Military service does NOT make one a better president...

This is mostly focused on military actions.

Our current president: Was in the national guard. Was Awol. No combat experience. On his watch there has been over 4000 military deaths...

Bill Clinton: No military service. During the military action called Operation Allied Force there were 2 deaths from an Apache helicopter crash.

George H.W. Bush: WWII vet. Initiated Gulf War One and what I call 'The Somalia Disaster'. Over 400 military deaths combined.

Ronald Reagan: US Army. No combat experience. Almost 300 military deaths on his watch. This includes the bombing of the barracks in Lebanon.

Jimmy Carter: US Navy. No combat experience Joined in 1946. 8 military deaths due to a failed rescue mission.

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Our Dem presidents seem to have a far better track record in taking care of our military than the repuke ones.

As a veteran of the US Army I've noticed the ones who do the best by us are the ones who despise war the most....that is NOT the republicans.

McCain has forgotten that it was the repukes that made Vietnam what it was...and it's repukes that have made Iraq and Afghanistan what is today.

This should put to rest the argument that military service makes one a better president.

Remember all those websites going back to 2003 that contrasted military service between Democratic elected representatives and Republican ones? About time some of those were dusted off.

Blaming it solely on the GOP is revisionist history.

Ike took the problem on to the delight of France, but JFK, enamoured of Special Forces and counterinsurgency crapola, threw a few logs on the fire, LBJ made it worse (and agonized over the casualties, signed every condolence letter personally, and, at the end of the day, it is that war that killed him, sitting on his ranch in TX with his hair down to his shoulders, drinking and smoking, a broken old man), and Nixon fucked around with it for far too long before he decided it was a hopeless mess, too.

LBJ has a bullshit job in the Navy--didn't do much at all, managed to get himself a medal, though, for "observing." Nixon was Navy, too. And of course, so was JFK. We all know what Ike did....he had the most distinguished military career, and he certainly warned us to beware of the military-industrial-congressional complex....pity we didn't listen.

Of course many people believe that the atomic bombings saved a lot of US military people.

:hide:

If you look at the way GW Bush has obsessively gagged his generals and micro-managed the conduct of the war via Donald Rumsfeld, It's pretty obvious to me that his "service" just made him arrogant.

It's far better to have a lifetime civilian who makes defense decisions, approves and engagement strategy and than leaves the prosecution of warfare to career soldiers. Bush hasn't done this. He bolluxed the whole thing up from the beginning by allowing Rumsfeld to trump the collective wisdom of the war college.

who

a) Has served AND

b) Hates war.

Not one OR the other--both a AND b.