A comment made here recently brought this little bit of history to mind.<\/p>\n
After retiring from the USMC, John Glenn entered politics. He ran as a candidate for the US Senate in 1974 from his native Ohio as a Democrat.<\/p>\n
His opponent in the Democratic primary was Howard Metzenbaum – a successful businessman and the incumbent Senator against whom Glenn was running.\u00a0 (Metzenbaum had been appointed to fill the Senate vacancy created when Senator William Saxbe resigned to become US Attorney General earlier in 1974.)<\/p>\n
Metzenbaum was not a military veteran. During the primary campaign, he made the statement to the effect that Glenn – because he’d been career military – had “never worked for a living”.<\/p>\n
The following was Glenn’s response, delivered on 4 May 1974 during Glenn’s public remarks at the Cleveland City Club in Cleveland, OH.<\/p>\n
\u201cHoward, I can\u2019t believe you said I have never held a job.<\/em><\/p>\n
“I served twenty-three years in the United States Marine Corps. I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on twelve different occasions. I was in the space program. It wasn’t my checkbook; it was my life on the line. It was not a nine-to-five job where I took time off to take the daily cash receipts to the bank.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cI ask you to go with me, as I went the other day, to a Veterans Hospital and look those men, with their mangled bodies, in the eye and tell them they didn’t hold a job. You go with me to any gold-star mother and you look her in the eye and tell her that her son did not hold a job.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cYou go with me to the space program, and go as I have gone to the widows and orphans of Ed White and Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee, and you look those kids in the eye and tell them that their Dad didn’t hold a job.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cYou go with me on Memorial Day coming up and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends than I’d like to remember, and you watch those waving flags. You stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell me that those people didn’t have a job.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cI’ll tell you, Howard Metzenbaum, you should be on your knees every day of your life thanking God that there were some men – some men – who held a job. And they required a dedication to purpose and a love of country and a dedication to duty that was more important than life itself. And their self-sacrifice is what made this country possible.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cI have held a job, Howard!\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Glenn won the primary handily.\u00a0 He was elected to the Senate in the general election that year.<\/p>\n
For what it’s worth:\u00a0 in my view, Glenn got it exactly right.\u00a0 The military is called “the profession of arms” because it is exactly that:\u00a0 a profession, on par with any other professional occupation.<\/p>\n
It may be different from most, but yes:\u00a0 it’s a “real job”.<\/p>\n
Sources<\/span>:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/library.osu.edu\/documents\/ohio-congressional-archives\/documents\/Gold%20Star%20Mother%20speech.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n
https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Howard_Metzenbaum<\/a><\/p>\n
(Edited to add<\/span>:\u00a0 I’d forgotten that at least partial video of Glenn’s speech exists.\u00a0 If you’re interested, you can view it here<\/em><\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"