USA Exceptionalism Stumbling toward 2024, Every Breathing Body a Hero

Every Character innately qualified to Command Armies, Determine Life and Death of Millions

What Qualifies?

Who is Qualified?

What is the Thing called Patriotism?

Individuals Recorded Having Announced their Candidacy for Commander-in-Chief * 

(U.S. Presidency) 2024

Military Service 

11 of 12: NO 

1.      BIDEN: Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. NO	7. KENNEDY: Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. NO
2.      DeSANTIS: Ronald Dion DeSantis YES	8. RAMASWAMY: Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy NO
3.      ELDER: Laurence Allen Elder NO	9. SCOTT: Timothy Eugene Scott NO
4.      HALEY: Nimarata Nikki Haley (née Randhawa) NO	10. STAPLETON: Corey Stapleton (attended Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, Rhode Island, on nomination of DOD Secretary of Navy) NO
5.      HOGAN: Lawrence Joseph Hogan Jr NO	11. TRUMP: Donald John Trump NO
6.      HUTCHINSON: William Asa Hutchinson II NO	12. WILLIAMSON: Marianne Deborah Williamson NO

 *Commander-in-chief also called Supreme commander exercises supreme command and control over the Armed Forces or Military branches. The position presupposes prior, inherent or requisite “military competencies” residing in a country’s “Executive Leadership” (head of state, head of government).

All is never what it seems.  

Although many Americans boast their “patriotism” with something close to religious fervor, they are not keen on serving their country in active-duty military service (on the many fields or in theaters of aggression) legislated and mandated by executive policy usually of men and women in Washington who never served in those theaters of violence. 

The draft or conscription, which is to say “state-mandated enlistment of people in national service” (mainly a military service), ended in the USA as the Vietnam War Nixon-Ford presidencies were ending (Johnson to Ford Vietnam War (estimated civilian deaths in the hundreds of thousands to two million); estimated combatant deaths: 1,100,000 among North, 250,000 among South; 58,300 U.S. armed forces names listed on Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.).  From Kennedy to Ford none of these men served in theaters of war. Four presidents elected between U.S. Presidents Eisenhower and Carter were attached to the U.S. Navy Reserve. 

During the post- World War II period (1940-1973), in “peacetime” and “conflict,” men in the United States were required “to fill vacancies in the U.S. Armed Forces that could no
t be filled through voluntary means.” 

After that 30-year period, an altered form of conscription was implemented in the United States. This conscription required all 18 to 25-year-old male U.S. citizens, regardless of their residency—and all 18 to 25-year-old documented or undocumented male immigrants residing within the United States— “to register with the Selective Service System.” In addition, there is a contingency-based conscription under the U.S. Constitution of 17- to 45-year-old men and “certain women.” 

Historical Perspective 20^th-21^st Centuries 

Presidents and Military Service 

Twentieth Century U.S. Presidents Not Serving 

27 (1909–1913)	William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
28 (1913–1921)	Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
29 (1921–1923)	Warren G. Harding (1865–1923)
30 (1923–1929)	Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
31 (1929–1933)	Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
32 (1933–1945)	Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

 Twenty-first Century U.S. Presidents NOT SERVING 

42 (1993–2001)	William Jefferson Blythe III (Bill Clinton born 1946)
44 (2009–2017)	Barack Hussein Obama (born 1961)
45 (2017–2021)	Donald John Trump (born 1946)
46 (2021–present)	Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born 1942)

 Twentieth Century U.S. Presidents on-call Registration (Reserves, Guard) 

33 (1945–1953)

Harry S. Truman (1884–1972)

Col.

U. S. Army Res.

 

35 (1961–63)	John F. Kennedy (1917–1963)	Lt	U.S. Navy Res.
36 (1963–1969)	Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973)	Cmdr	U.S. Navy Res.
37 (1969–1974)	Richard Nixon (1913–1994)	Cmdr	U.S. Navy Res.
38 (1974–1977)	Gerald Ford (1913–2006)	Lt Cmdr	U.S. Navy Res.

 

40 (1981–1989)	Ronald Reagan (1911–2004)	CPT	U.S.  Army Reserve
41 (1989–1993)	George H. W. Bush (1924–2018)	Lt	U.S. Navy Reserve

 Twentieth Century U.S. Presidents Active (regular) Service  

26 (1901–1909)	Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)	Col	U. S. Army (Volunteers)
34 (1953–1961)	Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)	General		U.S. Army
39 (1977–1981)	James Earl Carter (born 1924)	Lt		U.S. Navy

 

What is the meaning of “Patriotism”? 

Helen Keller answered the question in a December 1915 speech. This is part of it with minor editing. 

 “I look upon true patriotism as the brotherhood of man and the service of all to all.”

 “The whole world I regard as my fatherland (and) every war … a dreadful feud in the family.”

 “The burden of war falls heaviest on the toilers (who) in vast numbers serve (their masters) and die on the battlefield.”

If these toilers and patriots escape death on the battlefield and return home, they face heavy taxation and a doubled burden of poverty— “robbed of the just rewards of their patriotism” (and) robbed “of the just reward of their labor.”

“The only fighting that saves (lives) is (fighting) that helps the world advance toward liberty, justice and an abundant life for all.”

Composition and Commentary excluding quoted material and individual images

Copyright © Carolyn LaDelle Bennett

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