General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: **RUMOR** Chief of Staff Kelly has resigned. [View all]Rollo
(2,559 posts)Same for JFK, never a career military man.
Eisenhower? Not one of our best presidents.
Point is, yeah, lots of presidents have had military experience but few of them were career military men and of those, most kind of sucked at civil office. Grant, for one, who ran one of the most corrupt administrations in history.
I'm not saying military men are bad people, quite the contrary. It's just that a military approach is ill suited to leading a nation subject to a civil or legal constitution. The military is based on slavish devotion to duty, a rigid command structure, and ultimately in violence and death as needed. These are not qualities that lend themselves to running a nation in peace with any appreciable degree of freedom for its citizenry.
Washington may well be the exception that proves the rule. But then, a lot of founders wanted to make him king instead of president. What does that tell us?