Some of you weren't alive during the Clinton White House era, or you were not tracking events at the time. Please bear that in mind for a minute. I'm not BLAMING you, I am just asking your patience about a certain fact.
A retired (old) professor from UNC says that Trump doesn't understand the military he would head if elected president. Now, he didn't counterclaim that Hillary does, but obviously that will be her claim.
So what does Hillary's "understanding of the military" look like?
Can we possibly know something tucked inside a person's brain? Not entirely, to be sure, but those who speak, write, and act provide us powerful clues to their "understanding" of things.
In Bill Clinton's White House, at an evening reception, Hillary and her staff asked Marines attending in their dress blues to pass around the hors d'oeuvres trays.
Yes.
They really did. Ignore that the badges and ribbons on their chest manifested love of country, devotion to service, mastery of fear in the face of the enemy. The woman who would be Commander in Chief wants Marines who are guests to become waiters.
Pardon another pause here, because I refuse to categorized as demeaning service.
I've done a lot of serving in my life.
Not like Marines or other service members. But 25 years of nonprofit legal representation, at least 15 years of which would be HIGHLY UNDERCOMPENSATED by any reasonable legal pay scale. I never begrudged it because I loved what I did.
At home, we not only raised our children but we hosted dozens of our children's friends for an hour, the day, overnights, week-ends. We opened our home to a recently graduated son of a former colleague for over six months. We hosted our neighborhoods "safe enough to trust the commoners with them" fireworks for over a decade.
At church, over a decade serving with K-2nd grade kids for AWANA. Nearly a decade serving the youth ministry in our church.
There is blessing and grace and power from God in acts of service.
So, please don't think I object to a Marine carrying an hors 'd'oeuvres tray. I object to a service member in uniform who is a guest at a function being transformed into a waiter due to ignorance and contempt by the First Lady.
Yes. You're right.
It could have just been ignorance, and a moment of poor judgment by a hostess. That can happen.
But then, there was the White House policy under Bill Clinton: military personnel attached to the White House were discouraged from wearing their uniforms at work.
Well, well, you might say, that's not so bad, is it. After all, the military is under CIVILIAN control.
Yes it is.
Still, when you deprive a service member of the privilege of wearing a uniform they view with the pride of accomplishment, you attack an aspect of their identity.
On a more practical level, when you order someone to acquire a different wardrobe, you impose an expense on them. Our military is not paid Hollywood scale in order to afford the peccadillos of a Vietnam era brat, or to serve as subservient set pieces to their world view.
And how was this preference for civilian attire enforced by White House staffers?
"We don't talk with people in uniforms."
Imagine that.
Good enough to be sent to blow up aspirin factories and intervene in Bosnia, but we'll be darned before we tolerate the sight of your uniform in our enclave of power.
So, get yourself ready for the lying onslaught from a woman that loathes the military and has demonstrated that loathing consistently throughout her public career, and remember, if you want your fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and sons and daughters to be transformed from one of the most effective fighting forces in the world, to the world's largest corps of waiters and waitresses, #votehillary.
