Chamblee54

There were seven candidates in the Republican Presidential debate the other night. Just for fun, PG decided to look at their military records, or lack of same. If anyone is interested, PG discusses his experience with the military at the link.
The only candidate with military service is Ron Paul. (He is also the only candidate to discuss military service on his website.) Mr. Paul was a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force from 1963 to 1965, and was in the Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968. Ironically, Mr. Paul voted against the war in Iraq, and is opposed to the promiscuous use of U.S. military power.
Three of the candidates, Rick Santorum , Tim Pawlenty, and Michele Bachmann. were too young to be affected by selective service. None of the three enlisted, and none of the three discuss the issue online. In the case of Mrs. Bachmann, getting drafted for combat duty is a man thing.
The other three candidates…Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Herman Cain… were prime cannon fodder age during the Vietnam War. None of them served, nor do they discuss the issue on the web. In the case of Gingrich, a Republican fact sheet has this story: “Gingrich received a draft deferment during the Vietnam War owing to the fact that he was studying at the time in Tulane University and he had children. In addition, he was also impaired with short-sightedness and had flat feet . “
A PBS story about Mr.Gingrich tells the story of his decision to go into politics. “I got active in this business of politics and self-government in 1958, when my father, who was serving in the U.S. Army, took us to the battlefield of Verdun.” The boy stared at the bone pile left by the great battle, and “over the course of the weekend, it convinced me that civilizations live and die by, and that the ultimate margin in a free society of our fate is provided more by, elected political leadership than by any other group. That in the end it’s the elected politicians that decide where we fight and when we fight and what the terms of engagement are, and what weapons systems are available.”
Later in that same story is this quote. “In 1985, he told Jane Mayer of The Wall Street Journal that he still believed that “Vietnam was the right battlefield at the right time.” Why didn’t he go? “Given everything I believe in, a large part of me thinks I should have gone over,” he allowed. But, recovering, he added, “Part of the question I had to ask myself was what difference I would have made.”
The GOP fact sheet tells the following story about Mitt Romney: “Before joining college, Romney had received a deferment from the draft as a Mormon ‘minister of religion’ for the duration of his missionary work in France, which lasted two and a half years. At the time, there was an agreement of sorts between the church and the Selective Service allowing exemptions from the draft for missionaries. Before and after his missionary deferment, Romney also received nearly three years of deferments for his academic studies. In April 1965, Romney registered with the Selective Service but was not considered readily available for military service until December 1970. When he became eligible for military service in 1970, he drew a high number (300) in the annual draft lottery, and at that time no one drawing higher than 195 was drafted.
Mr. Romney has five sons, none of which has served in the military. Mr. “Romney said that his sons were showing their patriotism by “helping me get elected”.
Herman Cain graduated from Morehouse University in 1967. He went to work for the Department of the Navy, and went to graduate school at Purdue University. It is not known what his story with the draft was. It is likely that he got a deferment for his job at the Department of the Navy.
UPDATE: Here is some information about Herman Cain’s Draft Lottery Number .