Room for a View > Editorial
Fortunate Sons
by Lorna Tychostup

It is called “The Chickenhawk Database.” Compiled by the New Hampshire Gazette, “the nation’s oldest newspaper,” it reads like a guest list to a “Let’s Have a War” party: George Bush, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, John Ashcroft, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Spencer Abraham, Don Evans, Karl Rove, Andrew Card, Tom DeLay, Trent Lott, Bob Barr, Mitch McConnell, Dick Armey, Phil Gramm, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Newt Gingrich, Mark Racicot, Rudy Giuliani, Charlton Heston, Wayne LaPierre, Bill Bennett, Jerry Falwell, George Will, Bill O’Reilly, Tony Snow, Britt Hume, Sean Hannity.

No surprises here. Most of these folks are the very ones who have been loudly shaking the big old American war stick. Especially since 9/11 when the first of what promises to be a series of seemingly “endless” wars was foisted upon us. Today, the David vs. Goliath battling in Afghanistan is beginning to resemble the early days of the Vietnam conflict: a body bag arrives home here, a body bag arrives home there. Distances between these homes are so great, few notice the numbers adding up—at first. Yet the promised high number of ground troops we have been told will be engaged in the upcoming war with Iraq promises the arrival an even greater number of body bags. It was the body bag count that ultimately ended Russia’s involvement in Afghanistan, and America’s in Vietnam. If the slow trickles of more than 4,000 dead soldiers in Chechnya since 1999 hasn’t been enough to wake the Russian people from their somnambulistic state, perhaps the loss of 117 lives in a recent helicopter crash in a minefield planted by the Russian Army will. Or maybe not. This particular price of war has always been the harshest lesson.

Yet, apparently not at the homes of the above named fortunate ones. Besides being the sons of millionaires, politicians, corporateers, and the like, these folks and others have now been identified as Chickenhawks. As defined on the Gazette’s Web site, “a chickenhawk is a term often applied to public persons—generally male—who (1) tend to advocate, or are fervent supporters of those who advocate, military solutions to political problems, and who have personally (2) declined to take advantage of a significant opportunity to serve in uniform during wartime.”

The definition continues: “The alleged ‘gentlemen’ listed in this database are here because they share three qualities: bellicosity (a warlike manner or temperament), public prominence, and a curious lack of wartime service when others their age had no trouble finding the fight...The fact that they’s [sic] almost all Republicans is...well, curious, don’t you think?”

New Hampshire had the honor of being the ninth state to ratify the American Constitution, thus putting it into force. It is good to know the people of that state will not be lock stepping along with the current administration’s “you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists” mandate anytime soon.

The wartime conflict avoided by most on the list was Vietnam. The reasons vary. George W. Bush, the first Chickenhawk listed, reportedly managed to get into the Texas National Guard in May 1968 despite the presence of 500 people on the list ahead of him. His supposed six-year service in the Guard allowed him to avoid the draft at a time when 350 Americans were dying in Vietnam each week. He became an F-102 pilot in 1970, but made his last flight in April 1972 before moving to Alabama to work on a GOP Senate campaign. During the 2000 presidential campaign, debate arose as to what Guard service Bush actually did between April 1972 and September 1973, when he entered Harvard Business School. The Boston Globe reported in May 2000, “In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And for much of that time, Bush was all but unaccounted for: For a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen.”

What is known is that Bush was suspended from flying status on September 29, 1972 because of a “failure to accomplish medical exam” and the “preferred activity” category of the Chickenhawk Database cites him as AWOL.

Vice President Dick Cheney’s preferred activity, “other priorities,” certainly seems so when compared to radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s “anal cysts.” As does Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham’s excuse of “attending Harvard.”

Quite a few Chickenhawks preferred education as an activity during the Vietnam Era, especially the Texas-flavored ones. Bob Barr (R-Tex), Tom DeLay (R-Tex), Dick Armey (R-Tex), walked amid the hallowed halls, as did Newt Gingrich, GOP boss Mark Racicot, and media big mouth George Will—listed in the database as a “propagandist” who attended Divinity School.

Another Texan, Senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex), received a marriage deferment, while Bush’s key advisor Karl Rove is given a “many schools; no degrees” rating. In fact, most of Bush’s White House staff lack wartime service to their country—John Ashcroft, Chief of Staff Andrew Card, advisors Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, and most of his cabinet.

Tom Delay tried to fight but was prevented. According to the database, Delay has claimed he “volunteered for Vietnam, but all the spots were taken up by minorities, so he was not allowed to serve.”
Hmmm.

Growing up as the Vietnam war grew, its reality didn’t hit home until my brother’s last year of college. My mom kept her fingers crossed (as I suppose all mothers of college-age young men) as the draft numbers rolled out a chance at life or death. Her prayers were answered when he got a good number. But I still remember the war that went on in my house when my brother, when offered exemption from the draft after college—if he took the risk of pulling another number—went for it. He didn’t tell my mom until later. Luckily, he got a good number but she went ballistic anyway...a memory I will never forget.

There were those who ran away. There were those who volunteered to fight. Others were drafted. Some purposely avoided the conflict and yet took a stand against it and contributed to its end. But to hide behind a bush only to step out with a deafening war cry meant to knowingly send others off to possible death is nothing short of cowardly behavior. It is one thing to shake the war stick, and quite another to carry it into battle. Nights spent in the dorm playing Risk till the wee hours does not equate to real life battle experience. This is not the leadership the men and women of our military deserve and some are not being quiet about it.

“Wrapping myself in the flag and blindly following the lead of a man who has never served into the morass of an endless war is not my way of loving and serving my country,” said Korean War veteran Wilson Powell, national administrator of the St. Louis-based Veterans For Peace, during an interview at their 16th annual convention in Duluth, Minnesota, last month.

A resolution that passed unanimously at this convention calls for “an end to endless US wars” and insists “that assaults upon our Constitutional Rights be rescinded. Our government must stop functioning unilaterally and become a responsible member of the community of nations.”

Veterans For Peace, founded in 1986, is a nationwide group of men and women who have served in several wars and concluded that war is a failed and counter-productive instrument of foreign policy. They work to educate people to the real costs of war, in terms of civilian lives as well as military, the destruction of cultures, and the psychological damage resulting from stresses inherent in such unnatural activities. Many veterans revisit old battlegrounds attempting to heal the wounds of war on both sides by building hospitals, businesses, and, best of all, genuine friendships with former enemies. They frequently put their lives at risk, once again, by visiting areas of actual and potential conflict, seeking truth, offering friendship.

There is nothing like hands-on experience to bring a lesson home. Instead of waiting for the body bags to arrive, perhaps the war happy Chickenhawks should hit the road and visit sites avoided in their younger days. They just might learn a thing or two.