(HOST) President Eisenhower and his son John were confronted by a dilemma that some national leaders and their families also face today – and it’s one for which veteran ABC News correspondent and commentator Bill Seamans says there are no easy answers.
(SEAMANS) As a journalist with a particular interest in military history I thought that all the highly researched books written about President Dwight David Eisenhower had revealed just about everything we could know about him but I was surprised by an op-ed article in Sunday’s New York Times written by his son, John Eisenhower.
He wrote from the perspective of the only living presidential son to have served in combat while his father was in office. Eisenhower noted that John McCain has a son in the Marines eligible for a second deployment in Iraq. Joe Biden has a son in the Army awaiting his orders for Iraq and Sarah Palin’s son got a much publicized sendoff to Iraq as a member of the Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division. He’s assigned to help protect and transport the deputy commander of his unit.
John Eisenhower argues that presidential offspring should not serve in battle because a president or vice president, in his words – "will be busy enough trying to pull the United States out of its fiscal, social and foreign affairs problems without being burdened with the worries about an individual soldier, especially a child."
John Eisenhower said that when his father became the Republican presidential nominee he, himself, was an ambitious 30-year-old major assigned to an infantry unit in Korea. He noted, and I quote, that "avoiding combat was and is an unforgivable sin for a professional soldier." The future president accepted his son’s intention to go into combat under the condition that under no circumstances must John ever be captured. Dwight Eisenhower said he could be forced to resign the presidency if the Chinese Communists or North Koreans ever captured John and threatened blackmail. John agreed and said – and I quote again – "I would take my life before being captured." Thus the future president’s son pledged to commit suicide rather than compromise his father’s position.
John Eisenhower pointed out that in today’s war against terrorism there is no longer any so-called "rear area" and that a soldier is not safe anywhere. Eisenhower concluded that the assignment to Iraq or Afghanistan "does not make sense" and that our leaders must stay focused on the crises facing our nation and, as John said, "not worrying about the fate of a child a world away." He called upon Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to arbitrarily reassign them to safe duty.
Thus John Eisenhower raises a very controversial question – should the children of our nation’s leaders not share the same risks faced by those their parents have sent into harm’s way even though they, themselves, become high value enemy targets. Should our wars be fought by those regarded as less equal than others based on the degree of risk?