You can see a contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans, in terms of who served in the military, at the website: AWOL Bush. There’s also a good profile at the Village Voice. Cheney received five deferments and famously said, “I had other priorities in the ’60s than military service.” Tom DeLay actually said, ‘there was no room in the military for people like himself because minority youths took all available slots to escape poverty.”
Mitch McConnell was kicked out of the Army Reserves in 1967 (perhaps for homosexual activity).
John Boehner ‘enlisted in the Navy’ during the Vietnam War. ‘He was discharged after eight weeks of training because of a bad back.’
Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Trent Lott, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Frist…all managed to get deferments. And, yet, the Republicans continue to propagate the fiction that they are the party of manliness and martial virtues.
Look at the Republican presidential field.
Upon graduation, Giuliani clerked for Judge Lloyd MacMahon, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York.
Giuliani did not serve in the military during the Vietnam War. He received a student deferment while at Manhattan College and another while at NYU Law. Upon graduation from NYU Law in 1968, he was classified as 1-A, available for military service. He applied for a deferment but was rejected. In 1969, MacMahon wrote a letter to Giuliani’s draft board, asking that he be reclassified as 2-A, civilian occupation deferment, because Giuliani, who was a law clerk for MacMahon, was an essential employee. The deferment was granted. In 1970, Giuliani received a high draft lottery number; he was not called up for service although by then he had been reclassified 1-A.
As the Vietnam War raged in the 1960s, Mitt Romney received a deferment from the draft as a Mormon “minister of religion” for the duration of his missionary work in France, which lasted two and a half years.
Before and after his missionary deferment, Romney also received nearly three years of deferments for his academic studies. When his deferments ended and he became eligible for military service in 1970, he drew a high number in the annual lottery that determined which young men were drafted. His high number ensured he was not drafted into the military.
Tancredo was in favor of the Vietnam War and spoke in support of the conflict as a Republican student activist. He became eligible to serve in Vietnam after graduating from the University of Northern Colorado in June 1969. Tancredo has said he went for his physical, telling doctors he’d been treated for depression, and eventually got a “1-Y” deferment.
Mike Huckabee was born in 1955 and was in college in the latter years of the Vietnam War. He never served in the military.
Sam Brownback turned 18 after the draft ended, but he never enlisted or served in the military.
He briefly attended the University of Montana and the University of California, Santa Barbara before enlisting in the United States Army. He served in the Vietnam War in the 173rd Airborne Brigade and the 75th Ranger Regiment.
After graduation from the Duke University School of Medicine in 1961 and his residency in obstetrics/gynecology, he was drafted and served as a flight surgeon during the Vietnam War but did not serve in a combat zone.
Only John McCain and Duncan Hunter have seen combat. The Democratic field is not noticeably different.
Chris Dodd, the son of a senator, ‘served as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small rural town in the Dominican Republic until 1968. Dodd then joined the U.S. Army Reserve, and served until 1975.’
Joe Biden didn’t serve. He was elected to the Senate in 1972, at the age of 30.
John Edwards graduated from college in 1974. He never served in the military.
Barack Obama was not born until 1961. He never served in the military.
Bill Richardson went to college and never served in the military.
Dennis Kucinich attended college and never served in the military.
Mike Gravel ‘enlisted in the United States Army in 1951 and served in West Germany as a Special Adjutant in the Communication and Intelligence Services and as a Special Agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps until 1954.’
And, of course, Hillary Clinton did not serve in the military.
The difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is not that one has some stellar record of military service. Yes, the Republicans have a disturbing number of people with bad backs and poor eyesight, while the Democrats tended to use straightforward college deferments. But, the real issue is one of hypocrisy. John Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam, but he never went around criticizing people’s patriotism if they didn’t support the mission. Guys like Tancredo did question people’s patriotism but then told the draft board they were too depressed to fight.
Obama, Clinton, and Edwards have no record of bellicosity, or of questioning people’s love of country, or courage, or manliness. That they didn’t choose a military life does not open them up to charges of hypocrisy.
The new generation of right-wingers like to approvingly quote things like this:
“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”
But do they volunteer to fight? No. Instead they call Edwards a ‘fag’, Obama a ‘terrorist’, Hillary a ‘dyke’. They constantly question the left’s manliness and patriotism. But they are cowards. At bottom, they are bedwetters. They belong to a party of bedwetters. They are the first people to give up their rights in the interest of some elusive security. And that is not the make-up of a soldier, or a patriot.
