Veterans, military service little issue in presidential vote

By Andrea Hopkins

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Ohio military veteran Robert Rigsby believes U.S. presidents need military experience. So does retired autoworker Mike Artz. But even as America wages two wars, neither man can decide whom to support in November's presidential election.

As Democratic candidate Barack Obama travels around Afghanistan and Iraq this week, Republican rival and Vietnam veteran John McCain is telling U.S. voters that Obama has no experience to qualify him to lead a nation at war.

But with Americans tired after five years of conflict, analysts and voters alike say their president's military service may be less of an issue than ever before.

"There's now a pragmatism in the American public that wants to be reassured its president understands it's a tough world and the military is one thing we take pride in, one of our assets, but it's not just about who is tougher," said Bruce Jentleson, a political science professor at Duke University.

While military service is rarely an issue for leaders of other Western democracies, Americans frequently refer to their president as "commander in chief," and the role of the nation's huge military is never taken lightly in an election year.

McCain ranks far higher than Obama in polls when voters are asked which man is more prepared to be commander in chief and his biography as a Navy airman who endured years of torture in a Hanoi prison is a central part of his appeal.

By contrast, Obama is fighting a reputation as a member of the Harvard-educated elite without a military background. His trip to Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East has been watched for any hint he's not ready to lead a nation at war.

IRAQ WITHDRAWAL

But analysts said the fact that Obama is advocating a timely withdrawal from Iraq while McCain eschews a timetable and insists the war can still be won has complicated what could have been an obvious affinity that veterans and their families might have had for fellow military man McCain.

"I like McCain because he was a POW, he has the experience, but I don't see him getting out of Iraq the way we should, and it's crippling the country," said Artz, a 56-year-old retired autoworker, who says he comes "from a military family."

He hasn't decided who he'll support in November. Neither has Rigsby, 25.

"I was in the military and I'm for the military. I think all presidents should go through the military to be president," said Rigsby, a worker on a Dayton assembly line.

But though Rigsby likes McCain, the Arizona senator's military resume hasn't been enough to win Rigsby's vote.

"I'm undecided," he said with a shrug, saying the economy was his biggest concern this year.

Between 1944 and 1992, military experience was seen as a must for presidents.