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"No but having served in two wars gives him a level of credibility that those who avoided service don't have."

Cheney has also "served" this nation, and I might add through more than two wars.

Allow me to indulge in a bit of elderly "elitist" military thought.
Ground pounders are undeniably tactical experts, but were once generally assumed doctrinally unable to comprehend the validity of strategic war plans.

That "given" has changed astronomically in the past two decades, for a whole lot of reasons.
A total all volunteer force.
An emphasis on combined forces at all levels of command and control operations.
Technology.
Flexibility.

I include myself among those who "learned the lessons of Viet Nam".
But the people in uniform today are very different from the people in uniform in the 1980s and before.
It is an entirely different force structure, and I generally error on the side of caution when I feel the need to criticize.
(Except for that MOAB, man I really love that bomb!, and all those drone thingys, and the...etc)
Some of us are more than willing to defer to the civilian leadership, just as we always swore we did, but even more forcefully nowadays, since I know for a fact that President Bush, VP Cheney, and may God bless him, Rumsfeld, have a better grip on strategic military goals than any other administration in my lifetime.