What is the value of military veterans holding public office?

For a voter considering which candidates for public office to support and/or endorse, might a candidate with military experience offer unique and more valuable insight than one who does not have military experience?What is the value of military veterans holding public office?Military service can give tremendous experience in many areas. You meet people from all over the world and discover that color, ethnicity, and religion have little to do with a person's worth. You get to see foreign lands and cultures from a safe perspective. You find out that you can live without all the niceties that you grew up with. The motto: "the army builds men" has a lot of truth to it.
On the other hand, being a non productive member of society and getting paid for it can lead to an attitude of being owed. I was ashamed when I got my first army pay because I had done nothing productive to earn it. I was just there. I did not like the waste of time and material or the dumbed down attitude of working to the lowest common denominator.
So, like most everything else, it is what you make of it. There is no doubt that John McCain has experience and insight that Obama and Clinton can never have. That can be good in some facets of governing but skew the attitude away from the more social side of governing. I told my children that if you are not a Democrat when you are 21, you have not heart. But if you are not a Republican when you are 40, you have not brain. Obviously, we need industrial and social programs.What is the value of military veterans holding public office?It's a different sort of experience. One that demonstrates applied leadership under austere conditions and a determination to accomplish a mission at all cost, rather than other public officials whose only real experience is what they've accomplished sitting at a desk.What is the value of military veterans holding public office?I would say that you are right that a candidate with military experience may have more insight into military issues. They may have had experience and therefore enter into military issues less quickly because they know the cost and effect on others, but may also enter more easily as they are aware of those costs, whereas someone without experience may stick with the evil they know rather than one they don't.



Another consideration for candidates with military experience is that they have literally put their life in the hands of the government, and have shown their trust in, and devotion to, their country.What is the value of military veterans holding public office?
Because Freedom has more meaning to those who have fought for it.