Battling their way to the
Oval Office By Keith Andrew Bettinger
WASHINGTON - From the election of the
first US president, the war record was an integral part
of any prospective president's resume. George Washington
led the revolution and was a veteran of the French and
Indian War; Andrew Jackson, who joined a mounted militia
at age 13, was famous as an Indian fighter; presidents
James Polk and Zachary Taylor were both generals of the
various wars of expansion. After the Civil War, Ulysses
S Grant, the victorious general in that conflict, was
elected president. Other famous Civil War
general-turned-presidents included James A Garfield,
William Henry Harrison and Rutherford B Hayes.
There seems to be a pattern in US history of
rewarding conquering heroes with the presidency. Dwight
Eisenhower, a five-star general, was elected in 1952.
Unable to resist the attraction of battle credentials,
would-be presidents have cajoled, lied and wiggled their
ways into the military through personal connections.
John Kennedy lied about his crippling back condition to
get into the navy; he didn't want to miss the defining
event of his generation. He subsequently contracted
malaria and was awarded the Purple Heart and Navy/Marine
Corps Medal. When told he was too weak to join the
service, Theodore Roosevelt formed his own regiment,
leading the Rough Riders in combat from San Juan Hill to
the Philippines.
"Waving the bloody shirt" is a
grand old tradition, the oldest game in town. Americans
have always valued leaders who have proved themselves on
the battlefield. In the early days of the republic, when
the nation was vulnerable to outside attack, knowledge
of the military was an important component of the
presidency. As the new nation spread across the
continent, wars of conquest created seasoned leaders who
understood the "manifest destiny" of the United States.
An American Legion Magazine article from the 2000
presidential campaign chronicles the war records of the
presidents; 25 of the 43 presidents of the US have
served during wars in one way or another.
A
record of military service was seen as an indication of
bravery, integrity and discipline, all essential
qualities for a president. However, in the decades after
the Vietnam War, candidates' war records (or lack
thereof) have taken on a political significance, thus
the war record seems to be losing its luster among the
electorate. Presidents and presidential candidates often
exaggerate their records, or explain away their lack of
service by asserting that they served their nation in
"other ways". Charges of draft-dodging now fall on the
deaf ears of desensitized voters. This trend began in
the 1980s. Ronald Reagan stated publicly that he helped
to liberate Jews from concentration camps during World
War II. Reagan served, but it was in the army's 1st
Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, California, where he
starred in military training films. Reagan never served
in a combat theater. Gary Hart perceived a military
credential as so valuable that he joined the National
Guard during the 1984 campaign. During the wars of his
generation Hart was in divinity school. Al Gore served
five months as a combat photographer, but has had to
deflect charges that orders from on high kept him out of
dangerous situations.
The draft-dodging exposes,
which would soon become a genre unto themselves, began
with Dan Quayle, George Bush the elder's
vice-presidential candidate in the 1988 campaign.
Quayle, a Senate hawk, was revealed to have volunteered
for service during the Vietnam War with the Indiana
National Guard. Almost no National Guard units were sent
to Vietnam, and thus this service was seen as a coveted
insurance policy against serving time in the jungle.
Jeffrey Record, a professor writing for the Atlanta
Journal and Constitution, stated it best: "The Guard was
packed with white, affluent and well-connected young men
who did not wish to be unduly inconvenienced by a war
for which there was plenty of poor, uneducated - and
truly courageous - cannon fodder already available."
Then came Bill Clinton, who also had to maneuver
around charges of draft-dodging. Clinton stayed out of
the military during Vietnam thanks to educational
deferments. Clinton also took a deferment when he joined
a Reserve Officer Training Corps program at the
University of Arkansas, but he never attended the
classes. He later withdrew the deferment and drew a
draft lottery number too high to be drafted. What
particularly stung veterans, however, was that during
his deferment he actively organized against the war.
Current President George W Bush, although his
father was a bona fide war hero, skillfully navigated
his way through charges of using family influence to get
into the Texas Air National Guard during Vietnam, which
was viewed as a ticket out of the war. Bush also faced
tough questions about his service in the Guard. The
Boston Herald raised allegations that Bush was assigned
for duty in Alabama in 1972 but never showed up; the
paper alleged that Bush was in essence absent without
leave for an entire year. The press has largely ignored
the charges, as has the Bush campaign, and for the most
part the charges have gone away. At best a convoluted
evasion, at worst an unprosecuted federal crime, the
Bush affair has been taken up by filmmaker Michael Moore
and TomPaine.com.
There have been real heroes,
though. George H W Bush received numerous commendations
for bravery in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Bob
Dole, the 1996 Republican nominee for the presidency,
was crippled by machine-gun fire in Italy during World
War II. Over the next few years he faced
life-threatening surgeries and agonizing therapy. Often
reluctant to discuss his record, Dole made references to
his service during the campaign; at the Republican
National Convention in 1996 he said there is "something
about serving your country that makes us better
Americans". Dole was ultimately defeated by Clinton the
draft dodger; those who could relate to Dole's stories
and recall the days of good versus evil were rapidly
dying off.
