Candidates' stances at odds on some key military issues

If, as seems likely, Hampton Roads plays a bellwether role in the looming presidential election, the candidates' views on military and veterans issues may take on special importance in this heavily military community.

As voters sift through the positions staked out by Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, they will find that on many of those issues, the two are not poles apart.

The starkest differences fall into two areas: the Iraq War and enhanced benefits for veterans.

On Iraq, McCain, the Republican from Arizona, has been a consistent supporter of the war. Obama, the Democrat from Illinois, was not in the Senate when Congress gave President Bush authority to wage it in 2002, but he spoke out against it.

If elected, Obama has pledged to bring U.S. troops home at a pace of one to two combat brigades a month over 16 months. That would mean that the bulk of the troops would be removed by the summer of 2010, seven years after the war began.

Obama says he would leave a small residual force in Iraq to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions and to protect American diplomatic and civilian personnel. He says he would not build permanent bases in Iraq.

McCain doesn't give a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and says the United States must be sure to achieve victory first. He says Bush's surge of additional troops last year has brought victory closer and that Obama's withdrawal plan wold endanger those gains. Obama voted against the deployment of more troops.

On veterans' benefits, Obama was an early co-sponsor of Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's new GI Bill, passed by Congress in June, which provides tax funds to pay college tuition bills for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Modeled after the post-World War II GI Bill, the Webb measure will cost an estimated $51 billion over 10 years, the largest increase in a veterans aid program in decades.

McCain opposed the Webb bill as it was moving through Congress, arguing that it was too expensive and would give troops an incentive to leave the service. When the measure was voted on in the Senate, McCain was on the campaign trail and did not vote.

Largely because of his absence on those votes, McCain was given a D on his Senate voting record by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an advocacy group. Obama got a B.

Another group, the Disabled American Veterans, gave McCain a 20 percent score on its most recent Senate voting scorecard. Obama scored 80 percent.

McCain, meanwhile, has been endorsed by 21 past national commanders of two other veterans groups, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Yet another group, Vets for Freedom, has aired TV commercials that mirror McCain's support for the surge in Iraq.

Both campaigns have set up partisan veterans groups to tout their candidates.

Lang Sias, McCain's national veterans director, cited McCain's co-authorship of the Wounded Warrior Act, the first major legislative initiative to address post-traumatic stress syndrome and traumatic brain injury.

Just as important, Sias said, is McCain's 22-year Navy career and his experience as a Vietnam War-era prisoner of war.

Veterans have a "gut-level connection" with McCain, said Sias, a fellow former naval aviator. "They realize that he's been there and done that himself, and he's stood up for the military and for winning when others haven't."

Anne Rawley, a retired Navy captain and an Obama volunteer, said it is Obama - despite his lack of military service - who has been the stronger leader on military and veterans issues, particularly health care.

"I just don't think that, when we made the transition to the all-volunteer force, we ever really paid for it on the people side," said Rawley, a nurse. "And it's become even more important now with two wars going on and the repeated deployments. Since he's been in the Senate, Sen. Obama has been very, very pro-people programs."

Both candidates have proposed boosting the troop strength of the Army and Marines - Obama by 92,000 troops and McCain by 150,000. But independent analysts say any increase in military forces will be difficult to achieve given the economic constraints facing the next president.

"It's just not in the numbers," said Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan think tank. "They just can't afford it unless they want to cancel large numbers of new programs. But they can't afford to do that because a lot of the equipment they have is wearing out.

"After eight years of continued buildups, you're looking at hard times coming for defense."

Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, another think tank, had a similar assessment.

"We're facing a disaster on the defense budget," Wheeler said. "We have a shrinking, aging, less ready armed forces, acquired at increasing cost. We're facing a significant crisis, and neither of these characters has said a word about addressing these fundamental underlying problems."

Total annual U.S. military and veterans spending now stands at $800 billion, about as much as the combined defense spending of the rest of the world.

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com