A Commander-in-Chief Who Will (Hopefully) Lead His Troops Home

The military has typically encouraged soldiers to maintain professionally apolitical attitudes. Nevertheless, military personnel tend to lean toward the conservative Republican side of the political spectrum, principally because it supports strong national defense. In fact, national defense makes up one of the GOP’s central platforms; Senator John McCain received much of the support he did because, as a veteran of the Vietnam War, he was expected to be able to make more informed decisions in this area than, say, Senator Barack Obama, especially about the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to past polls, McCain did hold a decisive lead over Obama 68% to 23%. These polls, however, focus on retired soldiers, rather than those in active service. The troops stationed in Iraq have actually given more support to Obama, donating six times the money to his campaign than to McCain’s. While this suggests that there has been a shift within the military towards the left, many of the troops who are supporting Obama still identify as conservative Republicans. The troops, then, are able to look past traditional party definitions to Obama because he has suggested a time-line to bring them home, something McCain was not willing to set.

At this point, it’s not a matter of what each party believes the role of the commander-in-chief to be; if the troops want to come home it’s time to make that happen. Now that Obama has been elected, to the disgruntlement of those who consider the very troops who voted against McCain as members of their party, this will hopefully begin at last.