Combat Veterans Quotes
The Great Depression was afflicting the nation. Farmers and homeowners who lost jobs (over 35%) or could not sell produce at a decent price could not pay their mortgage debts and homes and farms were being foreclosed in record numbers. Veterans who had saved the nation in WWI and farmers who had fed the population were impoverished and homeless. Rankin appealed to President Herbert Hoover to place a moratorium in bank foreclosures, which not only ruined the individuals but drove down the value of real estate by throwing so much on the market at a time when few had money to buy. Hoover, an otherwise decent man and an excellent administrator, had a blind spot and would not consider having the government solve or alleviate any of these problems as he felt that this would be bad for the national character. By 1932, the voters threw Hoover out and elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt who used the power of government in new and imaginative ways, improved the economy. Profided relief, and prevented a popular revolution and many believed saved capitalism from its own excesses.
The three leading “hawks” of the administration and the architects of the Iraq War. However, not only had none of them ever been in combat, but none had ever served on active duty in the military. None of the three had been drafted or enlisted during the Vietnam war except for Bush who was accepted into the Texas Air National Guard; parts of his service record has been last, but he never was outside the United States. Murtha, John Kerry, John McCain and many of the administration's critics were all decorated war heroes who had been wounded in action.