Here’s one thing we know for sure. The President who takes the oath of office on January 20, 2013, will not be a veteran of the United States military. It’s the first time since the Second World War that none of the major candidates for President has served in the armed forces.
Barack Obama grew up in Hawaii well after the Vietnam-era draft ended. Like all Mormons on mission, Mitt Romney received a “ministerial” deferment during his time in France. When he returned to the United States and registered for the draft, he had a high number in the lottery and was not called. Rick Santorum was also too young for the Vietnam-era draft. Newt Gingrich received student deferments and never served. Ron Paul was a flight surgeon with the Air Force, but … c’mon.
The lack of military service is likely to extend to the Vice-Presidential candidates as well. Biden belonged to the Vietnam generation, but received multiple draft deferments. On the Republican side, two of the more likely V.P. possibilities did not serve. Senator Marco Rubio (who is ten years younger than Obama) was not eligible for the draft, and Rob Portman, the Senator from Ohio, was also too young to be drafted.
Does anyone care? Not much, it seems. For Presidential candidates, the issue of military service has gone from obligatory to controversial to irrelevant. The period of mandatory service for politicians lasted as long as it did because of the pervasive effect of the Second World War on American society. The Greatest Generation dominated politics for two generations. The respect given to war experience was so profound that Dwight Eisenhower could be elected without any prior political experience. John Kennedy owed his initial prominence to his fame as a war hero. Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Ronald Reagan were not war heroes, but they did their time in the military during the war. (Ironically, the modern Presidential candidate with the most distinguished war record was probably George McGovern, whose political career was defined by opposition to war.) Jimmy Carter was the first of the post-Second World War generation to win the White House, but his status as a former naval officer—he served on submarines—represented an important part of his biography.
The nation’s ambivalence about the Vietnam War played out in Presidential politics. Bill Clinton’s candidacy was dogged by his complex efforts to avoid service in Vietnam, but that didn’t stop him from winning election. (Ditto Dan Quayle and the Vice-Presidency.) At the time, these were big issues for Clinton and Quayle, and journalists of their generation had the expertise to scrutinize their claims with care. (The language of draft boards and lottery numbers has gone from universal to obscure.) Of course, no single reason or qualification determines the outcome of Presidential elections, but the presence or absence of a war record seemed to matter a great deal for a long time. Now, it seems, it doesn’t.
The fading significance of military service has played out in another way as well. In every election since 1988, the candidate with the better military record lost. George H. W. Bush, a naval aviator in the Pacific, lost to Clinton, as did Bob Dole, who nearly died fighting in Italy. Al Gore went to Vietnam, albeit as a military journalist, but George W. Bush didn’t go at all during his tenure in the Texas Air National Guard. John Kerry won medals in Vietnam, and John McCain served for more than five years as a prisoner of war. Both lost.
The absence of widespread military service may play out in policy as well as politics. Would the United States have invaded Iraq in 2003 if the sons of wealthy families were prominently at risk? Would American troops still be fighting in Afghanistan if that were the case? It appears that the absence of a draft virtually guarantees that Presidents receive a free hand in deciding when and where to deploy troops. They’re volunteers, after all. Isn’t this what they signed up for? At least, that appears to be the operating assumption.
This kind of evolution has happened before in American history. Even more than the Second World War, service in the Civil War (on one side or the other) defined a man’s politics, and for many, his fitness for office. Then, over time, it no longer did. We have no fewer wars than we once did—they are arguably greater in number, in fact—but there has been a sort of brutal efficiency in the march from the Second World War to Vietnam to Iraq. They yield fewer veterans, although, lately, more and more deployments. For better or worse, their claim on the nation’s attention is smaller. So it goes with their efforts to be President, too.
Photograph of General Dwight D Eisenhower: American Stock/Getty Images.
