A poll taken earlier this month on the on-line site for Military Industry Today (a news service for military industry professionals) had some startling results. Or maybe not.
The question was this:
Regardless of your general preferences, which U.S. presidential candidate's Iraq policy do you support?
The results below the fold.
John McCain: 38.72 percent
Barack Obama: 54.32 percent
Don’t know: 6.96 percent
Link.
As astonishing as these results may seem to some people, they were not astonishing to me. I grew up in a military family. I was born at the United States Naval Academy Hospital in 1957, when my Dad (a USNA graduate) was a professor there. (His Dad proudly wore very early Marine Corps Aviation Wings -- and flew in dogfights over France during World War I without benefit of a parachute or radar.)
One of the students at the USNA when my Dad was teaching there was John McCain, whose hijinx, lack of discipline and utter disdain for the Academy landed him at the bottom of his class. My Dad, whose academic achievement at the Academy would have placed him first in his class (which he was not, as a result of infractions such as oversleeping and not being a stellar athlete), had little respect for those who treated the Academy in this manner. My Dad worked really hard at the Academy: he was no athlete, he was a night owl, he helped his fellow Midshipmen with their homework until all hours. The physical discipline of the Academy was a challenge to him, and one he rose to, through determination and a true belief in the ideals of the Academy.
The last check my Dad wrote before he died very suddenly some eight years ago was a small contribution to John McCain’s Presidential bid that year. The check, I think, was more in protest of George W. Bush than in support of McCain, but I will never know this for sure.
This much I do know.
My Dad was a proud patriot, who served his country with honor and distinction and honesty. He lived his life, every day, in fulfillment of the USNA’s Mission Statement:
To develop midshipmen morally, mentally and physically and to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, honor and loyalty in order to provide graduates who are dedicated to a career of naval service and have potential for future development in mind and character to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government.
My Dad never told a lie. He never used foul language. He respected and loved and honored my Mom for the 49 years of their very happy marriage. He was kind and generous to a fault with both me and my brother. He loved his country so very much. And I know he would agree with his fellow USNA graduate, Jim Webb, who recently wrote:
It is both patronizing and condescending for politicians to use our military people as backdrops or ‘color commentary’ for their own political goals. The implications of such political posturing are even more troublesome when the military’s competence becomes the sole bright spot in political wars gone awry. Between the Bush Administration and the more extreme elements in the Congress, the Republican Party has further endangered our nation’s entire strategic posture through the way it was conducted the war and Iraq. Their most glaring and crucial failing has been an adamant refusal to match the sacrifices of our military with a sound, regionally based diplomatic strategy designed to take advantage of the military’s performance.
Jim Webb, A Time to Fight (2008) at page 210.
My Dad, a military man, never wanted to mix the military with politics; he understood that such a mixture was a hallmark of fascism, which he abhorred. He was a Republican his whole life, but he never would have countenanced using our military as political props. I am certain he would have agreed with Jim Webb here, too (and would have been adamantly behind Senator Webb’s GI Bill, which Senator McCain opposed):
And John McCain's my long-time friend, if that is one area that I would ask him to calm down on, it`s that, don't be standing up and uttering your political views and implying that all the people in the military support them because they don't, any more than when the Democrats have political issues during the Vietnam War. Let's get the politics out of the military, take care of our military people, or have our political arguments in other areas.
Jim Webb on Countdown (June 30, 2008).
Video here.
The actual military are obviously much more sensible than Senator McCain is. Of course, they are out there risking their necks, and he is busy walking cheese aisles and bashing Senator Obama.
Indeed, as TheWesternSun notes in the comments, they do not believe that Senator McCain's military "experience" gives him a "substantial advantage" over Senator Obama. Results here.
I saw today on this site that Senator McCain is releasing a new ad in which he chastises Senator Obama for allegedly refusing to meet with wounded troops in Germany.
Using wounded Americans you voted to send into a unnecessary war as political surrogates for your campaign is beneath any graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Senator McCain.
Shame on you.