For the past four years they screamed “draft dodger,” then came the CBS “RatherGate” scandal. For over the past month Vietnam has been the talking point of every major means of news dissemination.

I would like to be the first to admit that John Kerry’s service in the military does matter but Bush’s does not. I don’t care if Bush dodged the draft, I don’t care if he was AWOL, and I don’t care if his commander in the Air National Guard liked him. I also don’t care if he was even a good pilot or a good leader 30 years ago. Why don’t I care? The answer is simple: George W. Bush has held the highest position in the United States military for the past four years, and he has been phenomenal.

I’d hate to break it to all the Michael Moores out there who have been bringing up Bush’s service for the past four years. Now that he has been commander in chief of the United States Military it doesn’t matter what he did during Vietnam. The entire purpose of looking at a candidate’s military history is to judge what kind of commander in chief he would be, and Bush has already proven how he will act with that kind of power. He has freed 50 million oppressed people worldwide and convinced Libya of giving up its weapons of mass destruction.

On the other hand John Kerry has never held the title of commander in chief so looking at his military record is very important in judging how he would fit the role. As I like to call him, John “got a Zippo?” Kerry has admitted to committing war crimes in Vietnam. He admits to burning down villages of non-combatants and violating the Geneva Convention. Is this who you want in charge of the most powerful military on earth?

For Kerry, committing war crimes in Vietnam wasn’t enough; he also disgraced his fellow soldiers and his country when he came back from the war. Kerry said this about his military medals/ribbons in 1971: “[I] renounce the symbols which this country gives and that was the medals themselves. I gave back — I can’t remember — six, seven, eight, nine.” Is the man who renounces his country’s military symbols a man you want in charge of the most powerful military on earth?

Now I have to admit that Kerry is a person who always outdoes himself. I suppose disgracing the military by throwing away medals wasn’t enough; Kerry went on to join the “F*** the Army tour” and wrote a book entitled “The New Soldier.” A copy of this book is hard to find and one with its original cover is close to impossible (a copy is available at the BG campus library but with no cover on it). A copy with the cover is tough to find because Kerry is trying to hide it from the public. The cover contains Kerry and his friends who were in the “F*** the Army tour” mocking the famous Iwo Jima WWII photo by flying the flag upside-down, a blatant disregard for his fellow countrymen who were still fighting and dying for that flag and the country’s symbols which Kerry was so quick to denounce.

Throw all of this on top of Kerry’s senate voting record of not funding our troops and you’ve got a political fire so big it burns higher than any village Kerry torched in Southeast Asia. I believe this now infamous Kerry quote sums him up fairly well “I did actually vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”

So I ask you this: Who do you want running the United States Military in a time where thousands of terrorists and terror states are plotting to kill us: President Bush who has led us to victory in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, or John Kerry, the man who took part in demoralizing our troops in combat which led to our defeat in Vietnam?