McCain in Pensacola increase military numbers

McCain in Pensacola: increase military numbers

By Deborah Nelson
April 2, 2008

PENSACOLA Fla. -- Presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain called for an expansion in military troop levels during a Wednesday, April 2 visit to Pensacola Junior College.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain greets Navarre residents Lauretta and Skip Aiken

The United States missed a chance to increase military force levels after September 11, 2001 attacks, McCain told the filled PJC gymnasium audience. Even now, Army and Marine Corps numbers need to be significantly expanded, he said.

“We must increase the size of our military, and much more so than we have done to date,” McCain remarked. “I think the security challenges we face today absolutely require it.”

If military forces had been built up earlier, he added, “we would not be in the situation we are in today” and in Iraq “the strain on readiness would not be so acute.”

Calling a draft “neither necessary nor desirable,” McCain said he would call on universities that currently don’t host Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs to allow those programs on campus.

“That they’re frequently denied that privilege is disgraceful,” he remarked.

McCain participated in a roundtable discussion on local military support issues with area support agency groups. From left: Tammy Jones, NAS Pensacola Officers’ Spouses’ Association; Captain John Pritchard (USMC Ret.), Pensacola Veterans’ Memorial Park Foundation Director; McCain; Captain Robert Hain (USN Ret.), Executive Director, Robert E. Mitchell Center for POW Studies; Mark Harden, Director, Pensacola Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society; Captain Jim Frazier (USN Ret.), President, Pensacola Military Officers Association of America

The Arizona senator did not take questions, but participated in a brief roundtable discussion, themed “Service to America,” with local military support agency officials.

“Military service, whether one or two years enlisted or as a career, is one of the most rewarding experiences you could ever have,” McCain remarked. “Few other occupations so completely invest your life with personal and even historical importance.”

During his visit, McCain took the opportunity to recognize the service of local veterans.

He praised former pilot and the Air Force’s most decorated officer, retired Colonel George ‘Bud’ Day. Day was shot down in Vietnam and spent five years and seven months as a POW in Hanoi, during the same time McCain was a prisoner.

McCain also remarked on the late Vice Admiral and Pensacola Naval Aviation Museum founder John Fetterman as one of the great Naval officers in history.

Senator McCain received his naval flight training in Pensacola, and graduated in 1960. He recalled his time in Pensacola fondly.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain addresses a full room at the PJC gymnasium, April 2

“I came to Pensacola to become an aviator and an instrument of war for my country,” he noted. “I have very happy memories of my time here…I enjoyed every single minute of my life here, from learning to fly to blowing my pay at Trader John’s.

“I wish all Americans the experience of sublime service to a greater good that I was lucky to have, and that began in Pensacola.”

McCain described how realtime war experiences dispelled his early romantic notions of being a combat pilot.

Recounting his time aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he said the experience made him realize military service was an “entry into history.”

He gained perspective on the military’s role in creating world peace and stability, and advancing American ideals, from helping forestall nuclear war with the Soviets, McCain recounted.

He described his Navy service as the highest expression of patriotism and the most personally rewarding of his career.

“It’s still the world I know best and I love most,” he remarked.