Military experience = presidential loser??

Send interns to war, see how they do.

I've made my point.

 

It's unpopular, but you're right. Look at a town like Columbus, Ga. It's a shithole. It's full of strip clubs and check-cashing places. There's a reason those are there.

 

I wonder how much of that is because of the changes in war tactics. Up through WWII, you had a series of identifiable major battles with clear tactics that could be endlessly studied, debated and recreated. Future generations could have it all broken down into nifty map illustrations showing a clearly defined front and some red and blue arrows to show where each army went.

That started shifting some in Korea and by Vietnam it was as ancient as cavalry charges. The enemy was suddenly everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and assembling troops en masse was to invite slaughter. It wasn't a matter of capture the enemy capital or push the bad guys into the sea for a tidy victory anymore. It became something very abstract, and abstract doesn't breed many heroes.

 

Someone check the temperature in Hell, because I agree with every point in Alma's post.

 

Whenever America fights a war that NEEDS TO BE FOUGHT . . . its military leaders are always respected grandly.

Only once in the past 50 years as such a war been fought . . . and it took barely more time to finish than the All-Star Game.

 

Well since the U.S. never really lost Vietnam . . .

 

An interesting sidenote is that if McCain wins, he might be the last military vet to be elected president. Most future candidates, Obama included, will have come of age after the draft was abolished.

I mean, how many senators or governors below the age of 60 are military vets? Jim Webb comes to mind.

Who else?

 

I don't think McCain will be the last. Jim Webb will be the next one should Obama lose this go-around.
And despite the draft being abolished there are still some smart soldiers - despite what Stephen King or John Kerry tell you - out there that will likely get into politics.
Granted most of them will likely be Republicans. Most of the youth today that are not in the military, and are the book-smart elitist types from San Fran and Cambridge, Mass. are of the S-P movement.
The times they aren't a changin'. For better or worse, I don't think the Red State-Blue State model is going to die anytime soon.

 

First, Red, more than 50 veterans ran as Democrats last time around, including 8 Iraq war veterans.

Second, what in the name of all that is holy is the "S-P movement"?

 

Listen to Bill O'Reilly much, do ya?

 

I'll be back later this evening to debate this one.

 

There are three reasons for this real or perceived "decline in the respect for military"

1.) The World War II generation, which grew up in an era when world peace and harmony hung by a thread and there was seemingly a major war or conflict going on -- and they grew up at a time when those wars were considered noble -- is dying off.

2.) That generation is being replaced by Baby Boomers, who were by and large growing up in and contributing to the era when a bunch of douches smoking weed, wearing awful colored shirts and singing Puff the Magic Dragon were also burning draft cards and protesting the war and the military became almost the enemy -- it was viewed not in a positive light and the war was not considered noble and those people have changed the way we view the military forever.

And the children of this generation have also been raised with a different view of the military given the experiences of their parents.

3.) Then there is my generation, those of us, say under 42 or whatever, who really have grown up in a relatively peaceful era -- I mean I was born in 1969. I was obviously too young to remember Nam -- the next big confrontation was? Greneda? The fall of the wall in Berlin? Dessert Swarm? And because of that -- there are a lot less of us who have actually served in the military and while this war going on in Iraq is brutal or whatever -- let's face it, in the grand scheme of things it is barely a blip on the radar any more and none of can honestly say that outside of 9/11 we truly have had to live through the experience of our country at war.

In short -- those people who lived through the era of boom for the military are dinosaurs and dying off. Those of us who are left either grew up in an era where the military was viewed as the devil or grew up in an era when the military just wasn't that relevant in terms of fighting wars and drafting people.