Who Would Hire a Inexperienced Chef?

Suppose you ran a restaurant. Imagine customers were slipping away, unhappy with the menu or service. Through the grapevine, you learn if you’d hire a new executive chef your fortune might change.
You hear of someone who really knows how to whip up an array of astounding dishes. He graduated from the top culinary school, has years of experience years working pots and pans, and had a plan for success.
You hear of another one who says he’ll try to make some outstanding meals. He likes to eat, learned it early in life, and enjoys going to diners where he gets new ideas for dinner selections. He tells you if hired, you’ll see things shape up.
If there was a shred of business acumen stirring within your being, the choice would be plain as the Statue of Liberty on a cold, clear day. The first should be tapped as the next executive chef because of his knowledge and past experience. The likelihood the restaurant would succeed is greater with an experienced white hat.
Is there a likeness between those potential chefs and the presumed presidential contenders?
In my humble estimation, yes. The reason goes deeper than many will imagine.
While not contained in the U.S. Constitution for presidential eligibility, it is beyond comprehension how anyone can be Commander in Chief without having served in the military. As a veteran, if only I could rally my peers and demand, at both upcoming conventions, that no consideration be given to any person for president or vice president who is not a veteran.
Like an executive chef without cooking experience, a president lacking military experience cannot, under any circumstance, fully realize what it is like to obey an order, having never received one.
It is certainly a sad commentary on this pick of the litter of hopefuls that not one veteran was found capable of serving this nation as president or vice president among four presumed candidates. Regardless of which candidate wins, neither has the gut-wrenching experience of leaving home and hearth and going to a war zone. Neither will fully comprehend how important that “chain of command” is to those who serve.
It is one thing to issue an order from the serenity of the Oval Office, it is completely different following that order to the final degree which might mean death or dismemberment.
Having a veteran president would bring a listening ear to the plight of veterans, and perhaps not one who would merely given lip service to dire needs. A veteran at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would better understand how to command, having risen through the ranks to hold the nation’s top elected office.
At a time in this nation’s life when challenges to its supremacy are being made around the globe, the election of a veteran president would seem of utmost importance. What a shame it will not happen. We will not be afforded the opportunity to make such a selection of someone who has worn the uniform, gone into harm’s way, and safely returned.
We will, in effect, have an executive chef with no “cooking” experience; one who will issue platitudes about military service and bravery on Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day as wreathes are placed at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, yet have no personal knowledge of the subject.
It is odd the Founding Fathers did not believe such military and wartime experience was necessary for a person to possess to hold the title Commander in Chief. So we are left with a legacy in the nation’s most important office of having 31 ex-presidents who wore the uniform and served at some point in their life.
The proud line of veteran presidents started with George Washington. Others were James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, James Polk, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Chester Arthur, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush.
Those who were not veterans include: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, William Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama.
Of all the petty matters that will be bantered in this campaign, I would wager that not once would the question on military service arise for either potential commander who will have his finger on the nuclear button, or who would issue orders to march on foreign soil. Not once will the question be asked about making it a requirement, if not a constitutional amendment, that a person have military service to hold the office of President.
Instead, we will be serenaded by a litany of drivel, two or three-word sound bytes on matters that could not even melt warm butter. On such stuff those who care enough to cast a ballot for the next president must survive until Nov. 6. The importance of a rock-solid commander with military know-how, who may have to stand face to face against tin-hat dictators, will become reality too soon. That’s when experience would count, and when our top man will be sorely lacking. There will be no time to learn, no time for indecision, no second chance.
For full disclosure, this writer is a U.S. Navy (and Coast Guard Reserve) veteran, and I approved this column.