Hillary Clinton Says She Once Tried to Be Marine

[timosman]

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/15/us/hillary-clinton-says-she-once-tried-to-be-marine.html

June 15, 1994
Hillary Clinton Says She Once Tried to Be Marine

By MAUREEN DOWD,
WASHINGTON, June 14— The First Lady has offered a kaleidoscope of images to the public, but today she added the most curious one yet: Private Hillary.

Speaking at a lunch on Capitol Hill honoring military women, Hillary Rodham Clinton said that she once visited a recruiting office in Arkansas to inquire about joining the Marines.

She told the group gathered for lunch in the Dirksen Office Building, according to The Associated Press, that she became interested in the military in 1975, the year she married Bill Clinton and the year she was teaching at the University of Arkansas law school in Fayetteville.

She was 27 then, she said, and the Marine recruiter was about 21. She was interested in joining either the active forces or the reserves, she recalled, but was swiftly rebuffed by the recruiter, who took a dim view of her age and her thick glasses. 'Not Very Encouraging'

"You're too old, you can't see and you're a woman," Mrs. Clinton said she was told, adding that the recruiter dismissed her by suggesting she try the Army. "Maybe the dogs would take you," she recalled the recruiter saying.

"It was not a very encouraging conversation," she said. "I decided maybe I'll look for another way to serve my country."

Mrs. Clinton offered the story to illustrate how far women had come. She said that "it was not an isolated situation" for women to be turned away by military recruiters. And she lauded efforts to bring women into more aspects of military service.

The First Lady's cascading, contradictory images have been the subject of much commentary. This month's Mirabella magazine runs a dizzying array of different looking Hillary Rodham Clintons, to match her blur of different roles, with a story that frets: "We sense that we aren't seeing the 'real' Hillary, and this makes us very nervous."

But, even given the fact that the nation has become accustomed to Mrs. Clinton's intriguing shape-shifting -- from liberal do-gooder to high-risk commodities trader, from power lawyer to cookie baker, from health care czar to housewife supervising the menu for the state dinner for the Emperor and Empress of Japan -- the latest one is still jarring. Macho Contrast to Clinton

First, it presented a macho contrast to a President who had just visited England, where news reports recalled the letter he wrote from there to a representative of the Reserve Officers Training Corps at the University of Arkansas, explaining why many members of his generation loved their country but still found themselves "loathing" the military.

And it did not seem to fit in with the First Lady's own persona. After all, Hillary Rodham was an up-and-coming legal star involved with an up-and-coming political star. She had made a celebrated appearance in Life magazine as an anti-establishment commencement speaker at Wellesley College, where, as president of the student government, she had organized teach-ins on her opposition to the Vietnam War.

She was a Yale law school graduate who had worked on the anti-war Presidential campaigns of Eugene J. McCarthy and George McGovern.

Mrs. Clinton told friends that she had moved to Arkansas for only one reason: to be with Bill Clinton. Years later, she would tell Vanity Fair that she had stayed because "I didn't see anything out there that I thought was more exciting or challenging than what I had in front of me."

She and Mr. Clinton married on Oct. 11, 1975 in Fayetteville.

So, if she was talking to a Marine recruiter in 1975 before the marriage, was she briefly considering joining the few, the proud and the brave of the corps as an alternative to life with Mr. Clinton, who was already being widely touted as a sure thing for Arkansas Attorney General?

Neal Lattimore, Mrs. Clinton's spokesman, said her visit to the recruiter had to be seen in the context of her dedication to public service.

"I'm never surprised when Mrs. Clinton is doing something service oriented," he said. "She was just taking in all her options, saying 'This is where I am in my life, this is what fits into my life right now.' "

But she had moved to Arkansas to be with Mr. Clinton, so why was she thinking about joining the Marines?

"Maybe she was thinking about the J.A.G. Corps," he said, referring to the legal branch of the service. "She was exploring all her options, the National Guard, everything."

 

[RJB]

"You're too old, you can't see and you're a woman," Mrs. Clinton said she was told, adding that the recruiter dismissed her by suggesting she try the Army. "Maybe the dogs would take you," she recalled the recruiter saying.

