Troops in survey back Bush

[Wally_in_Cincy]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-10-03-bush-troops_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

Troops in survey back Bush 4-to-1 over Kerry

By Dave Moniz, USA TODAY

An unscientific survey of U.S. military personnel shows they support President Bush for re-election by a 4-to-1 ratio. Two-thirds of those responding said John Kerry's anti-war activities after he returned from Vietnam make them less likely to vote for him.

In the survey of more than 4,000 full-time and part-time troops, 73% said they would vote for Bush if the election were held today; 18% said they would vote for Kerry. Of the respondents, 59% identified themselves as Republicans, 20% as independents and 13% as Democrats.

The survey was conducted Sept. 15-28 by the Army Times Publishing Co., which distributes the weekly newspapers Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Corps Times. (Army Times Publishing is owned by Gannett, which also publishes USA TODAY.)

Army Times Publishing sent e-mails to more than 31,000 subscribers and received 4,165 responses on a secure Web site. The publisher cautioned that the results are not a scientific poll. Its readers are older, higher in rank and more career-oriented than the military as a whole.

<font color="blue">On the other hand the French support Kerry 9-1 /ccboard/images/graemlins/smile.gif </font color>

[Fair_Play]

French rifle for sale! Only dropped once....

The Army Times Poll matches my personal observations. The military is overwhelmingly more conservative than society by it's very nature.

Perhaps due to the role of the military, most all personnel desire leaders who they feel will look out for them, and who they also feel they can trust.

Oh well, nature of the beast,

Fair Play

[Ross]

I remember sitting in a pool hall in '96 watching the news. It was showing the results of the election for the Israeli prime minister. Netanyahu was running a hardline campaign against the incumbent Shimon Peres, promising to make Israel safer by getting tougher militarily with the Palestinians. Peres on the other hand was a moderate and had some success in moving toward a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Anyway the returns came in and the news said that with 90% of the vote counted it seemed almost certain that Peres had won the very close election. I left the pool hall for dinner and came back. In that time the Israeli military vote had just come in and swung the election to Netanyahu. I remember my heart sinking because I knew that was the end of the peace negotiations and meant many more years of back and forth revenge killings. Unfortunately I was right. And Israel is no closer to peace than it was 8 years ago, IMO.

Yes,around the world men and women who sign up for the military tend to believe more in military solutions than the general populace. No surprise there. And possibly they could be the deciding voters in this close election as well. I think the soldiers made the wrong choice in Israel in '96. Hope we don't go down a similar dead-end road.

[Sid_Vicious]

I dropped into a VFW club this weekend in Oklahoma and was really surprised when the Viet Nam veterens there that day simply said we could not stand to suffer in this country for 4 more years with Bush, and they offered the fact that Bush had no WMD found, and was responsible for 1000 American lives to be lost, the lives seemed to be a genuine concern. I'd have thought it would go the other way with them, but their concern seemed to be around those soldiers mired down in Iraq, not a gun-ho attitude about force. I was happy that my take was wrong and hope many, many other military and ex-military follow that line of thinking. I really wonder if there was a poll taken, a 100% anonamous poll of ALL of those inside the miltary, just whether that answer might be entirely the opposite...sid