Military service: A diminished campaign asset?

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - Once asked how he became a war hero, John F. Kennedy said, "It was involuntary; they sank my boat."

Historian and Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger said this "deflationary wartime understatement" was an example of Kennedy’s nonchalance.

In 1943, a Japanese destroyer sliced Navy Lt. Kennedy’s PT-109 in half, plunging his crew into waters aflame with fuel. As skipper, Kennedy saved the crew.

Likewise, John McCain became a war hero when the North Vietnamese shot down his Navy plane. He endured more than five years as a prisoner of war.

And during George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, the candidate emphasized that he too had became a war hero — by being shot down.

His campaign featured footage of Navy aviator Bush, only 20 years old at the time, being rescued by the USS Finback after the Japanese shot down his plane on Sept. 22, 1944.

Direct assault on Kerry
Four years ago, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth mounted a direct assault on Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. And they attacked the one asset thought to be invulnerable: his Vietnam veteran credentials.

Now some Democrats, led by retired Gen. Wesley Clark, are aiming directly at what has defined McCain’s career, ever since he first won a seat in House of Representatives nearly 30 years ago: his stature as a former POW and a war hero.

In an interview on CBS's Face the Nation, Clark said, "I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war, he was a hero to me and to…millions of others in the armed forces as prisoner of war."

But, Clark argued, "He hasn’t held executive responsibility…He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall."

Video McCain campaign responds to Clark's comment July 1: NBC's Andrea Mitchell talks with John McCain supporter Carly Fiorina about the Wesley Clark controversy. MSNBC

Moderator Bob Schieffer commented that the candidate Clark is supporting, Sen. Barack Obama, has no executive or military command experience either.

"Nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down," Schieffer added.

"I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president," Clark replied.

For McCain, getting shot down and enduring as a POW has been a political asset. Now Clark was suggesting that the "getting shot down" part was an irrelevant — at least as far as being a credential for the White House.

McCain, Arizona, and Hanoi
Throughout his career, McCain and his supporters have alluded to his service in Vietnam.

McCain moved to Arizona in 1981. When he ran for a House seat the very next year, some questioned whether he’d lived in the state long enough. "The longest place I ever lived was Hanoi," McCain shot back.

In recent speeches on the presidential campaign trail, McCain has frequently alluded to fellow prisoner of war Mike Christian, a man who stitched a homemade American flag during his dentention and was beaten for it by his North Vietnamese captors.

In the 1988 and 1992 campaigns, with Vietnam fresh in voters’ minds, Democrats were defensive about not having the candidate with a heroic military record.

Bill Clinton's 1992 candidacy was nearly destroyed when records emerged of his working to maneuver his way out of the draft in 1969. "I want to thank you," wrote Clinton to ROTC commander Col. Eugene Holmes on Dec. 3, 1969, "for saving me from the draft."

Defending Clinton that year, Kerry argued, "We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways. Someone who was deeply against the war in 1969 or 1970 may well have served their country with equal passion and patriotism by opposing the war as by fighting in it."

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