Uncle Bubba for President

John McCain must be thankful for the Vietnam War. By enduring five years as a POW, he came out a hero. He was given wide praise for withstanding torture; he was admitted to the National War College, despite his poor record at the Naval Academy, and he was elected to the senate based in large part on his military service. Since McCain returned from Vietnam, he has consistently placed his credentials as a former POW at the top of his resume. Even now, thirty-four years after the fall of Saigon, whenever McCain is introduced, his courage as a POW is always mentioned first.

Listen to Obama do it. "I admire John McCain," he'll say. "And I laud him for his courage...." This patriotic preamble is so customary that it's like saying a blessing before dinner or singing the "Star Spangled Banner" before a football game. You come to expect it the same way you expect "Paper or plastic?" at the supermarket.

O.K., so the "paper or plastic" line was a bit rude.

But seriously now: how many times do we need to applaud McCain for his courage as a POW? More to the point, how does being a POW qualify him to be President?

Consider how many POWs typically come out of a major war. Thousands. All heroes, by current standards. And by current logic, they all have special attributes that make them good candidates for President.

Well, I've been thinking about it, and I've decided that if being a POW qualifies one to be President, then I wish my Uncle Bubba was still alive, because he definitely would've qualified. He was captured by the Germans in World War II, marched to Poland, and locked away in a prison camp for three years. No, he wasn't tortured. But he was nearly starved to death, and he always felt that if General Patton's son hadn't also been a POW in the same camp, his treatment would've been far worse.

I don't recall that Bubba was offered a spot in the National War College when he got home. And I don't recall that he was introduced thereafter as Robert Cheatham, courageous hero, former POW. Instead, he got off the train in Abbeville, South Carolina, and walked home, gaunt and pale and grateful it was all over. Then he went on with his life, working in a textile mill until he retired.

It took Bubba about forty years to start talking about his experiences as a POW. He'd receive letters from former POWs inviting him to attend their annual reunion, but he'd toss them aside. For a long time, the idea of getting together with these fellows seemed a little self-indulgent to him. Why go to all that time and expense to relive those bad old days? But he finally went to a reunion, and after that, he was hooked, and he went every year. Months before he died, Bubba went all the way to New Orleans to meet his old buddies. There were only a handful left. They did all the usual things: pledged the flag, shared memories, went out for drinks.

If they'd withstood physical torture, would the torture have made them more heroic? Would they have then become icons of American courage, like John McCain? Apt candidates for the U.S. Senate? Potential politicians, able legislators?

I don't think so. Yet the notion persists that John McCain's refusal to succumb to torture as a POW in Vietnam is a key qualification for his life in politics. Sure, he was tough in the face of his enemies, but it doesn't necessarily follow that this toughness gives him foreign policy expertise or the ability to legislate or--and this is important--act as President in a time of war.

In fact, precisely the opposite is true: a military man or woman is the wrong person to lead the country in wartime. Why? Because a military mind always looks for a military answer.

For the enlisted soldier, war is hell. For the career officer, war is a way of life.

Only two of our Presidents have been generals: Grant and Eisenhower. (Well, and then there was George Washington, but we're not counting him here.) Of the two, Grant was less successful. His military prowess didn't translate to the skills of a chief executive. During the Civil War, Grant was sometimes called "The Butcher." We should be thankful he was President during a time of peace, then. Eisenhower was the much better President. But isn't it ironic that one of his most lasting legacies is his warning against the military-industrial complex?

Military people like military people, though. If you ask them, the best leader is a military leader, and so it stands to reason that the best leader of the free world, the President of the U.S., should also be a military leader.

Or at least military people think this way. But not my Uncle Bubba. He loved the USA, but loving the USA didn't mean loving the armed forces, too. Not that he wasn't patriotic. Joining his fellow POWs in the annual reunions helped reinvigorate his patriotism. He joined the local Color Guard. He volunteered each week at the veterans hospital. He talked to school children about love of country. He liked to lead them in the Pledge of Allegiance. He flew the flag at his house.

When we went to war in Iraq in 2003, though, he balked. This was not a war he could support, and George W. Bush soon became a President he could not be proud of.

Before Bubba died, he declared himself an Obama man. John McCain, the son of an admiral and grandson of an admiral, simply had too many stars in his background to make Bubba comfortable. Bubba knew the type: a military brat whose daddy was always the top gun, whose military lodging was always the best of the best, far down the row from the captains and privates. Sure, McCain was a POW, but to a man like Bubba, the distinction wasn't all that remarkable. He'd slept in a freezing POW camp himself, cherishing each little floating piece of fat in his thin soup every day. Then he was liberated, and being a POW became just one of the things he'd been in his life.

Why can't being a POW just be something John McCain did in his life, too? Why must we repeat, over and over, how heroic he was, how courageous he was, what a man he was?

Uncle Bubba was courageous too. But that doesn't mean he should've been President.

Follow Emily Pease on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ecwp

Comments

[Pupadup4oBama]

I hope Uncle Bubba is looking down on Obama...:)

[blaqntelligence]

Thank you for sharing this touching story.
Sounds like your Uncle Bubba was far more qualified as POTUS than mccain.....If nothing else, he had more plain old sense than jsm.