Military Record May Gain Role in 2004 Presidential Race (Blairifying Clinton and the military)

ELECTIONS 2004 SPECIAL REPORT The Presidential Sweepstakes.
The race to challenge President Bush is on as Democrats begin lining up.

Since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, a candidate's military service has seemed an issue of the past, one that intrigued the news media but not necessarily the voters, who in the past three presidential elections rejected war veterans in favor of candidates who managed to avoid combat at the height of the Vietnam War.

But perhaps for the first time since Dwight D. Eisenhower rode his World War II service into the Oval Office in 1952, candidates for the White House today must face the possibility that -- for an electorate scarred by terrorism and coming out of war in Afghanistan and Iraq -- military service has taken on a new relevancy.

Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) -- the only one of the nine Democratic presidential candidates with battlefield experience -- has made his military record a centerpiece of his campaign. President Bush put the issue of military leadership at front and center earlier this month with his showy landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln -- complete with flight suit emblazoned with "commander in chief." The dramatic images surrounding Bush's on-deck address to the troops that day made it abundantly clear that the president -- who spent the Vietnam War stateside in the Texas Air National Guard -- will flaunt his military leadership in his bid for reelection.

I'm a USMC vet too but I don't quite agree with you that only those who serve in wartime should be elected to high office. That disqualifies a lot of good people (and qualifies many who are undeserving). What if one didn't come of age in wartime? When I served in the Marines, there were no wars going on. Should that disqualify me from high office? I don't think you meant to infer that but I kind of took it that way. What if I was running for president against a Democrat who fought in the Vietnam war. Would you automatically vote for the Democrat because I only served during peacetime?

Anyway, I agree with you that those who use their connections to avoid serving our military during a major war are perhaps unworthy of public office. That's why I'll never vote for them. Bill Clinton certainly did that by getting accepted into the National Guard to avoid the draft and then running off to England to avoid even doing that (as a Rhodes Scholar). Once Clinton got a high draft number, he came back to the U.S.A. Now that is despicable.

Perhaps our current president joined the National Guard to avoid service in Vietnam. I really don't know. But as another poster said, at least he did serve the military. And piloting a jet fighter is no "skate" job.

Don't mean to knock my National Guard bretheren: it is military duty and something to be proud of...

Well you did, Colonel, and I don't understand why. I simply must disagree with you in regards to George W. Bush. He didn't fly Thud Ridge, or go Downtown, but so didn't a lot of fighter pilots who served at Bitburg, or Malstrom, or Aviano, or in the Med off a Sixth Fleet carrier, or hundreds of other places. Again, I submit, flying a fighter jet, EVEN in peace time, IS hazardous duty. I don't see signing up for that duty during the Vietnam War as a aims to get out of life-threatening situations. Dubya could have gotten a lot of other, safer duties by far.

Wow! As always, you get a wild set of interpretations every time you post something - The point that I was trying to make, from my narrow prism as a Baby Boomer that chose to serve his country during the Vietnam War - is that we had two groups of American men during that period of time, those that joined the services and those that found many of the available ways to stay out of it.

It just seems odd that of the available volunteers to lead us, we have this pool of guys who let other guys saddle up and take the chances for their country in their places. And it isn't just the top level leadership: look at all the "best and brightest" we have leading us from the Boomer generation that "had better things to do".

Serving in any capacity that supports our country is good and meritorious service - and as another poster put it, you have a very good chance of dying for your country by flying military aircraft anywhere.

I just have a special place in my heart for the few gutsy members of my generation that sought the tough service and took on the hard burdens - and very little respect for the little people who found artful excuses to leave the scary stuff to other men.

As for serving in the Corps in any capacity, you have my admiration and gratitude...and I hope you DO run for office!

Me and my postings! No matter how carefully I phrase things, I still end up knocking good people that I don't mean to knock..

The people who join the service, any service, are the best of us in my book. During the Vietnam War, a whole lot of people joined but didn't get assigned to combat (I know a whole lot of them that volunteered to fight but were never assigned "in country".) They were and are solid citizens who served their country every bit as well as those that did go to Vietnam.

However, during the war itself, there were plenty of "service avoiders" that considered the preservation of their own skins superior to dangerous duty and one of those dodges was to pull strings and join the Guard - preferably some unit with very little chance of being called up.

I just don't believe that men who choose to avoid service and avoid combat during time of war should be considered for higher leadership. It's a personal courage/self-sacrifice/integrity thing. Look at what Clinton was and what he became - he dodged the draft and avoided the Vietnam War with every crafty trick that was available - then became one of the weakest and most morally corrupt individuals to occupy the Oval Office. Wasn't the pattern he adopted in his youth indicative of the kind of leader he would become?

Shouldn't we be seeking leaders with known courage instead?

Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) -- the only one of the nine Democratic presidential candidates with battlefield experience -- has made his military record a centerpiece of his campaign.

Funny how FrankenBerry never mentions that he tossed his medals into the Potomic. Military service is great in a commander and chief, but respect for that same military you're going to command counts too. Bush may not be a war hero, but you can tell he has respect for the military and they in turn have respect for him. X42 loathed the military, and they had contempt for him. IMO, it'll be a long time before the military trusts a democrat president again.

hate to tell ya USMC but most of the soldiers on the front lines in Iraq where reservists think they thought they'd be patrolling Baghdad when they signed up for the one weekend a month duty stuff? Bush didn't exactly pick the easiest national guard duty flying an F-102, but in retrospect think those boys from vietnam wouldn't have wanted Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense and not William "go by the stats" Macnamera.

Personally, I think that people that let other Americans take the risks of war during a major war, should be automatically disqualified from consideration for our highest offices.

