Valley veterans clash on Obama, Dems

By Marcia Moore
The Daily Item

November 16, 2008 08:00 am

— Expectations of President-elect Barack Obama’s administration differ greatly among Valley veterans.
Even friends like Harold Aucker and John W. Nace disagree on how Obama will perform as U.S. commander-in-chief when he takes office in January.
“I think he’ll be a good leader,” said Aucker, an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam and is the quartermaster and club manager of VFW Post 6631 in Selinsgrove.
“I don’t think much of him,” said Nace, an Air Force veteran who served between 1950 and 1981. “I’m a die-hard conservative. I’ve seen the Democrats start the Korean War and not finish it. The Democrats started the war in Vietnam and didn’t finish it. I have no faith in the Democrats.”
Aucker said the next administration will do what’s right, and remove the U.S. military from Iraq only once the work there is done.
“The world crisis won’t be settled the day Obama takes office,” Aucker said. “It’ll be a year to 18 months before we’ll see any changes, but we can not up and pull out and lose face throughout the world.”
Selinsgrove-area resident Bill Shirk is also an Obama supporter, but expects the new president to act quickly and bring U.S. troops home from Iraq.
It will be nearly six years since the war in Iraq began when Obama is sworn in as the 44th president Jan. 20.
Shirk, who along with his wife, Trish, served in the Air Force in the early 1980s, voted for the Illinois senator in the hope that he will reverse the “poor military choices” of the Bush administration.
An Obama administration “will be better because he’s willing to use diplomacy and intelligence not fire power and violence,” Shirk said.
Nace and Shirk agree that the military is under-manned and the National Guard and Reserve are being deployed too often, but Nace has little confidence in the Democratic Party’s willingness to bolster the troops, keep terrorists at bay and protect America’s borders.
“Everybody is critical of Obama and he hasn’t made one decision yet,” Shirk said.
Aucker said he’d like to see Secretary of Defense Robert Gates remain in the position for one to two more years, “to maintain continuity” as the United States faces its next threat, Iran.
“I don’t think Russia or North Korea will be openly aggressive,” he said.
The people who talk about the likelihood of Obama having to face down a threat to the country early in his presidency are the same people who make “veiled racist comments,” Shirk said.
“The threat from Russia is long gone, and in the Middle East we’ve been quick to use a gun and slow to use diplomacy,” he said, “but the threat we face is the one we’re not looking at — China. Not that I see China as a threat, or want to, but militarily they are catching up.”
Whatever happens in the next few years under Obama’s leadership, Aucker is cautiously optimistic.
“He can’t be any worse than Bush,” he said.
-- E-mail comments to mmoore@dailyitem.com

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