It has always been officially Washington’s Birthday, but President Trump underlined that last year in a proclamation celebrating Washington’s birthday. I will continue my tradition of writing about American presidents on this day.
Washington was our first President who was a general earlier in his career, and we have had a number of them: Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison and Dwight David Eisenhower. More than twenty-five percent of our presidents have been generals. It is intriguing that the twentieth century, with two world wars, and numerous other conflicts, only produced one general president. Even more intriguing is that no admiral has ever served as president.
No naval officer had attained the rank of Admiral in the United States Navy until David Farragut in 1862. He had no interest in politics and died at age 69 in 1870, still on active duty, having served sixty years in Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club. Admiral Dewey was a national hero of the Spanish American War and there was some talk of running him for President on the Democrat ticket in 1900. Dewey quashed those rumors by endorsing McKinley for reelection. Chester Nimitz was a national figure after World War II, but he was a self effacing man with zero interest in politics. Admiral Jeremiah Denton, a POW hero during the Vietnam War., served one term as a senator from Alabama. His defeat for re-election in 1986 ended whatever political ambitions he may have had. Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt both were assistant secretaries of the Navy.
Having said that, six of our post World War II presidents served in the Navy as junior officers, all during World War II: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Ford and Bush the Elder. Like the Civil War, World War II saw a large number of veterans of that conflict serve as president, and it is odd that the veteran presidents of the Civil War all served in the Army, while all the veteran presidents of World War II, except for Eisenhower, served in the Navy.
Looking toward the future, Vice President Vance may eventually provide us with our first Marine president. There are plenty of veterans of the War on Terror on both sides of the aisle, so the days of presidents who served in the military will likely continue.
My impression is that the Navy teaches sailors to expect competence. You do your job perfectly, with everyone around you doing the same. Probably not the best training for politics.
It also gives the electorate a chance to look to those who did not serve and draw their own conclusions.