Retired generals advising Obama bring range of expertise

As he campaigns to be the nation's next commander in chief, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., already has assembled his own corps of generals.

The campaign lists more than 70 retired generals and admirals from all four services who are supporting and advising the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee on national security, aerospace programs, energy and other issues.

Many have been with the campaign throughout the primary elections. But many others are retired senior officers who once backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and who joined the Obama camp at Clinton's urging after she ended her presidential campaign in May.

For its part, the Obama campaign wasted little time wooing Clinton's military backers and advisers, convening a Washington meeting in June with 40 retired senior officers to bring supporters from both camps together.

"We just wanted to make sure we were bridging any kind of informational gaps," retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, one of Obama's top national security advisers, recalled in a recent interview.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick, a well-known Clinton adviser who lent his support to Obama, said there is a shared perception "the country really needs a fresh approach to our national security challenges."

Similar positions on Iraq and other national security issues also helped ease the transition for many of these former officers from the Clinton camp to Obama's.

"The Clinton message and the Obama message were not terribly different," said retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, another former Clinton supporter.

Support from retired but still influential military brass no doubt burnishes Obama's national security credentials as he runs against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a Navy veteran who spent over five years in captivity in North Vietnam.

Gration, who accompanied Obama on much of his overseas trip last month, acknowledged that support from these former top military officers might be "a little more visible this year" because of McCain's background. But Gration also emphasized that the campaign would seek advice and support from such military experts regardless of the opponent.

"Even if he wasn't running against John McCain, he would have people like me there and he would be focusing on these same kinds of issues because they're so tied to his platform," Gration said.

The retired officers each bring to the campaign decades of military experience in specialties ranging from field operations to logistics to public affairs. Among them are retired Adm. William Owens, who served as vice chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; at least one former service chief; several service vice chiefs, a former head of the National Guard Bureau, a former commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command and a former operations director for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Several are black, and at least four of Obama's retired generals are women, each of whom broke through some of the military's highest glass ceilings.

Some Obama advisers, such as retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO supreme allied commander who ran for president in 2004, have been retired for years and are familiar names in politics. But many others are recent retirees, for whom the 2008 presidential campaign marks their first foray into politics after long apolitical careers in uniform.

Several of the recently retired officers said they felt compelled to get involved and lend their expertise because of concerns they felt first-hand during their last years in the military.

"While on active duty, I was very disappointed in a number of decisions rendered by the Bush administration and their failure to support initiatives I considered very important, including my own to develop the Iraqi armed forces," said Eaton, who oversaw training and equipping of the Iraqi security forces in 2003 and 2004.

Eaton, an outspoken critic of the Bush administration since retiring in 2006, added that he felt "duty bound to fill what I consider to be a role to stand up for a man who really does have the potential to get things turned around for the United States."

Retired Adm. John Nathman, who as the leader of U.S. Fleet Forces Command had to make sure the Navy's forces were prepared for deployments, said he had no intention of getting involved in politics when he retired last year. But he said he felt the country was "on the wrong course" and began advising the Obama campaign in August 2007, just months after his retirement.

"Here's a man who has an opportunity to be president," Nathman said. "If I can help by providing good advice, maybe I can make a difference if he gets elected."

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