McCain prefers troops to never advance to become the middle class
After the Great Depression ended on the strength of war production, the momentum continued to grow ours into an economy that was the envy of the world. That was accomplished in three critical ways: VA loans permitted returning veterans to own homes, the GI Bill allowed them to go to college and vocational schools to boost their careers and incomes, and a war hero - Eisenhower - got the Interstate Highway system passed, a massive project that created a ton of jobs and lowered the cost of transporting goods. Our huge middle class was largely created through these efforts.
So now a different kind of Republican, who performed heroically as a prisoner of war 35 years ago, doesn’t want to extend the same offer to overextended, multiple-tour, exhausted war veterans, because they might leave military service to pursue the American dream? He overlooks the fact that programs like these are also part of the reason new recruits join, so what’s the complaint really about? Only officers get to be middle class but the sergeants and grunts don’t?
Have the value systems of heroes changed that much? Or is this just one guy who’s an exception, defending his comrades in his time of war and telling all future veterans they can just go screw themselves?
- Original article
- FILED UNDER: Guest Blogger
- May 10, 2008
Once an Officer, Always an Officer
The key here is McCain was an officer ... a career officer ... a Naval Academy grad. This is not about McCain the Republican or McCain who married a rich beer distributors daughter. McCain was trained to see enlisted personnel as his inferiors. The military is a vestige of feudalism with noble knights (officers) and commoners (enlisted personnel). What used to be called "officers and men" don't eat together, play together or socialize (the latter is called "fraternization" and it can get you court martialed). In the navy, officers and enlisted personnel even wear distinctly different uniforms. In the Air Force, both classes wear small US pins on their lapels but on the pin for enlisted personnel, the pin is surrounded by big zero (which shows airmen how the service regards them).
A military legend when I was in the draft military tells that one evening Ike (career officer, West Point grad) went out to dinner at a fancy DC restaurant and saw an Army enlisted man eating there. He went back and vetoed a pay raised for enlisted personnel assuming that if a "grunt" could eat there, GIs did not need the pay raise.
During Viet Nam, McCain's war, Army infantrymen used to "frag" their officers (accidently toss a fragmentation grenade in their direction during combat). Since most of the population has never been subject to the draft and has no military experience, you probably won't understand why this sort of thing happened. In the movies, officers are always so handsome, heroic, noble and good looking and those funny little enlisted men always played by character actors are so respectful and so happy to serve them. Not unlike how Whites and Blacks are portrayed in "Gone With The Wind" and other old movies.
- parent
By emacee1701May 11, 2008 - 8:49am