Dan Rather: "My Story Was True"

[davidthegnome]

37. Yes.

Personally, I have always preferred candidates who have military experience. We're talking about the Commander in Chief - and if he or she is going to command our Nation's military, then I believe they should have first-hand knowledge of how it operates. This is one of the reasons why I like John Kerry.

When I was a boy, my Grandfather respected the elder Bush as a war veteran - and may have voted for him for that very reason. The younger Bush was more or less a pampered rich boy who managed to evade service by having political connections and a powerful Father. I can't imagine my Grandfather, card carrying republican that he was - I can't imagine him having voted for the younger Bush. He almost definitely would have voted for Kerry specifically because of his military service. Unless he'd been led astray by the swift boating.

Things were different for my Grandfather's generation. The Great Depression, the global threat of the Nazi Regime, the enormous social and economic differences overall... I can't help but admire the man for living through everything he did and somehow maintaining both his sanity and his integrity. As a Marine, he fought on foot in some of the most dangerous, hellish areas of World War II. He watched friends maimed and killed, he charged over barricades and fought for his life against hopeless odds and somehow survived. He did things I imagine were both heroic and things that also caused him shame and kept him up at night.

I don't think he would have supported the Iraq invasion - he had lived through the hell of war and would have understood that it is basically evil, at times a necessary evil, but evil nonetheless. It should never be entered into without dire need.

Bush the younger, a man with no military experience, led our Nation into two separate wars that we are still struggling to recover from. I think my Grandfather would have despised him.

I speak of him now because he is one of the men I admired most throughout my life. A veteran, and a republican... but not a fucking idiot like so many of them (republicans) are today.