May 8 (UPI) — Pete McCloskey, a former California congressman who founded Earth Day and challenged President Richard Nixon for the Republican nomination in 1972, has died at the age of 96.
McCloskey died Wednesday at his home in Winters, west of Sacramento, according to family spokesman Lee Houskeeper.
McCloskey, who was born in southern California and graduated from Stanford and later Stanford Law School, was elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives to represent San Mateo County in 1967, after defeating Shirley Temple Black in a special election. He went on to serve seven terms in the U.S. House until 1982, when he unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate.
Before getting into politics, McCloskey served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War, where he was awarded the Navy Cross and Silver Star.
“I got wounded twice,” McCloskey told ABC7 in an interview. “The ridge lines were so narrow that you couldn’t say ‘Sergeant, take the hill.’ You just had to say ‘follow me,’ because you could only get one guy on the hill.”