I hope that candidates take this advice to heart as well. I am a big believer in the military being apolitical. And though I have always had some strong and heavily slanted political views, I never voted while I was in the Army or expressed my views in the company of other members of the armed forces. Some would disagree on whether refusing to even vote goes a bit too far, but that was what I believed and that was how I conducted myself and I recognize that others have different opinions and I respect that.

Now that I am out of the military, I have registered to vote (Independent) and regardless of party or ideology, I refuse to vote for any candidate who makes their service in our current conflicts part of their campaign in order to lend credibility to their assertion that we should or should not embark upon some change/continuation of policy in Iraq/Afghanistan/elsewhere. I think it is worse than unprofessional - it is anti-professional. It undermines the value of selfless service that is central to the professionalism of our officer corps by making service self-serving rather than selfless. Even before 9/11, I knew a small handful of individuals who chose to serve in the military purely as resume padding for a future run for office - granted it was not at the national level. I suspect that this motivation has been exacerbated today, especially with the instant celebrity status that can accompany such service if you hold convenient political views in certain circles.