Pride, Concern As Candidates' Sons Head To War

[DogPoundPup]

Source: NPR

Whichever ticket wins the election in November, it will be the first time in decades that the president, the vice president or both have children serving in the armed forces while the nation is at war.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden's son Beau is a captain in the Delaware National Guard. His unit, the 261st Signal Brigade, reports for training in October, and they expect to be in Iraq within a few months.

"My dad has always been there for me, my brother and my sister, every day," Beau Biden said in his speech at the Democratic National Convention. "But because of other duties, it won't be possible for me to be here this fall to stand by him the way he stood by me."

John McCain currently has two sons in the military: midshipman John McCain IV, now in his final year at the Naval Academy, and Marine Lance Cpl. Jimmy McCain, who has already served a tour in Iraq. Track Palin, the 19-year-old son of McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, will be deployed to Iraq after a farewell ceremony in Alaska on Thursday.

McCain doesn't talk about his son's service, but at the Republican National Convention, his wife, Cindy, spoke of her struggle as a mother watching her son go off to war.

"The stakes were never more clear to me than the morning I watched my son Jimmy strap on his weapons and board a bus headed for harm's way," she said.

Reportedly, Cindy McCain had arranged to see her son off as his plane left for the Middle East, but Jimmy told her not to come. The other Marines' mothers were not allowed to do the same, and he did not want special treatment.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94506557&ft=1&f=1012

[knowbody0]

1. but cindy said

she watched him strap on his guns and get on that bus!

[yellowdogintexas]

2. bus was from where ever they were to the base where the flight is located

not the same,
and No I'm not defending her, that is just how it is done.