The Military Is Fighting For Obama?

Obama made a ballyhooed announcement yesterday about how he has evolved on the subject of gay marriage.  The most used cliché is that he ‘came out of the closet’ on the subject, though actually he tripped over Joe Biden on the way. 

This post does not concern my attitude about what Obama thinks about gay marriage, or what I think about it, for that matter.  What caught my attention was his phraseology in the middle of the operative paragraph, in which he makes a gratuitous and pandering statement about the military:

. . . when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone. . .  

The vast majority of civilians, certainly those on the Left, are unclear on the concept of the duty that a professional service member feels called to follow.  Some suspect (through a psychological device called ‘projection’) that the military is comprised of a huge pack of political animals, that we really serve only for pay and benefits and have to ponder the extent to which we will faithfully follow the orders of the officers appointed over us.  That chain of command, of course, extends all the way to the Commander in Chief, where the buck is supposed to stop (though we find that this one will hedge his bets – QED on that projection idea). 

Fate toyed with me to the extent that I had to serve under Carter and Clinton during my military career, and I will freely admit that I never even considered voting for them.  Obama falls within that category, for any number of reasons.  But I never questioned the orders of any civilian in authority over me in my chain of command, nor did I ever hear of another serving with me doing the same.  We all faithfully executed those orders with the only thought in mind being how to successfully accomplish the mission. 

So, to get to the point of this post – the American military does not fight on behalf of the President, whoever he is, and (in my mind) certainly not Obama.  We fight to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . . [and] bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” 

We do not swear allegiance to the President, and we certainly do not swear allegiance to a person.  We swear allegiance to the Constitution. 

And for once I wish he would get that straight in that narcissistic mind of his.

*****
Update:  Another response, from a far more telegenic perspective, from Veterans for a Strong America:

(H/T to Jim at Blackfive)