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Fri. Feb 27, 2004

Mine's Better Than Yours

Mine’s Better Than Yours – From the AJC Election Blog: ”The war of words between John Kerry and President Bush continued Wednesday as Ed Gillespie, Republican national chairman, once again attacked Kerry as having voted against important defense bills in the Senate.”

”’It’s the height of irony for people like Ed Gillespie, who never served in the American military, and does not understand war, to criticize the record of Senator Kerry, who has been wounded in battle and tested in combat,’ [Max] Cleland said in a conference call with reporters.”

Statements like the above, along with the continuing rehashing of Vietnam, are really beginning to tick me off. Are we all to be stacked according to our relative military experience, and our freedom to speak on defense issues assessed accordingly? If so, you just kicked over 90% of America out of the pool.

And you come close to suggesting that the only people who have the right to speak authoritatively about the defense of this country are veterans. With that assumption you’re coming close to ceding civilian control of this country’s armed forces to only those with military service. Nine percent of us.

Let me be clear. I’m tremendously thankful to every veteran who ever served in any way, and that includes my dad, and his dad. Veterans are worthy of special recognition for their service, but it doesn’t make their opinions ”more valid” than those who didn’t serve. You might think it does, because they chose to serve. But we live in a post-draft world where we can’t all make that choice.

The numbers don’t lie: ”The latest census found the total number of veterans decreasing by 1.1 million to 26.4 million [...] Vietnam veterans accounted for the largest share of all veterans in 2000 at 3-in-10.”

Out of our current population of 292,680,786, 26.4 million is almost exactly 9%. If 3-in-10 are Vietnam veterans, that’s about 3% of our population.

Despite the fact it is now ”all volunteer”, we simply can’t ”all volunteer” to join the military, because there isn’t nearly enough room. As best I can figure from these stats, there are currently over 60 million men and women between 18 and 34 (military service age). Assuming 85% of them are ”fit for duty,” that’s 50 million people for a military that currently has less than 1.5 million slots.

So when I hear someone denigrate the opinion of another because ”they didn’t serve and I did,” I want them to realize they are in effect belittling the opinion of 90% of Americans. And when it comes to the continual rehashing of who served and how in Vietnam, it’s simply getting really old to me.

It brings to mind a quote I recently read: ”I am saddened by the fact that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign, and that it has been inserted in what I feel to be the worst possible way [...] We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways.”

Who said that? John Kerry, Jan. 30, 1992.