A post at the left-wing Common Dreams rails against President Obama for not being liberal enough. It says of the Democratic Party: “It’s the same party that could run a decorated combat hero against a war evader in 1972, only to be successfully labeled as national security wimps.”
RN a war evader? As a birthright Quaker, he could have stayed out of World War II. But he enlisted in the Navy. The official history of his service says:
Following his appointment, Nixon began aviation indoctrination training at the Naval Training School, Naval Air Station in Quonset Point, Rhode Island. After completing the course in October 1942, he went to the Naval Reserve Aviation Base in Ottumwa, Iowa, where he served as Aide to the Executive Officer until May 1943. Looking for more excitement, Nixon volunteered for sea duty and reported to Commander Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet where he was assigned as Officer in Charge of the South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command [SCAT] at Guadalcanal in the Solomons and later at Green Island. His unit prepared manifests and flight plans for C-47 operations and supervised the loading and unloading of the cargo aircraft. For this service he received a Letter of Commendation from the Commander South Pacific Area and South Pacific Force for “meritorious and efficient performance of duty as Officer in Charge of the South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command… ” On 1 October 1943, Nixon was promoted to lieutenant.
In the first volume of his Nixon biography, Stephen Ambrose wrote:
In January 1944, Nixon’s small SCAT detachment moved forward, to Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands. The airfield on the island had fallen to American forces only two months earlier and was within striking distance of the great Japanese base at Rabaul. Japanese bombers attacked regularly — and in his first month on the island, Nixon’s unit was bombed twenty-eight nights out of thirty.