America's Long Line of Presidential Military Heroes-- Part 3: Eisenhower to Kennedy

As the presidency is by definition a political position, the issue of exactly what kind of a military service a president had becomes important.  Seeing combat is the general measure of worth, but not always.  Dwight Eisenhower, the first World War II veteran elected president, graduated from West Point in 1915 and was never under fire during his nearly 40-year military career, yet that was not held against the Supreme Allied Commander.

Ike was in the Army; six of the seven other World War II-era presidents were in the Navy, starting with John Kennedy, who turned his heroism aboard PT-109 into a best-selling book that helped rocket him to the presidency.

Lyndon Johnson was already a congressman when he entered the Naval Reserve -- there is some question whether his sole moment of combat experience and resulting Silver Star was real or prevarication.

I wrote several posts about Johnson getting his Silver Star in my Tattooed On Your Soul:  WW II blog in 2015.  Go to it and click the Lyndon Johnson tag in the labels section.

--Cooter