Should Candidates' Sons Serve on the Frontline?

Oct. 1, 2008 — -- Starting this weekend when Capt. Beau Biden lands in Iraq with the Delaware National Guard, both vice presidential candidates will have sons deployed in a combat zone.

Spc. Track Palin and his armored Stryker unit landed on the frontlines in Iraq last month.

While Biden, 39, and Palin, 19, are just ordinary troops today, on Nov. 5, the day after the election, one of them will also be the son of the vice president of the United States of America.

A protective Secret Service detail will arrive soon after, along with the "Prince Harry question": Should they stay like any other soldier, or will they have become too tempting a target that endangers them and the other soldiers in their units? Should they be reassigned?

"I don't think it's in the best interest of national security to have [the son of a vice president] serving on the frontlines in Iraq," said Philip Riley, the director of national security and foreign relations at The American Legion in Washington, D.C.

"It's an added worry to have a VIP son in your battalion," said Riley, a retired army officer who spent 27 years in the armed forces and a veteran of two tours in Vietnam.

"There are ways that people can still serve in the armed forces that don't have them exposed way out on the frontlines," said Riley.

But desk duty, others argue, is no place for a politician's child, especially one who is volunteering to defend his country.

"There is no question that it is a tragedy and a problem if the son of a senior official is captured or killed in combat," said ABC News consultant Tony Cordesman, who also serves as the Burke chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Cordesman noted that John McCain's father was a Navy admiral when McCain was shot down and captured in North Vietnam.

"But the question for everyone is, in an American democracy, do we want to create a structure where somehow the sons or daughters of our senior officials are precluded from voluntary service to the U.S.?" asked Cordesman.