Four years later, though, another
candidate, John McCain, tried to capitalize on his own
heroism. During the Vietnam War, McCain, a navy pilot
and son and grandson of admirals (one was active at the
time), was shot down, captured, and held in the infamous
"Hanoi Hilton" prison for more than five years. Though
his heroism resonated with the electorate and his story
appealed to the baby-boomers, many of whom had served in
the same conflict, he was still defeated by George W
Bush.
This year's Democratic field has two true
war heroes: John Kerry and Wesley Clark. Clark's use of
the war record began in November, with a somber ad set
in the jungle: "The first bullet shattered his hand. The
second and third hit his shoulder and leg. As he fell to
the jungle floor, he continued giving commands to his
troops and rallied their courage. He refused to be
evacuated until his troops were safe." Heady stuff for a
public accustomed to heroic feats of valor from Black
Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers. Clark, when
the shooting stopped, had racked up four gunshot wounds
in Vietnam.
Kerry, for his part, can play the
hero card as well. He received the Bronze Star, the
Silver Star and three Purple Hearts. On return, Kerry
helped to found the Vietnam Veterans of America and
became a spokesman against the war. This gives him a
speaking-from-experience credibility that endears him to
many veterans; he has actively sought their vote and has
enlisted many as volunteers in his campaign.
This year's cast also has plenty of what used to
be called "draft dodgers" as well. Howard Dean was
excused from duty thanks to a medical deferment. Dick
Cheney and Joe Lieberman both received deferments during
Vietnam for having children. But maybe the deferment
vote is smarter than the veteran vote: government
records show that the number of men exempted from the
draft because they were fathers exceeded the 2.6 million
men and women who served in Vietnam by nearly a million.
For his part, Cheney said: "I had other priorities in
the '60s than military service" when first pressed on
the issue in 1989 when he was nominated as defense
secretary. Most Americans, it seems, can relate to this
feeling.
Just how much the role of the war
record has changed is reflected in the Clark campaign.
Clark, the only general-contender since Eisenhower
(excepting, perhaps, the forgettable candidacy of
Alexander Haig), is focusing on the administrative
aspects of his office. He trumpets his lobbying for
better schools, better health care and better homes for
soldiers under his command. Clark can thus not only
portray himself as a veteran of war, the ideal candidate
to defend the nation against the likes of al-Qaeda, but
also a veteran of the ideal struggle for social equality
within the US military.
The nature of the
presidency has also changed. Presidents must be
telegenic and likable, and be perceived as "tough" on
certain issues - crime, terrorism, etc. One recent
letter to the New York Times summed it up: "Serving in
the military does not prepare one for dealing with the
important domestic issues that our country faces, like
education, health care, job loss, income disparity and
the alarming state and federal budget deficits."
The war record is quickly losing its punch among
voters who have learned to forgive their leaders for
just about any offense imaginable. The nature of
military service has changed, as well. The realities of
life in the trenches are becoming more and more remote
to the average US citizen. As columnist Richard Reeves
writes: "There are more than 31,000 green-card [US work
permit for foreigners] holders, most from Mexico and the
Philippines, on active duty now, many hoping to move up
the date they can become naturalized citizens." Many of
those killed in Iraq were non-citizen soldiers.
The US today still defines itself in part by its
military strength. The ability to project force and
protect the national borders is a key issue in this
year's campaign. However, the new military is strictly
professional; it is the most cutting-edge institution in
the world and its technological hegemony has in effect
removed the specter of mandatory military service from
the citizenry. US wars have become spectator events,
foreign policy tools with assured outcomes owing to
overwhelmingly asymmetrical forces and capabilities.
The war and subsequent occupation in Iraq are
sometimes assailed for their Pyrrhic casualty counts in
the liberal media; in just under a year more than 500 US
soldiers have been killed. In Vietnam the dead sometimes
numbered more than 200 a week. Citizens of the US no
longer participate, nor have an immediate family member,
nor know someone killed in its wars. The dead have
become celebrities as CNN ticks off their names in the
evening. Thus stories of valor, heroism and personal
sacrifice are slowly losing their value in electoral
politics. They are the stuff of legends now, not an
integral part of the American experience.
The
wars that are more relevant to the US public are
political creations with ambiguously defined enemies and
sound-bite objectives: the "war on drugs", the "war on
terror". It is becoming implicit in these newly created
wars that the government will fight them. In the new
good-versus-evil the electorate must be protected, and
the prize goes to him who can best keep the danger at
arm's length, out of sight and out of mind.
Keith Andrew Bettinger has a master's
degree in international affairs from George Washington
University with concentration in Asian studies.
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Jan 27, 2004
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Battling their way
