Interesting. This morning NPR had a story on military and veterans voting patterns. Interviewed an academic. No statistics really, just CW that military typically vote republican and gosh, there just aren't any studies so we don't really know...didnt even want to speculate...I was surprised given the amount of attention changing attitudes of current military and vets have been given over the past year.

A bit later (after the Walmart ad), for a story on emotional health impacts of the Iraq war on returning veterans (again, with no data) they had an editorial by the author of Black Hawk Down. His point appeared to be that war doesn't cause emotional distress in real men.

After that I turned it off.

I bet the number of Kerry supporters is even
higher among former active duty. My business
partners wife (and mother of his children)
served 4 years in Germany and England in the
early 90's, only to have a bullseye placed on
her family again, nearly a decade later.
And if that isn't bad enough, my own 60 year
old father (Nam, '68-'70) is starting to wonder
if they aren't going to ask him to re-enlist.
Neither of them would end up going, probably,
but in both cases the thought isn't helping
King George.

I departed the Marines as a Sergeant and my brother is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army who has been to Iraq. We both despise the lying deserter occupying the White House.

My brother told me that while in Iraq he had to inform several of his Lieutenants that it was contrary to the UCMJ to refer to our glorious leader as "the deserter."

A Marine buddy e-mailed me that while they are enjoying the fight they have no idea why they are fighting and are pissed off.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a lot of guys see this quagmire as another Vietnam because it's destroying the Army and the Marine Corps.

If I may resort to vulgarity I think the troops and the lower-level officers want to get the cowardly motherfucker out of the White House.

I recently saw a number saying that veterans and military families (households with veterans) split about 60/40 R. It was from an exit poll, I think from the 2000 Presidential. Sadly, I can't find it now, so take it with a grain of salt.

Still, that's pretty close, and I don't think that it's at all likely Kerry will get better than 50/50. Of course, that would be enough to get Arizona and Virginia, I'd think.

      ,
-V.