When Bill Clinton is sworn in on Jan. 20, he becomes the constitutional commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. He inherits immediate military decisions wherever American armed forces are now committed.
In the presidential campaign, this constitutional duty was often cited as an issue. After all, President Bush was a decorated Navy pilot in World War II; Clinton clearly did not want any part of the Vietnam War except to oppose it. But, historically, has previous military service mattered in the White House?Clinton will join 12 presidents - several ranked great or near-great by historians - who were never in uniform: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In the post-Revolutionary period, Jefferson and the two Adamses could hardly be accused of lacking character or trust - anti-Clinton phrases heard in 1992. Although Taft did not wear brass, he did serve as a secretary of war, and while Franklin Roosevelt was neither a midshipman nor admiral, he had been an assistant secretary of the Navy.
If anyone could have been vulnerable on grounds of avoiding military service, it was Cleveland. During the Civil War, he was drafted, but instead of leaving his law practice, he bought his way out by paying $150 to a substitute, a perfectly legal option under the Conscription Act of 1863. Cleveland's "draft dodging" was not an issue when he was elected the 22nd and 24th president. As Allan Nevins wrote: "He was completely lacking in martial spirit."
By far the president with the toughest role as commander in chief was Abraham Lincoln. The breakup of the Union meant that the Confederacy's guns at times were within shelling distance of the capital. Lincoln took charge boldly, prodding his generals into action, dismissing one after another who were incapable of commanding the Army of the Potomac. Halfway through the Civil War, Lincoln's own leadership led to his choice of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to lead the Union forces.
What military experience did Lincoln bring to being commander in chief? His own last rank was private in the Illinois militia. He enlisted in a company of volunteers to halt a tribe of Indians who were on the warpath in the state, was elected captain and was reprimanded twice (for failing to stop his men from stealing liquor and getting drunk, and for discharging a weapon in camp). Then, after 30 days, he re-enlisted as a private for 20 days in another company and, when his time was up, again enlisted as a private for 30 days as a scout. In less than three months of military service, for which he earned $125, the only action he saw, as he later said, was against mosquitoes.