McCain asked about lack of Congress members' families in Iraq
 Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain, one of the few members of Congress to have a family member serving in Iraq, was confronted by a fellow Vietnam veteran angry at national leadership's "opting out," while speaking at a campaign event in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Wednesday.
"I'm a combat veteran of Vietnam and I have a son who served in the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan and Iraq," the man said to loud applause, with McCain interjecting to thank his family's service.
After the crowd stopped clapping the man continued, "According to VFW Magazine, less than one percent of the members of Congress have children or grandchildren who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. I think that's a national disgrace."
"The leadership of this country is asking our sons and daughters to go off and serve, and perhaps die, in a war that their families are opting out of and I think that should be a national scandal," the man added.
The McCain crowd clapped for a second time with slightly less enthusiasm, but at least one holler can be heard in the videotaped coverage.
"Just two quick responses, thank you and thank you for your service. One, I don't believe we need to go back to a draft," McCain responded. "As you know, we had a draft during the Vietnam war. The majority of the people who served were lowest income Americans and [the] wealthiest people were able to find a doctor who said that they had a bad knee."
The Arizona senator didn't explain why he was referring to a draft, since his own son is currently serving in Iraq, and had volunteered, and another son may be on his way. But he doesn't use his sons' service as a talking point, The Hill's Roxana Tiron reported in April.
"At a time when Democrats are calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq, McCain has refused to use his children’s experience to strengthen his arguments for keeping the U.S. military in the Middle Eastern country," Tiron wrote. "Democrats have claimed that a McCain White House would be tantamount to a third term of President Bush’s Iraq strategy. But the dynamic of criticizing McCain on Iraq will be different than for the president, who did not serve in a war and does not have children serving abroad."
But the man who asked the question may have slightly misinterpreted his source. A 2006 article published in VFW's magazine was entitled "AWOL: Why Less Than 1% of the Population Serves in the Armed Forces" and did not apply that figure to Congressional families.
"If present statistical trends continue, we are fast approaching the day when no one in Congress and no President will have served or have any children serving," the authors of the article did write, however, also adding, "It may be almost a cliché to say, but it seems to us that it is also true to note that if the daughters of, say, President Bush and Bill Clinton had been patrolling the streets of Baghdad with, say, the son of the CEO of the New York Times, they likely would have been provided with German- or South African-made armored cars designed for patrolling insurgent-controlled hostile territory rather than sent out in our woefully underarmored carriers."
McCain's "second" response tread heavily on the same ground.
"Second, is that I want to tell you as president of the United States I will ask young Americans to serve this country, I will ask them to serve in a variety of ways in AmeriCorps, in the Peace Corps," McCain said, citing other examples before continuing, "...but I will still tell them that I still think the noblest of all service to the country is service in the military of the United State of America and I believe I can inspire them to serve."
McCain's responses, which completely sidestepped the issue on Congress members' families serving, received notably less applause than the questioner did.
Georgia's Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Senate Armed Services Committee member, avoided serving by aid of a 1-Y medical deferment for bad knees. Other prominent Republicans who cited knee problems to avoid military service during the Vietnam war include Jack Kemp and Patrick Buchanan, but it is unknown whether or not McCain was in any way alluding to them.
Vice President Dick Cheney has sometimes been accused of avoiding the draft due to a "bad knee," but his five deferments during the Vietnam War were for being a student and "a new father."
This video is from CNN.com, broadcast June 4, 2008.
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