On talking points regarding the armed forces

there is this myth, still very persistent, that the armed forces is behind bush... just because they obbey orders to deploy does not mean they are behind bush... but that is another matter of discusion

Well folks I made the point inside a thread but it deserves its own thread...and I guess being married to a USN Retired Chief I got a special insight into the community as it were.

The armed forces is as divided politically as the rest of the nation

Some of these folks suported Bush, even less of them still do. But the declarative statememt that they support Bush is pure Rush propaganda.

The military is NOT behind the CiC, or Republicans

In fact, officers tend to be republican after Captain that is (O-3 to O-4)

While enlisted tend to be mostly Dems... carrer people treded a little to the right, but not to the numbers that some in the Pubbie party wish to tell you

Here is the best test for this talking point and how it is falling on its face...

2000, they were glad to use soldiers and say, but they voted and we should count their votes! (Never mind some of them were late) And using soldiers they have ever since, to get thsmselves cover et al.

By 2004 you heard neery a peep of how the troops voted, care to know why?

My husband's last command voted mostly for Kerry, and I suspect this pattern repeated itself across the force and services, that is why.

So stop repeating talking points, it gets old after a while.

Oh and just like after Nam when the troops looked at the Republican party since the Dem house stopped funding the war, the GOP has lost the military for at least a generation, if not two.

Defund to support the troops:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3119668&mesg_id=3119668

:hi:

NGU.

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=d7f52e21-cf46-4115-b397-ed1dc70fcdab

Hewitt's an ass, but Odom let's him have it.
But Odom also had this to say:

WO: Yeah, the officer has a real dilemma here. He can do one of two things, and I used to discuss this with General Goodpastor who worked six years for Eisenhower in the White House. Should an officer, when he really disagrees, resign? Or should he knuckle down and do the best he can to get on inside? You can argue that both ways. When a lot of officers, my contemporaries, saw no senior officers resign in Vietnam, and we were unhappy about that, and you saw this young officer now, who was a colonel in the Army, H.R. McMaster. McMaster wrote Dereliction of Duty, damning the joint chiefs for not standing up to McNamara during the Vietnam War. I’m sure somebody’s going to do this on some of the senior officers today. The officers who’ve tried to stand up to it within have…were destroyed by Rumsfeld.

one officer who comes to mind who was the first one destroyed was Eric Shinseki... and it went from there

and why they voted for Kerry in such overwhelming numbers

with my limited experience.

And the career retirees swing that way, too. A common saying among those is, "We tend to do better (financially, benefits) under (Rethugs)." Even though this is A LIE!!1 I am still pissed to hear CHEENEE's, "Help is on the way" from 2000 ringing in my ears. And I don't know who to detest more, Shrub-CHEENEE or the vets who DO vote for them. I am still infuriated at the memory of 5 or 6 Medal of Honor holders standing on Shrub's stage in 2000, using their medals as props for the Rethug COUP!!1 I have called the VFW & American Legion headquarters, a few times over the years, about their POLITICALLY PARTISAN activities for Rethugs. I ached over how good vets KERRY, CLELAND, and MURTHA were smeared.

As for the enlisted, cannon fodder types who might be expected to go-Dem, many/most DON'T VOTE, like other Dem constituencies (Hispanics). I met a Vietnam vet in '04 who rebuffed my urgings for him to vote Dem by his saying that he has never voted and never will, but that he "gave credit" to Shrub because he started getting his VA and Social Security maximum benefits under Shrub. After a few encounters I asked him WHEN he started getting his benefits. He said that it was in 2000 (TWO THOUSAND!!1)!!1 I said that Shrub was NOT IN OFFICE in 2000!!!1 I knew, before my hero Charlie RANGEL started saying it, that most enlistees do so for ECONOMIC reasons.

lost a lot of cache even among recent retiree troops

As my husband put it... those lying sacks of you know what are disapearing because they don't care for no troop

So even that is starting to become quite a lie, as Reikoff's organization is taking over where the AL didn't want to go