding you in all the things that are real and true. I am very proud of Setti, as I am of all the people who’ve worked for me and served both in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

[ ... ]

Hopefully, when Setti Warren comes home just before the next presidential election, he will return with something more than opinions. He’ll bring back wisdom born of experience.

“I’ve asked everyone who’s worked for me and served in Iraq what they thought when they got home,” Kerry said. “I’d be crazy not to look to their opinions of the situation. All of them remain fiercely loyal to, and proud of, the troops they served with. And each and every one has said they wanted their service to have meant something, and not to have been in vain.”

It is no different with Setti Warren. “I have so much respect for all the staff members who’ve served or are still serving over there now,” he said. “Being able to serve the country in this way is something I consider a great privilege.”

For Setti, duty and honor and commitment to service also means more than being a Navy officer—as noted in an article in his hometown newspaper, the Newton Tab, he’s also been weighing his own run for elected office (something that will have to put off for later now that he’s been called up for active duty in Iraq):

Senator John Kerry’s deputy state director is considering running for mayor of Newton in 2009.

[ ... ]

Although he has never run for public office, Warren has made politics his profession.

The Newtonville resident served in the Clinton White House, and was appointed in 2002 the regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for New England. Warren joined Kerry’s crew in 2003, serving as the senator’s trip director and press secretary before becoming his deputy state director in late 2005.

“I think Newton can be a real world-class place and I’m thinking about this because … if there’s the possibility that I can be helpful in bringing it to new heights, then I’m going to do it,” he said.

Politics is in the Warren family blood. Joseph D. Warren, Setti’s father, once served as the general election coordinator and leading adviser on Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign in 1988. He also led an effort in 1985 to revise the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s charter.

Setti Warren is a sterling example of the kind of committed citizen that the people of Newton are justifiably proud of.

The extended Kerry family is justifiably proud of Setti, too. He’s more than just a valued colleague, he’s a key team member and a treasured friend to everyone he works with here. We’re going to miss him while he’s gone, and we’re looking forward to his safe return a year or so from now.

So please join Senator Kerry and the rest of us here at Team JK in wishing Setti Warren Godspeed and good luck as he heads off to serve his country in a time of war.

Safe home, Setti. We’ll leave the light in the Old North Church steeple on for ya.