Ravenwood - 07/21/05 07:15 AM
Hillary Clinton, leatherneck?
"Gee, now it was probably 19 years ago - in 1975," Mrs. Clinton recalled. "I decided that I was very interested in having some experience in serving in some capacity in the military."Heh. You know, if I had told a recruiter I've got flat feet, I'm overweight, I've got bad eyesight, and I tend to shoot my friends in the back by accident, would you say I was really trying to join the Marines?"Because we all love the military so much," Mr. Clinton interjected helpfully.
Hillary resumed: "So I walked into our local recruiting office, and I think it was just my bad luck that the person who happened to be there on duty could not have been older than 21. He was in perfect physical shape."
She remembered telling the recruiter, "I wanted to explore - I didn't know whether I thought active duty would be a good idea, reserve, you know, maybe National Guard, something along those lines."
But Hillary's bid to become a leatherneck soon came unraveled.
"This young man looked at me and he said, 'How old are you?'" she recalled.
"I said, 'Well, 27' ... I had these really thick glasses on.
"He said, 'How bad's your eyesight?'
"I said, 'It's pretty bad.'
"And he said, 'How bad?'
"So I told him.
"He said, 'That's pretty bad.'
"And he finally said to me, he said: 'You're too old. You can't see. And you're a woman.' And then he went on ... this man, young man, was a Marine.
"He said, 'But maybe the dogs [Army] would take you.'"
"This is not a very encouraging conversation," Mrs. Clinton recalled thinking. "So maybe I'll look for another way to serve my country."
Category: Notable Quotables
Comments (6) top link me
Just think, if Madam Senator had actually spoken with the imagery Marine, and he had said "Sure, sign here, and come right this way." We may have a Senator with some wartime experience and actually understand the military.
Posted by: John at July 21, 2005 10:28 AMMy glasses are probably thicker than hers (because they're thicker than damn near everyones), and the Air Force took me. In 1977. But I'm a few years younger than her, and I had better sense than to try for the Marines. The Air Force has lots of rear echelon jobs, needing about a hundred men to get a one-man fighter ready to fly. The Marines are sent in where there isn't going to be a rear echelon until after they've won the battle.
Do the Marines even take people that need eyeglasses for distance vision? I thought one of their requirements was that you can see well enough for combat without glasses.
Posted by: markm at July 21, 2005 12:15 PMWhoa!
My BS-o-meter EXPLODED on that one, spewing mercury all over the room.
Hillary switches from vietnam protestor to marine volunteer the minute the war's over?
Yeah, right.
{dances away, singing bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!}
Posted by: geekWithA.45 at July 21, 2005 1:41 PMI have to agree with you, geekWithA.45; I believe it as much as a believe her husband "didn't inhale".......
Posted by: Robert Garrard at July 21, 2005 2:02 PMWas this before or after the interview in which she claims to have sent legions of monkeys flying from her butt to do battle with the bacon squadron over the frozen wasteland of Hades?
Leatherneck...more like Turkeyneck!
Posted by: Steve Scudder at July 21, 2005 6:09 PMShe also insults the army in no hidden terms. Good way to relate to the troops.
Posted by: Rhett at July 21, 2005 10:44 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