By your 'logic' then, WWII bomber pilot McGovern would have been your choice over WWII Navy Statesider Nixon in '72. Same with JFK and Nixon in '60. Nice system you got there.

voters, who in the past three presidential elections rejected war veterans in favor of candidates who managed to avoid combat...

By this they are saying that Gore was a combat veteran. True, he went to Vietnam, but as a uniformed writer, and he was never exposed to combat. There is an important distinction among being a military veteran, a war veteran, and a combat veteran.

Some authentic combat veterans in politics today include McCain, Kerry, and Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Some retired ones are Bob Dole and Bob Kerrey. George McGovern was a World War II combat veteran; LBJ, despite a phony silver star, was not.

A combat veteran thought likely to enter politics is General Eric K. Shinseki, who lost a leg in Vietnam but thanks to affirmative action rose several grades above where the Peter Principle should have stalled him. Not surprizingly, he will register and run as a Democrat (for Senate in Hawaii).

Even Ted Kennedy is an Army veteran (he was drafted when expelled from Harvard for cheating. After serving in Germany, he was readmitted to Harvard). But not a war veteran.

I guess my point is that there is an important distinction between military, war, and combat veterans. A variety of which can be found on all sides of the political aisle. I would just out this down to careless use of language but this paper does tend to use language in such a way as to boost its favoured politicians -- in the case of the example I cite, Gore. Military veterans tend to be very aware of this dinstinction, and respectful of each variety of veteran -- they all did their duty, as I see it.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

....the ironic thing..is that you were not considered a hero when you returned from VN.

Not by the left wing cultural arbiters, to be sure. But... who gives a hoot? The ultimate thing is to be respected by those you respect. Make that happen, and you don't even hear the noise of those you don't.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

What makes you think Algor has a high IQ?

Actually somebody... Steve Sailer?... got hold of some IQ-equuivalent tests on Al and W during the election cycle, and lo and behold, guess who's higher? I think the test might have been SATs. The SATs are recognised as highly G-loaded.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

Interesting interpretation -

The reservists that served in Baghdad and the other theaters of the latest war knew full well that they could be called to combat - based on the first Gulf war they all knew that when they signed up. Therefore I really admire the men and women, active and reserve, that served in the Iraqi war

During the Vietnam War, the weaker among us sought deferments, found previously undiscovered aiments, ran to Canadian vacations, discovered that they were gay, and pulled political strings to get appointments into the Guard.

The instinct for self-preservation is a natural one, but I tend to respect the ones that did accept the possibility of losing their lives or parts of their bodies for their country more than the ones that found artful ways out of that danger.

Shouldn't we seek leaders that have proven their willingness to risk all that they have for the sake of our country instead of the types of people that sought to avoid danger to themselves?

n retrospect think those boys from vietnam wouldn't [think ya meant "would"] have wanted Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense and not William "go by the stats" Macnamera.

... or Les Aspin, Clinton's first SecDef who came out with brainstorms like, "these Special Forces guys will never be useful in modern war, let's disband two groups," and "the guys in Somalia want a gunship... what the hell do they need that for... disapproved!"

You have to wonder what kind of fuzzy thinker Gore would have selected for SecDef. Probably make a pick based on sex or race... "our first black female SecDef..." which would be fine if it was Condi Rice (but with him it wouldn't be).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

Ok, Colonel, I do see your point, and agree with you in general, but still disagree with you specifically in regards to George W. Bush. Do you really believe that signing up to fly a Delta Dart was considered a coushy duty by Bush???? My thinking is that this was not a decision designed to avoid harm to himself by avoiding war. If so, he could have gotten JA duty in some Guard unit. The desire to fly a rocket-with-wings like the F-102 leads me to believe he had as much guts as any one of us who served.

" "I don't have to sit in the Situation Room and be taught everything. . . . I learned a lot on the front lines," he said.

Kerry's arrogance is boundless. A real hero would be humble and let others talk about his wartime accomplishments. Kerry (according to an interview he and his jockey Theresa gave to a Washington magazine last year)-has nightmares and flashbacks from Viet Nam and may have been under psychiatric care for post traumatic stress syndrome-he refused to answer the question.Notice the dig at President Bush- inferring he had to " be taught everything"-as if he were an unprepared schoolkid.Any first term President is going to have to learn the ropes,in the Situation Room.I wonder if Clinton ever bothered to go to the Situation Room-they probably had to lure him there,by telling him it was the Compromising Situations Room.

Seeking election to the U.S. House in 1972, Kerry found it necessary to suppress reproduction of the cover picture appearing on his own book, The New Soldier. His political opponent pointed out that it depicted several unkempt youths crudely handling an American flag to mock the famous photo of the U.S. Marines at Iwo Jima. Suddenly, copies of the book became unavailable and even disappeared from libraries. But the Lowell (Mass.) Sun said of the type of person shown on its cover: "These people spit on the flag, they burn the flag, they carry the flag upside down, [and] they all but wipe their noses with it in their efforts to show their contempt for everything it still stands for."

http://peacecouncil.net/Kerrey'sGhosts.htm

'The New Soldier'

by John F. Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against The War New York: Collier Books.

NOTE THE UPSIDE DOWN FLAG

http://peacecouncil.net/images/New%20Soldier%20Cover.JPG

When Mr. Kerry pontificated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans Day, a group of veterans turned their backs on him and walked away. They remembered Mr. Kerry as the anti-war activist who testified before Congress during the war, accusing veterans of being war criminals. The dust jacket of Mr. Kerry's pro-Hanoi book, "The New Soldier," features a photograph of his ragged band of radicals mocking the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, which depicts the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, with an upside-down American flag.

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