Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Getting serious about 2000

Sunday, Sept. 19, 1999 | 1:28 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

A NATIONAL television talk program told me last May that the 2000 race for the White House might not be nice. The clue came from a lady commentator who was probably in junior high school when the Vietnam War was being fought. "Well," she sniffed, "neither Bush or Gore have much to talk about" when military service is discussed. She then went on to point out that Gov. George W. Bush only served in the Texas National Guard and that Vice President Al Gore was in Vietnam as an Army journalist and therefore never in danger.

I couldn't wait to tell former Sun editor and now freelance writer Jim Barrows about the remarks of the talking head that had appeared on my television set. Barrows, according to a military historian, probably came closer to death on Pork Chop Hill in Korea as a communications officer than he ever did when leading an infantry platoon. There just aren't too many safe places for people in a combat zone because the enemy doesn't distinguish between cooks, writers and riflemen.

About Bush "only" serving in the Texas National Guard somebody should add that he was an accomplished F-102 pilot. I'd say that any military fighter pilot is serving his nation well and is putting his personal safety on the line when in the air. Being a jet jockey isn't what this infantryman would consider a sensible way to dodge the draft if one was fearing for his life. Five years of honorable service in any branch of the military service is good enough for most Americans. Bush served from July 1968 to October 1973 in the National Guard.

Al Gore, not a big supporter of the war, nonetheless enlisted in August 1969 and served in Vietnam from January 1970 until February 1971. Before enlisting in the Army, Gore had graduated with honors from Harvard. After returning home in the summer of 1971 he became a newspaper reporter and eventually went back to college and studied law.

My first meeting with Sen. Al Gore was more than 10 years ago when he stopped by the office with his friend Sen. Harry Reid. After telling him I had met his father when he represented Tennessee in the U.S. Senate, we moved on into other areas of interest. "In Korea I had a rifleman in my outfit from the hills of your state. We called him Tennessee Goss," I remarked. "Oh, you mean Jeff Goss," Gore responded. He then told me how Jeff's widow and daughter were getting along. Immediately, the man from Tennessee became my kind of guy.

Former ABC News correspondent, Bob Zelnick, best describes, in one paragraph, Gore's time in Vietnam when writing "Gore: A Political Life." Zelnick writes: "Without question, Gore spent plenty of time in the field covering the engineers as they built roads or airstrips. While not nearly as dangerous as the activity of the grunts, it was a decent and honorable way for him to discharge his obligation to his country during a period of great domestic turbulence and moral ambiguity. It was also far more dangerous than the postgraduate courses and 'essential' jobs to which flocked many future hard-liners whose reverence for interventionist military policies would grow in direct proportion to their personal distance from the threat of military service. ..."

Both Gore and Bush did what was right during the Vietnam era but that will make little difference when the votes are counted next year. If honorable military service is a political plus it certainly wasn't reflected in the vote count when Bill Clinton beat Bush's father in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996.

It's time to get down to the business of what the candidates can do for the nation. That Gore admits smoking some pot almost 30 years ago and Bush refuses to answer unsubstantiated charges of using cocaine during that period of time is irrelevant today. These items may be important to some members of the press and GOP religious candidate Gary Bauer but the vast majority of Americans aren't dwelling on what are essentially nonissues. So far the only people damaged by such charges are the ones trying to make political hay or news out of them.

Like many voting Americans, I'm looking forward to hearing more about issues that can affect the future of my children and grandchildren. Personal attacks and sniping don't provide any of us with the kind of leadership we need during the coming century.