War record doesn't sway most voters (BARF ALERT)

The Commercial Appeal ^ | 2//9/04 | Michael Lollar

[GailA]

War record doesn't sway most voters

By Michael Lollar Contact February 9, 2004

But how many times was he shot?

A presidential candidate can have a degree from Yale, be a Rhodes scholar, have a daddy who was president or a wife who's a ketchup heiress, but can he take cover - or return fire - when under the gun on his military record?

And do voters really care? "If you're shot four times I believe you're blessed by the grace of God, and you must have survived for a reason," says LeMoyne-Owen College international business major Christopher Walton. But Walton, 19, says Purple Hearts and Silver Stars aren't a necessary measure of the kind of president he would like to see elected.

"We've invested millions of dollars going to Iraq and looking for weapons of mass destruction when we could have spent that money on education," says Walton.

Both Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former supreme commander of NATO, are decorated war heroes and the only two Democrats left in the race who served in the armed forces. They share one unifying trait of every American president from Harry Truman to the first George Bush. Each served in the military. Since then, voters twice elected Bill Clinton, who avoided the military altogether, and George W. Bush, an Air National Guardsman who never saw combat.

There seems to be little if any division between Generation Y students and their Baby Boomer parents over the question of military service or lack of it. And war records, woundings and photo-ops in flight suits are not the make-or-break issues that voters say are in the forefront as they size up a candidate.

At the University of Memphis, Generation Y sociology student Jason Hillner, 22, chairman of the campus Tiger Democrats, says a candidate's military record would not have seemed important to him during the last presidential election. "Of course, we live in very different times now."

[GailA]

FYI

[wvnavyvet]

They share one unifying trait of every American president from Harry Truman to the first George Bush. Each served in the military.

The National Guard is considered part of the military, so only Clinton remains as the sole non-military President. Kerry and Clark are decorated veterans, so what; that doesn't make them heroes. Clark gets off saying how he built a coalition; he followed orders to work with coalition memebers but he was not much of a builder.

[George W. Bush]

I don't think people vote on veteran status. That time has passed, maybe twenty years ago.

[weegee]

There seems to be little if any division between Generation Y students and their Baby Boomer parents over the question of military service or lack of it. And war records, woundings and photo-ops in flight suits are not the make-or-break issues that voters say are in the forefront as they size up a candidate.

Whether a person served, where he served, or if he didn't serve is not as important a question as is "the question of character".

Bill Clinton did not serve, protested an American war on foreign soil, and put in writing that he "...loathe(d) the military". He tried to play up every avenue that he could to avoid war. He sure launched a lot of missiles as President while serving a Commander in Chief.

John Kerry served in Vietnam and then proceeded to align himself with the anti-Vietnam War movement. He participated in a photo op to throw his medals over the White House fence but did not throw his own medals (the Pied Piper leading the masses). John Kerry also defended Bill Clinton's Vietnam history (Mr. "I loathe the military").

Too late to try to bash George W. Bush purely over his military service in the National Guard; the bar has forever been lowered by Bill Clinton's two-time election. If this was such an important issue, the media shouldn't have given Bill Clinton a pass when he faced candidates who fought in World War II.

[wvnavyvet]

"Bill Clinton did not serve, protested an American war on foreign soil, and put in writing that he "...loathe(d) the military". He tried to play up every avenue that he could to avoid war. He sure launched a lot of missiles as President while serving a Commander in Chief."

He also landed on the flight deck of a carrier, be it by helo and don't forget that memorable walk along the beach at Normandy.

[Congressman Billybob]

It is not John Kerry's five-month tour of duty in Vietnam that is at issue. (Yes, he copped out at five months rather than the normal tour of 12 months.) The real subject is what he did in the 36 yearts since then.

For a more accurate and relevant look at Kerry's checkered career, see my latest, "John (Benedict?) Kerry," now posted on FreeRepublic.

Congressman Billybob

Click here, then click the blue CFR button, to join the anti-CFR effort (or visit the "Hugh & Series, Critical & Pulled by JimRob" thread). Don't delay. Do it now.

[Argus]

This issue is 99% emotional, and it's also about masculinity. Since the first caveman heaved a rock, combat veterans have always had bragging rights over the stay-at-homes. It's in the Iliad. It's in Henry V's famous speech before Agincourt and in Johnson's remark that every man thinks badly of himself for not having been a soldier, or gone to sea. When Kerry and his partisans contrast his Vietnam experience with President Bush's, it's not really to enhance his credentials in the debate over national security. It's psychological warfare, meant to end the discussion entirely. It's exactly what you can expect a vain, arrogant bully like Kerry to do, and there will be a lot more of it.