Any other Dems running for 08 Pres volunteer for Marines besides Hillary?

[papau]

Not a combat vet because she was rejected when she became interested in the military as a recent law grad, currently law professor, in 1975 at age 27 - but also not a person who puts down those that serve in the military or sees their mission as less than a service to the country.

I'm sure other Dem 08 candidates volunteered or were actually in the military - but I can't recall who - any one remember the bio's well enough to drag up this factoid?


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E4D71F3AF936A25755C0A962958260&n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes%20Topics%2FPeople%2FC%2FClinton%2C%20Hillary%20Rodham
Hillary Clinton Says She Once Tried to Be Marine

By MAUREEN DOWD, Published: June 15, 1994

<snip>
Speaking at a lunch on Capitol Hill honoring military women, Hillary Rodham Clinton said that she once visited a recruiting office in Arkansas to inquire about joining the Marines. <snip>

She was 27 then, she said, and the Marine recruiter was about 21. She was interested in joining either the active forces or the reserves, she recalled, but was swiftly rebuffed by the recruiter, who took a dim view of her age and her thick glasses. 'Not Very Encouraging'

"You're too old, you can't see and you're a woman," Mrs. Clinton said she was told, adding that the recruiter dismissed her by suggesting she try the Army. "Maybe the dogs would take you," she recalled the recruiter saying.

"It was not a very encouraging conversation," she said. "I decided maybe I'll look for another way to serve my country." <snip>

[John Q. Citizen]

1. Did she actually volunteer, or did she just ask? How did her Army stint go?

[papau]

3. She asked to volunteer for either reserve or active - never had to make choice because recuiter

turned her away.

I have never heard - and the Dowd story does not say - that she then went down to the Army - but my guess is that would be part of the tale if she had done so.

It does make for an interesting contrast to Bill's - and most other set for career post grad's - actions toward military service.

I really wonder who amongst the others running were in the military - or tried to get in. I believe a few did - but I do not know which ones.

[hughee99]

2. Yes, the chances of a 27 year old woman

with thick glasses joining the Marines in 1975 are not very good, though they're a bit better than the chances of me believing that Hillary, a Yale Law graduate and soon-to-be-wife of the next Attorney General of Arkansas, had any actual interest in joining the Marines.

[papau]

4. The pundit comment to date since 94 has been that it showed her sympathy/empathy toward the military

plus was consistent with her "hawk" views on using the military.

Seems most folks think the story fits the other known facts about her. It is hard to paint her as evil as some want to do on DU - and in the GOP.

[hughee99]

5. I'm not suggesting that she doesn't have sympathy

or empathy for the military, nor am I trying to paint her as evil, but I have some doubts as to whether this incident (her going into the recruiter's office, not her telling the story about it to a group of military women) actually happened, and I have serious doubts as to whether she actually had any interest in joining the Marines.

[papau]

6. Doubts about anything is a given - but why do you assume she lies? - Caught her in any

provable lies?

I actually spent some time trying to find anything she had lied about - and didn't. In her book, I went through it to find those lies, but was most interested in the health care fight in the days before the task force - something I know something about personally - and what she said was spot on truth.

You are of course entitled to your doubt - but those pundits - and myself - seem to think it feels true and fits what else is known. I grew up near her - same "suburban league" schools (we played each other in sports through high school) - and the religious belief and desire to do something for society with your life was taught to the going onto college kids in each school pretty much the same. She fits.

[hughee99]

8. This strikes me as the sort of thing that

politicians say when when addressing specific groups, or celebrities tell when they go on talk shows - an interesting, innocent, and unverifiable anecdote for the purpose of connecting with or entertaining the crowd. I'm not outright saying that's she's lying, though I do have serious doubts that someone of her intelligence and motivation, about to get married to a politician (though he had just lost a close election the previous year, but was considered a shoe-in for the upcoming AG race, in which he ran unopposed), and having just spent the last few election cycles working to end the Vietnam war, would then decide to join the military. IMHO, by that point, she saw her future in public service as political, not military. I think that if she had been serious about joining, she would have applied for the AG's office, where her legal credentials would have more than made up for her eyesight.

In my mind, this story doesn't change my opinion of her, I don't really believe she wanted to join the military at that time, but wouldn't blame her for not wanting to either. The fact that this is a story from a decade ago makes it insignificant enough that I won't even consider this when voting next year, unless she, not her opponents, decide to make this an election year issue.

[papau]

11. I don't know she had met Bill as yet early in 75 - married in October 75

became 27 - the age of the visit to the recruiter - in Oct 74.

As to joining as an officer in AG - many of us felt being officers was not what we wanted - and that may be how she felt. Indeed Master Sergeant seemed like an ideal rank to me (it was my Dad's). Amazing as it sounds, some folks with intelligence and motivation don't want to be CEO or an officer in the military.

[hughee99]

13. I believe that she met Bill at Yale in '73

and my understanding was that she was in Arkansas in '75 because of Bill (who had run for congress in '74). My father was an enlisted man in the Marines as well (and grew up in Bill's neck of the woods in Arkansas), so I have no problems believing that someone with intelligence and motivation would be willing to do this. As I've said, this will not have a positive or negative impact on my opinion of Hillary unless she chooses to make this an issue.

However, since you seem somewhat determined to convince me that the story is true although you have no more evidence to support it (your personal understanding of Hillary) than I do to refute it (my personal understanding of Hillary), here's another take on it.

Let's say I do accept the story as true, should I applaud Hillary for her attempt to join the military, or should I count it as a strike against her that she was willing to give up so easily on something that she wanted so much? Provided the information is all true, couldn't I take either lesson from this?

[John Q. Citizen]

9. Did you come from a wealthy family too? Your community didn't teach blue collar folks,

the "poor" folks, the desire to do something for their communities?

Shame, it kind of leads to an upper class and a lower class dictated by who your daddy is.

I guess becoming a corporate lawyer could be classified as "wanting to do something for your community," assuming your community is corporations.

And your right. That does fit.

Thanks for the insight.

[papau]

10. No - we had no furniture/lived with others on Ft Sheridan - moved to Waukegan which is

the poor/working class town that was and is in the "Suburban league" outside Chicago on Rt 41.

Huge number of churches - the town of Zion was named that for the obvious reason - and boosterism and giving ones life for the country and love of military meant the First Army was headquartered there as well as the Great Lakes Naval training Center which had 60,000 in training at one point during WW2.

The rich kids being favored did exist - but stubborn smart poor kids could force their way into "honors courses" and defeat attempts to flunk them out.

Very big union area where the unions forced red necks to be civil to those of color.

It was a good place to grow up. Some folks in the Democratic Party from the area occasionally get together and it is amazing how many are folks that went at least part way into seminary, or did peace core - etc. - a real need to help others the way we had been helped by the union, by the military, by our elders, by our church, by our country, by our God.

[John Q. Citizen]

7. I've noticed those who haven't served seem to be the biggest hawks. Those

who have served usually know better.

So I'm not sure this tale means anything. Except that you seem to like it for some reason.

I always figured her hawk stance came from her desire for an American Empire that she could lead. I don't see a truely defensive military as evil, but the hawks of the world have always seemed evil to me. War is evil. It kills lots of children.

Some seem to be able to rationalize that, but I can't.

[papau]

12. The military makes freedom possible is another view - and because of that -yes- I do like the

tale.

I don't see her as a hawk - just another person who will not run from a fight - and indeed I like that.

I do not see her trying to do a Pax Americana - indeed Bill never tried to pull that off.

George and his friends - the chicken hawks - are the ones into that kind of evil stupidity.