While I definately did not support his candidacy, I do accept that Senator Obama will, in about 2 months, be my president. One of the things that is a part of the military culture, and, indeed, prescribed in our Constitution, is civilian supremacy–the president, a civilian, is the Commander in Chief of our military. No one in uniform will ever be the ultimate boss–it will always be a civilian; this is, perhaps, the prime reason why our military has always been apolitical and has never tried to take over the country. It is one of our nation’s great strengths.br /br /Perhaps the greatest test of this subordination of the military to the president was during the presidency of Bill Clinton. No president ever hated the military more–or was hated back more. Yet, for example, when he sent us off to bomb Lybia–to detract the news headlines from one of his affairs–off we went–as we did in the Blackhawk Down situation. A number of troops resigned rather than serve under him, but those who stayed, served honorably and well.br /br /So, I will give President-elect Obama my support and loyalty–as long as his actions merit it. I’m no longer on active duty, so am not bound to be loyal. But I will give him the benefit of the doubt. You may notice that no liberals gave George Bush any slack from the day he was elected. It seems that conservatives and independents are the only ones who ever give a new person any slack as he settles in. But, then, we military and veterans are mostly conservatives and independents, so I expect that we will all pray for Mr. Obama and await, with hope, his actions.
