Babies, Puppies & Vets
There’s an old saying in politics that the things you never screw around with in a negative way are babies, puppies and vets. What’s that about? Those are things everyone…everyone… is sympathetic to, so you simply do not fuck with them, or if you do, you make damn sure no one else knows about it. Who doesn’t like babies? They’re innocent and helpless. Politicians make a point about kissing babies for the photo opp and to make everyone know that they are nice guys. Who doesn’t adore puppies? They’re soft and cuddly and oh so cute, right? And then there are veterans. Veterans are neither innocent, helpless, soft, cuddly nor cute. What they are though are the men and women that put their lives and well-being on the line for us all wherever in the world we need them to stand between us and the abyss.
I entered college in 1971 when the Vietnam War had passed its peak, but was still raging. 58,220 American soldiers died in Vietnam and that peak came in 1968 at 16,899 deaths. By 1971 there were still 2,414 deaths. Almost all of the incoming freshman class at Cornell that year were 18 years old, but I was a year younger due to a fluke back in 1961 when I entered the second grade at Spring Harbor Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin. The second grade teacher decided that my first grade one-room schoolhouse education in Turrialba, Costa Rica had somehow propelled me beyond the standards for a Wisconsin second-grade schoolroom. I was deemed “disruptive” because I could spell big words already, knew my multiplication tables up to the 12s and, worst of all, was writing in cursive. The solution was to put me forward a grade into third grade. Just to prove that I was no genius, I spent third, fourth and some of fifth grades struggling to get my grades up above average. Who would have thought a one year jump would have been so hard? But it was for me. So, I was always one year younger than my classmates. Luckily, I was bigger than most of them, so they barely noticed. But when I got to college in 1971 someone noticed…the Draft Board.
The Selective Service System, as it then existed, required all American men who reached the age of 18 to register for the draft and what was then the Draft Lottery which was held for every birth year. Almost all of my classmates turned 18 in 1971 and were born in 1953. On February 2, 1972, right when everyone at Cornell was going through fraternity rush, all my classmates and friends were getting their draft lottery numbers based on their birth dates. The draft had more or less tracked the death toll in Vietnam except that it had peaked in 1966 at 382,000 American men drafted into the military. By 1971, that number had dropped to 94,000. That year, if you had a lottery number of 125 or less, you were likely to be drafted. That implies that something like 30% of all American men were getting conscripted that year. My friends were called up for physical exams based on their lottery numbers, but almost none were actually conscripted since the timing lag took that process into almost 1973 when the draft numbers had dropped to a low and unlucky 646 unlucky sons of bitches. My lottery the next year had my number come in at 353, so not only was my year never even called in for physicals, my number was way out of the running for conscription, even in the worst of years. The draft lottery ended a few years later.
My point of all that history, besides telling you that I got pretty lucky at least that one time, is to tell you that much of my college days were heavily focused on the Vietnam War and the issue of what we would do if we had to go into military service. Where that has all left me psychologically is that while I don’t really have much guilt about not having served in the military, I do have a tremendous respect and thanks for those who have. “Thank you for your service” is a bit of a hackneyed phrase these days, but it has always meant a lot to me. As Kim would tell you, the military movies (especially WWII) are my favorite genre because I seem to need to vicariously experience something that I never had to experience in real life. I am a very big believer in public service in all forms. I would vote for every American young person to do at least a year of public service in one form or another. I admire firefighters, police officers, and every type of first responder, not just those in the military, but, I suppose, especially those in the military.
Several of my best college friends went on into the military. My buddy Mike was an Air Force flight surgeon for many years. My roommate Dave was in Naval ROTC and went into the Nuclear Power training program to work on submarines. One of my college friends, Debbie, married a classmate a few years ahead of us. Her husband Jay is one of the great ones. He was a Marine, but not just a regular Marine. Jay became a four-star General and Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps. He was, for one tour, the Chief of Staff to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so he was in the room where it happened in the Pentagon. He was in consideration to be Commandant of the Marine Corps at the same time when General John Kelly was being considered for that same post. Neither of them got that spot. Jay was made a General in 2008, the year after James Mattis was made a General, the same year Mark Milley was made a general, two years before Secretary Lloyd Austin was made General and four years before John Kelly was made a General. This is a guy who ran in the same Pentagon circles with all of these men who’s names are on our lips every day these days.
So, imagine what is going through my mind when it was reported today that a few weeks after Donald Trump suggested that General Mark Milley, his own appointee as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be put to death as a traitor, that John Kelly, Trump’s longest serving White House Chief of Staff, has finally decided to confirm stories we have heard for some time that Donald Trump has zero respect for military veterans, heroes, POWs and casualties. I am tempted to call up Jay and ask him about his thoughts about all of this, but like all of these ex-Generals from McMaster to Mattis to Kelly to Austin or to Milley, Jay is nothing if not disciplined and Generals are well trained to stay out of politics. But that unwritten rule is now being broken for very good reasons by almost all of these ex-Generals. Donald Trump is out of control, as someone with 91 criminal indictments in four actions and several very high-profile and very expensive civil actions might be. He is flailing for sure, despite still being the Republican front runner for the presidency in 2024.
Today I have heard the latest line of optimism vis-a-vis Trump. The argument says that while he can apparently overcome two impeachments, multiple criminal indictments and a countless array of revelations about his wrong-mindedness before, during and after his first presidency, he may not be able to overcome the label as someone verified by his ex-Chief of Staff, John Kelly, to have openly stated his disdain for veterans, POWs, war casualties and Gold Star families. The comment made was that no candidate can survive being against babies, puppies or vets and there is now no doubt, short of outright and blind denial, that Donald Trump is against veterans. Wake up and smell the coffee, Republicans and MAGA devotees, your horse is a loser and an unredeemable one at that.