Back in 2004, most voters who were in the military said they considered themselves Republicans. This time around, the military vote is up for grabs. Washington Monthly magazine asked recent veterans to tell them what they were looking for in a candidate. We'll talk with some of them. And, we want to hear from those of you who are active military... What would it take to get your vote?
2:00 PM ET | 07- 9-2007 | permalink
As a 27-year veteran, now a retired Air Force officer, your important discussion about how candidates can get the votes of military people (and veterans) is a subject full of irony. What should candidates think about, in my opinion?
1. First, we send our sons and daughters off to war, and then tie them up in a bureaucratic morass when they seek deserved health care while still on active duty and as veterans. We need the commitment to complete, responsive, and free health care to veterans ??? no questions asked, no delays in treatment, no disgraceful medical facilities, period. It is time for political leaders to step up to their responsibilities, regardless of their political persuasion. And, it???s time for our civilian leadership in the DoD and VA to remove all obstacles involved.
2. Our veterans crowd the ranks of the homeless and street people from the Vietnam war onwards. Homelessness and poverty are a national shame. How much more so for those who have fought and served for this country?
3. .For all of my time on active duty, I was required to carry a Geneva Convention Card and I was required to understand and get updated training on the international rules of warfare and prisoner treatment. If we do not accept these agreed upon rules, we become no better than those whom we fight against. Restore the Geneva conventions, not just because it is morally right to do so, but because it protects OUR service men and women as well.
4. We must always be prepared for defending our right to exist as a country and to maintain our special place in world affairs as a democratic nation. We must usew warfare as an absolute last resort when all other possibilities have been exhausted, not as a pre-emptive method of carrying out political strategies.
5. Finally, I will support the candidate who best can find an honorable way to remove our troops from Iraq & Afghanistan as soon as possible. We are now in an almost impossible situation no matter which way we turn. So, many veterans, like myself will be asking ???Who put us in this kind of position????, and we will vote accordingly.
As a veteran, there is very little that Republicans can do to get my vote in '08. Unfortunately, most leading Democrats aren't much better, so I may be forced to pick between the evil of two lessers.
I am a Major in the US Army. I have not voted for a major party candidate since 1992 (the first year I was eligible to vote), when I voted for George Bush.
I have since been dissatisfied with the politicians who claimed to be leaders.
What I am looking for in a Presidential candidate is someone who does not go into his first term in office worried about the next election. I would like to see a candidate who is willing to be a leader.
We speak in the military of a good leader being the person who is willing to make the hard right, rather than the easy wrong.
I want a candidate whom I feel will be willing to guide the country in the correct direction, rather in the direction that will allow him or her to win the next election.
Your guests have commented that the current administration has failed to call Americans to service and/or sacrifice. I suggest that the current administration has DELIBERATELY not called for sacrifice: no taxes to support the war, no national service, no rationing of gasoline: because if we did, Americans would think much more carefully about what we are doing in Iraq. Right now, most of us suffer no discomfort, so why should we care?
I spent 7 yrs in the Marines during Viet Nam and I am a life long Democrat. No one with any intelligence can adhere to the notion that Democrats are soft on national defense. There will never be a stable democracy in any country in the middle east. We need to get out and leave them alone and when the dust clears we can assess how we are to handle the new government in Iraq. The U.S. is doing exactly what the displaced Jews did in 1948, we are trying to steal a country. Therefore, on the really radical side of things we should also cut off all aid, support and money to the Israeli's and let them sink or swim. The overwhelming hatred for America would disappear over night.
The American Media establishment has successfully dumbed down the complex problem of Iraq, so the American people think that Victory in Iraq is defined as Zero violence. Not an Iraq that can enforce the rule of law that was created by the government that they voted for, which is the true definition of victory as I see it.
