Organizing for America | PA Veterans for Obama: Centre County PA Resident, Lifelong Republican and Desert Storm Veteran Supports Barack

Centre County PA Resident, Lifelong Republican and Desert Storm Veteran Supports Barack

By Veterans For Obama - Volunteer Outreach Director - Apr 10th, 2008 at 9:03 am EDT

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I hear it all the time, “Bad news, somebody stuck an Obama sticker on your pickup truck.” My friends are puzzled. Why would an ex-Navy, small business owners, defense contractors, hard line, former lifelong Republican, support Barack Obama? Shouldn’t I be supporting John McCain?

No I should not.

As a former Naval Officer and co-owner of a very small defense contracting company, the issue closest to my heart is the military. John McCain’s Republican policies are ruining our military. Specifically, we are pinned to a losing position in Iraq, contractors and lobbyists run the military for corporate profit and top down leadership is corrupting our military culture. Iraq: A huge mistake. Our troops are pinned down and wasting away. Today we can still leave on our terms and stop the hemorrhage. If we wait until the inevitable next theater, next battle or next upheaval in Iraq, we will leave on very unfavorable terms and will emerge with greatly reduced military capability. Iraq is a keystone issue for Barack Obama. Nobody doubts his position and judgment on Iraq. I might have supported him based on just that position alone, but problems with today’s military go far deeper.
Contractors and lobbyists: Since 9/11 American’s have stopped questioning our huge investment in military programs, it’s not considered patriotic. But where is all that money going? Where are the new ship classes, tanks, aircraft, anti-ballistic missiles, and advanced surveillance satellites?   These programs are all over budget and delayed. What’s gone wrong?

Lobbyists have convinced Republicans to outsource the military. The largest defense contractors now do much more than just build weapons systems. Their lobbyist’s write the legislation that determines how we spend our military budget, and their managers run the acquisition programs. They run the programs to maximize shareholder profit – not to deliver military capability. Meanwhile, uniformed military, who presumably know the most about what the military actually needs, are pushed to the sidelines and relegated to the role of powerless spectators and contract administrators.   “The fox is in charge of the hen house” and the military pays. All of this is happening under the noses of both presidential candidates on the Senate Armed Services Committee, yet neither Hillary Clinton nor John McCain challenge these trends. Barack Obama will end the days of corporations and lobbyists running our government. His actions speak louder than words.   He rejects lobbyists and special interest groups by refusing their political contributions, not staffing his campaign with top lobbyists and releasing his earmark lists.

Military Culture: For the last seven years, our real military experts, our uniformed military staff, have been completely subjugated to civilian leadership with little or no military service or experience. This vacuum extends through top management of the Pentagon, State Department and National Security Council. Our appointed leadership is almost completely devoid of uniformed military service experience. (General Powell was the exception, but he clearly had little influence.)

Lack of experience should induce top leadership to seek out and cherish the advice of uniformed military personnel, but in the current administration this is not the case. Instead a top-down management philosophy prevails. Civilian leadership disregards contrary advice, fires or marginalizes people who disagree, and cherishes personal loyalty above all other traits.   The effect in the ranks is devastating and viral. Our military culture is becoming resistant to contrary advice, divergent opinions and new ideas. At every level information gets transformed to support leadership opinions and bad news is spun into good as it travels up the chain of command to support the egos at the top. In this corrosive environment, the culture of honor, integrity and courage we so carefully foster at our nation’s service academies slowly decays. Barack Obama offers a completely different management style. He believes good ideas start at the bottom and work their way to the top. This is not some pie-in-the-sky liberal philosophy. This is military leadership 101 taught to me by the Naval legend, now retired Vice Admiral “Al” Konetzni. This is the management strategy behind Barack Obama’s come-from-nowhere success against the top-down managed Clinton camp. Barack Obama’s campaign ideas come from the bottom-up, and leaders at every level are empowered to “take command.” As a result, ideas get field tested and improved hundreds of times on their way to the top. Today, every level of the Barack Obama campaign is staffed with take charge, intelligent and imaginative leaders who ”made it” based on merit. In fact, Barack Obama’s campaign staff resembles nothing more than a crack Army unit with Barack Obama in command. Isn’t this exactly what we want from our military and Commander-in-Chief? Barack Obama will listen to our military commanders. All evidence from his campaign proves it. My friends supporting Barack Obama have other reasons in line with their personal expertise and heartfelt concerns – healthcare, energy, the environment… At the core of our reasons, however, are the same basic Barack Obama tenets. US foreign policy should be based on diplomacy and we need to leave Iraq. Government should be of the people and for the people, not of the lobbyists and for large corporations. Good ideas and leadership come from the bottom and work their way to the top. These ideals transcend the labels of liberal or conservative and explain why I support Barack Obama.

Robert L. Ceres Jr.

Boalsburg, Pennsylvania

Short bio:

Robert graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1986. Robert served as a naval officer on USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), USS Mississippi (CGN-40) during Operation Desert Storm, and USS Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7). Robert is a member of the Pennsylvania Veterans Steering Committee for Barack Obama.

I hope you will join Senator Obama's campaign and help strengthen our commitment to honoring our nations brave Veterans. If you would like to become involved in the campaign please contact Manuel Arevalo, Volunteer Deputy Director, PA Veterans for Obama: arevalo.veterans@gmail.com, Koby Langley at (724) 871-7417 or contact Steven Dunwoody, PA Veterans Outreach Coordinator at: SDunwoody@barackobama.com to find out how you can get involved.

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