Question for current military members and vets from DU

[Ishoutandscream2]

Our AP geography teacher (and an excellent one) has served two tours in Afghanistan and is still a reservist. He told me these things today while I worked in his classroom working on next year enrollments:

1. Clinton had two opportunites to get Osama. So, it was his fault that 9/11 happened. I mentioned the PDB in August, and Bush's non-response. Said it wasn't his fault, only in office 8 months. He did go on how much he hated Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, but not a single negative word about Bush and Cheney.

2. Liberals are a rare breed in the military, and there is a miniscule amount of Democrats. He told me roughly 70 percent of the military that he knows are registered Republicans and 20 percent are independents.

3. Countries where our soldiers are fighting - the natives respect us more than, say, the Europeans because they turn and run (withdraw their troops). Americans stay and fight side by side with their allies. European countries are too liberal to make a committment to war.

4. I mentioned Richard Clarke, Plame, etc. While he did agree with me that the Plame affair was terrible, he didn't give much creedence to Clarke. He said Clarke was a bitter man (see, my friend knows someone who works with Clark. Okay, inside info). Still didn't address the part about Clarke's message to Bush that Al Quida was behind 9/11, while Bush kept stating "check Saddam."

5. All this time, my friend was kind of condescending to me. You see, the military should run the whole show, apparently, and we civilians are a stupid lot. I told him I believed in the principles that he supposedly fought for, and I mentioned habeaus corpus and the Constitution. He said Barrack was stupid to put enemy combatant soldiers on our shores, that it would "piss off" the Muslime world. Like they aren't pissed off already?,I mentioned.

6. He already hates Obama, calling him a liar because he was to introduce change, and it's the same old good ol boy network. While I mentioned I was a little concerned with some of the appointments, I was still much more impressed than what we had a couple of weeks ago.

7. My friend calls himself an independent. I said that was a cop out - you have the talking points down from the right. He mentioned he was pro-Green, and what Republican would support that?

A lot of stuff, but the question - are his numbers right concerning percentages of the military's political affiliation. I know quite a few vets here on this board, and I betcha he is going wayyyy overboard on his numbers.

Anyway, I typed this in a hurry because I have to get back to the classroom. I will be back at about 2 CST to see if there are any responses. Sorry for the lack of organization, but I only had a few minutes to type.

[Southpaw07]

1. I would image things have changed,

but when I was a civilian contractor in the 90's with the Navy, I can honestly say that I did not come across anyone who identified themselves as liberal or a democrat, or even came close to sharing my political leanings. I am sure there were some, but they did not discuss it. Any politics discussed were always way, way to the right. No way I would have put the number at 10%. But I was at one installation and this was a very narrow cross section of the military.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. When I was in, most GI's cared more about beer and liberty than piolitics.

Politicians, of any stripe, were considered irrelevant assholes who might get us killed.

[Bigmack]

3. Yup... not much philosophy in my USMC time..

Just a guess... the teacher is/was an officer. Gonna guess about Capt. in rank.

I do see a difference now. Seems like everybody in the military is a lifer.... with all the associated politics. We're breeding a military caste.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. About the only politics we got in boot camp was that we were supposed to kill Cubans..

because Fidel had a smelly beard. The stirring philosophy of, you guessed it, a captain.

"Eat the apple and fuck the corps", was the philosophy we non-lifers shared.

[LeeM]

5. Typical response

During my service, politicians were sorted into those who support (funding) the military and those who don't (meaning - asking too many questions about spending). During the 80's and early 90's, Reagan was idolized as being great not just for being the CINC/POTUS, but for giving the services free reign & big budgets. Bad old Clinton cut funding and subsequently reduced the national debt. The numbers are probably skewed to the officer corp more than the whole of the military.

My brother in law is a ranking officer (still) - he and all his buddies were McCainiacs. There is a blind loyalty to the R's there that defies reason. We just agreed to not discuss politics for the sake of family harmony.

[cynatnite]

6. In the higher ranks his numbers might be close...

Lower ranks...not by a long shot. The repubs might have a slightly bigger piece of that pie, but not by much. The lower ranks are pretty much the lower end of the spectrum. First to fight, first to bleed and first to die. They usually come from the poorer segments of society and don't join for patriotic reasons. It's because they need a job or need money to pay for college.

Your friend is no independent. He's a rush limbaugh listener who probably thinks Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin are the sexiest women on the planet.

Oh, and about the military running the show...

If he's a USA lovin' kind of person, he'd never say that. The founding fathers made a constitution to make sure the civilians run the show.

Now, if he likes military dictatorships...there are a few countries he might like better than this one.