I'm a 10 year Navy Vet. I think a call for a draft would spark some much need and long over due debate as to who we are as a nation. It would make people sit up and listen because now everyone will have something at stake. If the right is so patriotic then they should be willing to back up their rhetoric will blood, sweat and tears. The left should take the moral high ground, depoliticize the debate and take a lesson from history (Vietnam) and not try to fix failed policy based on ignorance and arrogance with a worst policy of abandonment and retreat based on political gain. It would also remove the preoccupation of everyone in between from self indulgent distractions/diversions such as, American Idol, Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole, Flavor of Love and all the other so called reality programming influencing our national conscientious in all of media. The only way for this country to regain it's international credibility and moral high ground globally is for all of us to step up to plate and be willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice for the so call freedom and democracy we are trying to export around the world. Go ahead America, I dare us!!! Sadly, it will never happen!!! Because we have become the big bully who when striped of all of our muscle, lack the substance or moral courage of the founders of the Nation, who used terrorist tactics to thwart the juggernaut of their day attempt to enforce it's will on them. Just as that was the beginning of the end for Britain our failure to do anything to change the current course of events mark the beginning of the end of our reign as bully on the block. I pray that I am wrong, but I fear that I am dead right!!!
I am an active duty navy officer with 25 years of service and more than 300 combat air missions in four seperate conflicts, including Iraq and Afghanistan. I am a self styled "hard core moderate."
I think it is interesting that 30 years ago the militaries political landscape reflected the country it served (50-50 mix). With the swing to the right in the Reagan years the Republicans captured the military vote and claimed national defense as their own. Historical facts contradict this perception. For example, many of the great weapons systems that rolled out during the Reagan years (i.e. Ohio class SSBN, Trident missile, Aegis radar and the stealth fighter) were all approved and funded during the Carter administration.
No doubt, Reagan was a great Commander in Chief, a charismatic leader; however, it often surprises my Republican pals when I point out to them that 4 of the 5 largest military pay raises in the past 30 years came from Carter and Clinton. Likewise, they tend to forget that it was SECDEF Dick Chaney that oversaw the post-cold war drawdown that slashed the Navy and Army in half, leaving it barely capable of meeting the non-stop global response actions of the mid-to-late 1990's. It was also President H.W. Bush's administration that began the contriversial Base Closure process and his son that re-started it.
The Democrats can reclaim their fair share of the military vote by having a rational and effective policy for national defense. The Dems need to explain to the American people what all senior military officers know, that diplomacy and multi-lateralism are key components of a national defense strategy. The cowboy "wanted dead or alive approach" plays well to the average civilian in America, but does not make for an effective strategy for national defense. Just look where it taken us in the past 6 years. Is the military more ready to fight (equipment, manpower, training)? Is America more secure?
I'm a 10 year veteran of the Navy. I'm seeking a candidate who will be sounding the alarm to Wake-up America!!! Someone who has the same sense of urgency about the present course of our nation. Someone who will wake the sleeping giant, which are the American people, and lead us in taking this country back from the lobbyist, multi-national conglomerates and politicians and make this a country governed of, for and by the people once again.
It's time for us to take the government back from the conservatives, the liberals, the extreme left and right, the elite right & left, from the politicians and the media.
This election should serve as a wake up call to the powers that be to let them know that we will not continue to sit idly by and let them send our children off to fight and die in a foreign land to expand capitalism & democracy abroad while the rich and the ruling class grows wealthier and the middle class continues to shrink.
Most if not all of these political candidates are already members of the legislative branch. They have a paid pension plan that they never paid into, they have a health plan that they never paid into, their children don't have to go to public schools or more importantly, never have to worry about going off to fight a war in a foreign land to fight for the freedoms and privilege they already have.
It's time for us in the middle to stop waiting on the great messiah to come along and save us from ourselves. We the people, must save this country from ourselves. The threat is not external, not Al Qaeda. Our greatest threat is from within. It's our own apathe, greed and selfishness. We have allowed ourselves to be distracted by American Idol, Survivor, Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Nine elven was our last wake-up call. It's time for us to fight back before all of America is Idle, trying to Survive and looking for dollar.
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