Cold War Warrior for Fred

First off let me start off by saying I am going to draw some comparsions between Fred Thompson and Ronald Reagan, so if you are tired of reading about Reagan being tied to Fred stop reading. For those that wish to continue on this exercise, let me start by saying what has prompted me to write this piece.
Day after day I continue to hear how John McCain has the military vote wrapped up by the pundits, as if there is no reason to even campaign among the military or the veterans because of that reason. Well that is just BULL!
Reagan had no real military creditianals other then making some movies during WWII as part of the War Departments efforts. True he wore the uniform, but so did John Kerry.
My period of service covered the Cold War, you know that period of peace and prosperity when nobody was shooting at us except for the Soviets, and little vacations to places like Grenada, Panama, Haiti, and oh yeah that little dust up in the desert known as the Gulf War.
When I entered the Army the All Volunteer Force was in it's infancy. In fact I was a member of the first battalion sized element to officially be classified as All Volunteer in 1977.
At that time in our history I saw our embassy in Iran get overrun and our citizens held hostage. Along came a no nonsense talking man from California and within hours of him taking office our hostages were free. Trust me, those were anxious times in the ranks. We were hoping this man was not writing checks our little butts couldn't cash. But when it happened and he turned around and affirmed to us that he had complete confidence in us guess what? We begin to feel better about ourselves and our abilities too. You have to understand that this was a Army that had been savaged by it's country and was viewed as nothing more then a place of last resort for drug addicts, alcoholics and all the other dredges of society.
Suddenly we were getting money and equipment.
And then there was that 'Miracle on Ice". Those magnificent hockey players from the US who took on the worlds other super power and beat them. Suddenly we felt like we could too. I don't think those guys, to this day, realize what an impact they had.
We no longer held our heads down while walking the streets of Europe. We were cocky and we weren't worried about being accepted in the eyes of the world, like so many liberals today seem to think is the most important thing.
But all of this was brought about because we had a president who didn't apologize for being the biggest and baddest guy in the room. He wasn't looking for acceptance, just respect. When I first joined the Army respect was in short supply. After just a few short years of Reagan that was all we had.
Sure the Cold War would continue until the end of the eighties and there were times once again when I hoped he wasn't writing checks we couldn't cash, but by that time he had overdraft protection. We used to have saying back then, "I would walk through hell in gasoline soaked underwear for that man." And it was true.
Fred can be the same kind of president. At a time when everybody seems to be crying about the "moral high ground" and our image in the world Fred is stepping forth and admitting we have problems but they are American problems and we can solve them without outside intervention. He knows that the best way to imporve your image is to walk straight, talk straight and let everybody know when you say something you mean it. There is no parsing, no looking to find out what is "is.
People rap him for not being eloquent when talking, but I don't think Gen Schwarzkopf was very eloquent when he met with Saddam in that tent in the desert after destroying his army in 100 hours either. I would rather have a leader who is blunt, who, when the media tries to tell us what it was he said, can look right back at them and say you need to read what I said. There ain't nothing else hidden there.
So while there are candidates out there like Mr McCain who have military service I want everybody to know that in no way protects him from criticism. If his policies, like his stance on immigration, are wrong tell him. Most of America did and while he says he gets it now I don't trust him based on his answers at other times in the campaign. He thinks global warming is a certainty, while in the 70's the big scare was global cooling. Once again if you don't buy into the global warming hysteria let him know about it.
This is one Cold War Warrior who is behind Fred and I am imporing others, not just military, but all of us who lived in those times and through that period of our history, to support Fred. He is not about trying to recapture some nebolous lost era of the 80's, unlike the Democrats who have embraced the nostaglia of the 60's, but rather somebody who wishes to keep the conservative values alive and put them to use to solve the problems of the 21st century.
To quote another recently retired general, "Don't get stuck on stupid!"