Choose or Lose

I just finished watching an hour-long MTV roundtable in which Senators Obama and Clinton each spent half an hour talking to eight veterans under 30 years of age. This is first time I can remember in a political campaign that young veterans were looked at not as a prop for some National Security Theater, but rather as piece of the greater youth constituency with a distinct set of needs and concerns.

The event was slightly overproduced at times (the stories of the veterans were dramatic enough without the re-enactments), but it was honestly one of the best discussions of the campaign thus far on what it really means to support the troops (beyond buying a yellow ribbon) and just what the hell we're actually trying to accomplish in Iraq.

One thing in particular that shook me was the veterans' ages and the amount of time they've spent on active duty in Iraq. One of the veterans, who had a Purple Heart along with another medal, was just 22 years old and had spent 27 months in Iraq. That's more than 2 years out of 22 spent fighting in Iraq. That's astonishing and totally incomprehensible to me.

Hot topics were PTSD (7 of the 8 participants were diagnosed), homelessness and other transitional issues for soldiers reentering the civilian population, as well as some talk about the US strategy on the ground. Both Clinton and Obama talked about the need to fully fund the VA, provide job training and health care for veterans, remove the stigma around PTSD (in and out of the service), and some of the challenges in doing so.

Also discussed were the candidate's positions on the war and a timetable for withdrawal. Not all the veterans held the same views on this topic, and some expressed deep skepticism with plans for withdrawal. In particular, one veteran , after hearing Clinton explain how we failed to get the job done properly in Fallujah and thus had to retake the city twice, threw the analogy back on the Senator and asked how we could leave the country without finishing the job.

My personal impression was that Clinton's conversation was much more free flowing and detailed in her proposals and solutions for the issues raised, but the veterans didn't seem to agree. So I'll let them speak for themselves in grading the candidate's candor and ideas:

Response to Clinton

Obama Reactions

Wow. Just wow. That was unexpected.

I'm working on setting up some interview time with the folks at MTV. I hope to have a fairly large piece about what they're all doing this cycle within the next couple weeks.