In October 2006, McHale was recalled to active Marine Corps duty to deploy to Afghanistan.[2] For McHale's service as both a Congressman and Assistant Secretary of Defense, McHale was awarded the DoD Distinguished Public Service Medal – the department's highest civilian honor – by three successive Secretaries of Defense.
Politics
McHale was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1983 to 1991, resigning in order to volunteer for active duty in the Gulf War. In 1992, he ran for Congress and defeated 14-year incumbent Don Ritter in a major upset, with the support of significant numbers of Democratic, Republican and Independent voters in the Lehigh Valley.
While serving in Congress, McHale was an active member of the House Armed Services Committee and he co-founded the National Guard and Reserve Components Caucus.
McHale gained prominence in 1998 when he called for Bill Clinton to resign. He voted for three of the four articles of impeachment against Clinton. He was one of only five Democrats who voted for at least one article, and had by far the most liberal voting record of those who supported impeachment. The other four Democrats who voted for at least one article were Virgil Goode, Ralph Hall, Charlie Stenholm, and Gene Taylor, all of whom had very conservative voting records. Goode, Hall and Taylor subsequently became Republicans, while McHale served in the Bush administration.
Nominated by President George W. Bush, McHale was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and assumed his position as Assistant Secretary of Defense (ASD) for Homeland Defense (HD) on February 7, 2003. The first to hold this position, McHale supervised all homeland defense activities for the U.S. Department of Defense and represented the Department at the highest levels of U.S. domestic crisis planning. He left DoD in January 2009 at the end of the George W. Bush administration.
As Assistant Secretary of Defense, McHale was responsible for senior civilian oversight of two geographic combatant commands, Northern Command and Southern Command, as well as DoD Western Hemisphere policy affairs, Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA), and the transfer of technologies to homeland security use pursuant to Section 1401 of the 2003 National Defense Authorization Act.