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How important is a candidate's military service record?
That question keeps popping up, most recently with
allegations from an outfit called Swift Boat Veterans
for Truth,
who claim that Democratic presidential
nominee John Kerry really wasn't under enemy fire when he
won a Bronze Star on March 13, 1969.
One leader of those veterans, Larry Thurlow, commanded a
Swift Boat that day in the same area, and he has said that
I never heard a shot.
However, Thurlow's own Bronze
Star citation says that he came to the assistance of other
boats despite enemy bullets flying about him.
There are people, like Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Republican and former prisoner of war, who have called on President George W. Bush to denounce the Swift Boat Veteran attack ads.
I deplore this kind of politics,
McCain said a
couple of weeks ago. I think the ad is dishonest and
dishonorable. As it is, none of these individuals served on
the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crew have testified
to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served
honorably in Vietnam. I think George Bush served honorably
in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam
War.
The Bush White House, of course, has not denounced the Swift Boat ad, which was produced and financed by Bush supporters like Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, who donated $200,000.
The Bushites managed to get the nomination away from McCain in 2000 by questioning his patriotism with rumors in South Carolina, and in 2002 managed to defeat Democratic Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, who lost two legs and most of an arm in Vietnam, by questioning his patriotism because he, like George W. Bush at first, opposed creating a Department of Homeland Security.
But the issue here is not consistency, but whether military experience matters, either as a campaign issue or as a guarantee of competence in office.
If we judged only by a politician's military experience, then the Confederacy should have won the Civil War easily. Abraham Lincoln served for a few weeks as captain of a volunteer company in the Black Hawk War, and was court-martialed because his men stole the regiment's whiskey and got drunk. Jefferson Davis was a West Point graduate and an honored commander of the First Mississippi Rifles during the Mexican War, wherein he was wounded. He was also an able and innovative Secretary of War during Franklin Pierce's administration.
Certainly Ulysses S. Grant had ample military experience
-- service in the Mexican War and commanding general of the
victorious Union Army -- when he entered the White House in
1869. But as for his two terms, H.L. Mencken once observed
that It would have been worth losing the Civil War if
that would have kept Grant out of the White House.
Modern biographers and historians have been somewhat more
charitable, but no one claims that he was a great
president.
There was a time, perhaps, when military service helped at the polls, as some victorious generals went on to win the White House, from George Washington and Zachary Taylor to Dwight D. Eisenhower.
But it hasn't mattered in more recent elections. Richard Nixon was a supply officer who never saw enemy fire during World War II; George McGovern was a decorated bomber pilot who dodged flak almost every day over the Third Reich. Guess who won in 1972.
Ronald Reagan spent World War II making training and propaganda films in Hollywood; Jimmy Carter was an Annapolis graduate with seven years of active naval service. Guess who won in 1980. George Bush the Elder was a decorated torpedo bomber pilot in World War II; Bob Dole was gravely wounded with the 10th Mountain Division in World War II. Both lost to Bill Clinton, who was a draft-dodger during Vietnam. Al Gore actually carried a rifle in Vietnam; George Bush the Younger never left the U.S. and some details of his Air National Guard service are still murky. Guess who won in 2000.
In short, there's no real evidence that a military
record makes much difference to voters, and perhaps rightly
so, since it doesn't seem to make much difference in the
White House. But when the Bushites refuse to distance
themselves from dishonest and dishonorable
people
like the Swift Boat Veterans -- that might tell us
something worth knowing.
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