John McCain questions Barack Obama's opinion on military matters

John McCain doesn’t think Barack Obama should presume to lecture him on military matters because Obama “did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform.†In making that ludicrous claim, McCain has set a high mark for anyone seeking to say anything sillier in the current campaign.

McCain prefaced his attack on Obama for draft dodging when there was no draft and failing to serve when there was no war by affirming that “I take a back seat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans.â€

He just doesn’t want to send them to college until they’ve served three or four tours of duty in Iraq to qualify for their educational expenses.

At least that’s the excuse McCain gave for not being one of the 75 senators who voted for a new GI Bill of Rights that will give men and women who served in the Bush/McCain conflict the educational benefits a grateful nation gave to veterans of World War II.

He and his president fear college aid will encourage those in the military to get out after three years of risking their lives and they would rather see them stick around until they’re 30 or so.

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McCain reminded us he wouldn’t sit in anyone’s back seat after Obama criticized him for not joining him, Hillary Clinton and 73 other Democratic and Republican senators in supporting the new GI Bill, which is now awaiting an anticipated presidential veto that could be overridden. He responded with the firm assertion that he “will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lecture on my regard for those who did.â€

In other words, McCain served notice a president can’t really understand the military unless he’s worn the uniform himself, something Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson probably didn’t consider when they went to war.

Thank heavens George W. Bush had learned how to wear an Air Force uniform before he sent us into Iraq, even if he wore it rarely. You’ll recall he sometimes attended meetings of a Texas National Guard unit for sons of prominent Texans dedicated to keeping their heirs safe from being shot at in Vietnam.

Maybe McCain thought Obama should have joined up for the war in Grenada. You remember Grenada, Ronald Reagan’s splendid little war against a small Caribbean island that had been taken over by insurgents allied with Cuba. Citing an imagined peril facing American students enrolled in Grenada’s medical schools, Reagan invaded the island in 1983.

At the time, Obama was 21 and about to enter his junior year at Columbia. He certainly could have dropped out and enlisted. Trouble is, Operation Urgent Fury, as the Granada conflict was ferociously labeled by the Pentagon, lasted just 10 days. So, if Obama had dropped out and enlisted, he would have been in his second week of basic training when Operation Urgent Fury became a part of our glorious history.

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The McCain campaign has also attempted to cast doubts about Obama’s competence to criticize the Iraq misadventure because, unlike McCain and his fellow traveler, Joe Lieberman, Obama hasn’t taken part in those “fact-finding†missions that feature photo-op visits to a Baghdad market with a company of bodyguards.

Obama last visited the country in 2006, inspiring a McCain spokesman, eager to take part in the silly remarks competition, to note that “the fact that there are 2-year-old Iraqi children who weren’t born the last time Obama was in the country raises questions about what he is making his decisions on.â€

Probably not the counsel of Iraqi 2-year-olds. Maybe McCain or Lieberman will tell him what they’ve been saying.

Dick Ahles is a retired journalist from Simsbury. E-mail him at dahles@hotmail.com.

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