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Posted by Ballpark Frank (69.178.8.75) on 11:17:29 11/11/16
Seeing the annual wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier got me thinking about how once again, we have elected a non-veteran president. From my perspective (as a former Regular Army guy), the last true veteran president was George H.W. Bush. (R.A.'s don't recognize ER's and NG's as vets, at least not from the Vietnam era. In the Afghanistan/Iraq world, where ER's and NG's were mobilized and deployed, many ER's and NG's are "real vets".) I look at the stats on veteran presidents from my early days (Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan), and being a vet was almost a prerequisite.
I believe that most veteran presidents, maybe all, having seen war and all its ugliness, have been reluctant to commit our troops, without considerable forethought. We know that W. got some bad input from people in his administration. I wonder if that was the case with LBJ? I've seen some of Robert McNamara's confessions, and there sure was some miscalculation and brain fog going on.
Ballpark
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