Lyndon Johnson served, as well, though this is where things start to get a little strange. They always do around Lyndon. Ike and JFK were for real. LBJ had been appointed a Lieutenant Commander three days after Pearl Harbor while still a serving Texas Congressman. He worked on production and manpower problems in the mobilizing Navy Department, and made a three-month inspection trip to the Southwest Pacific. He participated as an observer on a number of bomber missions in the South Pacific, and was awarded the Army Silver Star Medal for his service as an observer.
 
Immediately after returning from the trip, on July 16, 1942, Johnson was released from active duty under honorable conditions for seven months distinguished service. Most other folks were in it for the duration.

Dick Nixon accepted an appointment as lieutenant junior grade in the United States Naval Reserve on 15 June 1942. He went the distance, serving in a variety of assignments throughout the Pacific. He was released from active duty on 10 March 1946.

 
Jerry Ford earned ten battle stars in the Pacific onboard he USS Monterey (CVL-26), and by all reports was exactly the kind of shipmate who helps keep you alive.

Prim Jimmy Carter was a Naval Academy grad, like Barney Martin, class of ’46. It was just shy of the end of the war, and thus he became the first post-WW II era President, though his 7 years, 4 months, 8 days of active service speak to a lot.

Ron Reagan? A curious career, but you cannot say his heart wasn’t in it. He actually completed fourteen home-study Army Extension Courses and enlisted in the Cavalry as a private in 1937, four years before Pearl Harbor. He was called up for active duty for the first time in April, 1942, and near-sightedness precluded assignment overseas.
 
Captain Reagan was eventually assigned to the 1st Motion Picture Unit. He sure looked good in uniform, and when separated from active duty on December 9, 1945, his unit had produced some 400 training films.
 
I do not recall anyone making a serious charge against the quality of this service, though there certainly were mutterings about Hollywood and fame and how things worked.

George H.W. Bush was the last of the line. He was for real, for a period the youngest Naval Aviator, and flew 58 combat missions by the time he was twenty years old. At the same age, William Jefferson Clinton was writing letters to his Draft Board about how he needed to preserve his future political viability. This hits pretty close to home for a lot of us boomers.
 
One of the letters, to Col. Holmes of the Arkansas Draft Board, was shortly to become famous. Maybe the most interesting thing about the whole matter was that it turned a whole lot of history on its head.
 
I remember that there were implications about the quality of President Bush’s airmanship when he got shot down, and his culpability in the deaths of two crewmen who flew with him.
 
It was enough to boggle the mind. This was from a campaign that had no apparent military experience at all. And goodness, the things they said about Mr. Clinton. Well, frankly it was enough to make you blush.
 
Mr. Gorbechev did not have to say anything bad about Konstantin Chernenko. He didn’t have to. The old man died in office and there was no one left from the Greatest Russian Generation.
 
Bush 41 is still going strong, though, and is now great friends with Mr. Clinton as members of an exclusive club. But the passing of the Greatest Generation from political life left us with the combatants in the domestic war over the war in Vietnam.
 
That was going to get really ugly, starting with Mr. Clinton, and going right on through the younger Mr. Bush and Senators Kerry and McCain.
 
I told you it was a long shadow. We will have to get to the National Guard and Swift Boats and all that mess tomorrow. That is where the Brown Water Navy really stood up and refused to take it.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Subscribe to the RSS feed!