The end of an era?

Reading the email journal of FederalistPatriot.US this week I came across a one-liner from Jay Leno's Monday night monologue that said with this election, the Vietnam War would finally be over. Of course, he was referring specifically to the re-hashing of the pros and cons of the war. But it got me to thinking in another way. How long does the influence of a war last in how it personally shapes our presidents, most of whom have seen some sort of military service.

Our first war as a nation on our own, the Revolutionary War of 1775-83 produced a military commander who became our first president under the present constitution in 1789. But the last president to serve in the Revolution was Andrew Jackson (1829-37) who had enlisted in the militia at the tender age of 13 already bearing a scar from a British officer's saber. That's a span of over fifty years from the end of the war to the end of the term of the last president to serve in it.

The War of 1812 (1812-15) was the war that made General Andrew Jackson a national hero by his brilliant victory over a superior British force near New Orleans. The Treaty of Ghent, ending that war, had already been negotiated by, among others, future president John Quincy Adams. The last president to serve in that war was James Buchanan (1857-61), who left office 45 years after its end.

The Mexican War (1846-48) was the war that made Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor (president 1849-50) a national hero for his exploits including the defeat of Mexican Gen. Santa Anna at Vera Cruz although the US forces were outnumbered 4-1. Brig. Gen. Franklin Pierce (president 1853-57) served under Winfield Scott in that war and went on the defeat his former commander in the presidential election of 1852. A young lieutenant who served under generals Taylor and Scott, would go on to command Union forces in the Civil War and become the last president to have served in the Mexican War, Ulysses Grant (president 1869-1877). That is thirty nine years after the war.

The Civil War produced a slew of presidents beginning with Andrew Johnson (president 1865-69) who served as military governor of Union-occupied Tennessee and ending with William McKinley (president 1897-1901) whose last term would have ended forty years after the end of the Civil War if he had not been assassinated by an anarchist early in his second term.

The Spanish-American War (1898), although it had far-reaching consequences in launching the US into the business of colonialism, was a very short affair involving relatively few troops. Of course, it did propel Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt (president 1901-09) into the governorship of NY which prompted the machine politicians to bump him up to vice president where they supposed he would never be heard from again. Barely more than a decade from end of war to end of term, although TR did come back for the most successful third party race in the 20th century forcing his one-time friend, trusted aide, veep and successor William Howard Taft (president 1909-1913) into third place.

There were two presidents who served in World War One (1917-18), Harry Truman (1945-53) and Dwight Eisenhower (1953-61), even though over a million men were mobilized for the US war effort. Two other future presidents held significant civilian roles in support of the war effort - Franklin Roosevelt (1933-45) as assistant navy secretary and Herbert Hoover (1929-33) in charge of organizing food aid for the allies. Forty three years.

World War Two (1941-45) propelled Dwight Eisenhower into the White House. Naval service in that war provided a key element of experience that helped to launch the post-war political careers of John Kennedy (1961-63), Richard Nixon (1969-74) and Gerald Ford (1974-77) in the late 1940s. US Rep Lyndon Johnson (president 1963-69) took a leave of absence from Congress to join the Navy in the Pacific, but returned to Washington when Congress ordered all members to choose between service in Congress or the Armed Forces.

Jimmy Carter (1977-81) was still a student at the US Naval Academy at the end of WW2, he served as an aide to Admiral Rickover in the navy's then-new nuclear propulsion program and resigned his commission in 1953 to take over the family business. This makes Carter the only president with Korean War (1950-53) era service in the armed forces (a 28 year span), but he was not the last of the WW2 veterans. Ronald Reagan (1981-89), who had been a reserve cavalry officer in the 1930s, was in an Army unit in Hollywood producing training films. And he was succeeded by George H.W. Bush (1989-93) who was still in his teens when he flew planes off carriers in the Pacific Theater of Operations. That makes the reach of World War Two 48 years. It would have been longer if Bob Dole, a disabled veteran of the Italian campaign, had been successful in 1996.

In seven major conflicts prior to Vietnam (passing over the Spanish-American War which lasted less than a year), the range of time from the end of the war to the end of the term of the last president to serve in it runs from a low of 28 years (Korean War) to a high of 54 years (Revolutionary War). The average is about 42 years.

So, the odds are Jay Leno was a bit premature in announcing the end of Vietnam's influence on presidential politics. When George W. Bush's term ends in 2009, it will only be 36 years from the end of US combat in the Vietnam War (the war ended with the fall of Saigon two years later).