Fewer members of Congress today also served in military
WASHINGTON -- Just 22% of members of Congress today have also served in the military — the lowest number since at least World War II.
The decline has been steady since the end of the draft in the 1970s, when the World War II generation was at the height of its political power. Then, four in five members of Congress had military service on their resume.
Even the 4.8 million new veterans from the Gulf War era and later haven't reversed the trend.
And while women have grown to 17% of Congress, they're only 7% of veterans. Only one female veteran now serves in Congress: Rep. Sandy Adams, R-Fla.
The facts of military life work against veterans as modern candidates, says Donald Zillman, the president of the University of Maine at Presque Isle and an Army veteran who has studied veterans in Congress. "You're moving around frequently. You have significant restrictions on political activity. And you're not making a lot of money."
Zillman argues that the decline has political consequences — particularly in foreign policy and civilian-military relations. Recent veterans, for example, are likely to have a greater skepticism about America's capacity for "nation building" overseas.
"I'm almost at the tipping point," he says. "If we start dropping even further, and the expectations is we will, you really start losing that experience base that's really valuable."
Seth Lynn is more optimistic. He's the director of the Veterans Campaign, a non-partisan project at George Washington University that trains veterans for political office.
He says today's veterans are arguably more prepared for political leadership than ever. "There are young guys who have been in charge of entire towns in Iraq, who have had to worry about how to get clean water into town, how to control different factions — and they're dealing with people who don't speak their language and people are trying to kill them."
The party makeup of congressional veterans has usually reflected the overall control of Congress, but has trended Republican. Of the 92 House veterans today, 63 are Republican. In the Senate, the 24 veterans are split evenly across the aisle.
So Democrats are reprising their "Vet Strategy" of 2006, in which nine high-profile Democratic veterans ran for Congress. This year, there are 11 running in what the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sees as winnable districts.
To Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., veteran candidates fit perfectly with a key theme of his campaign for Democrats to take back the House in 2012: "There is an unquenchable thirst by Americans for problem solvers. They want members of Congress that aren't about moving to the left or moving to the right but moving the country forward. And what better candidate to carry that message than a veteran?"
Israel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a military history buff, says military service shouldn't be a prerequisite. "But show me a vet and I will show you someone who is patriotic, who is disciplined, who is willing to sacrifice," he said. "With non-veterans, you often get one of those, sometimes two. With a veteran, you instantly get all three."
One candidate Israel is bullish on is Brendan Mullen, a decorated former Army combat engineer who's running in a Republican-leaning open seat in South Bend, Ind. Mullen said he hopes to put a face on veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
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