“THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE MAYOR”

The “Mayor” is the personification of the Career Politician whose first thoughts each day are about how can I advance my career, not what can I do to improve the lives of my constituents.  There is no doubt the Mayor is a very bright young man with a very large ambition.  Smart enough to know that his resume as a small city mayor was not going to take him very far in his quest to become President.

​Our military has a program whereby civilians can volunteer to serve with the military for a short period of time if they have a useful skill and/or experience. (You can read the list of jobs on Wikipedia.)  When reading this list you will notice there are no options that would put these volunteers in harms way.  Why?  They have no military training.   Their training lasts 2-5 weeks during which they learn the “chain of command”, terminology (e.g. a Captain in the Marines and a Captain in the Navy are two very different ranks), and what to wear.  (It wouldn’t look right if they continued to wear their civilian attire.)  And with no weapons training no one is going to issue them a weapon.  At least I hope not.

​The Mayor’s assignment was to look for illicit bank transfers to potential terrorist groups.  Important, but no battlefield courage required.  The Mayor worked in an air-conditioned office, slept in air-conditioned officers quarters and enjoyed three meals a day at the Officers Club.  His attempts to position himself as a “war veteran” is not going work with those who have actually served or with the family and friends of those who paid the ultimate price while defending our country.  As a Vietnam veteran, I find the Mayor’s actions; exploiting the respect our Country has for those who actually serve, to be insulting, dishonest, unethical, and immoral.  It is beyond my comprehension to see the Mayor as the “Commander and Chief” of our Military.