BS. A recruiter gets a better chance at getting promoted based on how many bodies he recruits. They aren't picking. They let the training weed out the bad ones. They'll let any knucklehead in. I know. I sign the MFContract.

He may have had an issue with her getting a commission. I don't think they get the same points as if they get people to enlist. (But here I am taking her at her word-- not smart on my part.)

"It was not a very encouraging conversation," she said. "I decided maybe I'll look for another way to serve my country."

So afterwards, what happened when she visited the Army, Air Force and Navy recruiter? I'm sure if she's given a day to think about it, she'll have an equally good tale.

 

[Jan2017]

BS. ...
So afterwards, what happened when she visited the Army, Air Force and Navy recruiter? I'm sure if she's given a day to think about it, she'll have an equally good tale.

Private Benjamin (Goldie Hawn) at the 0:50 - 1:10 mark - lol



.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Was that before or after she was one of the "Goldwater Girls"?

 

[Intoxiklown]

BS. A recruiter gets a better chance at getting promoted based on how many bodies he recruits. They aren't picking. They let the training weed out the bad ones. They'll let any knucklehead in. I know. I sign the MFContract.

He may have had an issue with her getting a commission. I don't think they get the same points as if they get people to enlist. (But here I am taking her at her word-- not smart on my part.)

So afterwards, what happened when she visited the Army, Air Force and Navy recruiter? I'm sure if she's given a day to think about it, she'll have an equally good tale.

Agreed. However, it's the assignment more than the numbers as far as promotions (looking past an E6 paygrade). First, it doctors that NCOER for the promotion board, but secondly, it's considered a "leadership" duty. No recruiter would just turn someone away for fear of it becoming public. Because if someone is a recruiter, their plan is career, as someone doing their contract will decline. Declining recruiting duty, like drill duty, as well as just turning people away at the recruiting station, regardless of the reasons, will be interpreted only one way by your command.

"Oh.....you don't want to lead soldiers......"

After that, they have guaranteed to never see promotion again after E6. So, yeah...she is full of shit.


I was a 75B in the Army, so I'm chock full of useless details like this.....lol

 

[YesI'mALiberal]

6/15/94 - I suppose this was posted to celebrate this story reaching drinking age, but you're five months late.

 

[timosman]

6/15/94 - I suppose this was posted to celebrate this story reaching drinking age, but you're five months late.

This story is making rounds right now on the media circuit, I though providing the original would make sense. If you want the latest, search the news section in your favorite search engine or portal. E.g. yesterday- November 12, 2015

Hillary Clinton’s claim that she tried to join the Marines
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ons-claim-that-she-tried-to-join-the-marines/

 

[timosman]

DNC Chair Freaks Out After Andrea Mitchell Actually Fact-Checks Hillary - VIDEO

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb...ut-after-andrea-mitchell-actually-fact-checks

By Kyle Drennen | November 13, 2015 | 3:35 PM EST

On Friday, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell actually fact-checked Hillary Clinton’s suspicious tale of trying to join the Marines in 1975: “Those comments are being mocked by Republicans today and they’re getting two Pinocchios from Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler....Why on earth would she go to a Marine recruiter in 1975?...It doesn't make sense.”

Her guest, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was so taken aback that the Florida congresswoman attacked Mitchell for asking questions: “With all due respect, Andrea, why on earth are we talking about this?” Mitchell hit back: “Because she brought it up in New Hampshire the other day. If she hadn't brought it up, it would not be an issue in this campaign.”

Schultz argued: “Andrea, Andrea, what the story illustrated was that we have made a lot of progress in America. Secretary Clinton is absolutely right. I mean, back then, you did have a much tougher time for women to be able to make it successfully through the recruitment process and move up in the military and we’ve made tremendous progress since then.”

Mitchell replied:

I mean, with all due respect, I won't defer to anyone in terms of people who have done stories over the decades about the challenges of women in the military....So I don't think that's the point. I think the point is just, did this happen? You have a presidential candidate, the frontrunner in the Democratic Party, saying something happened which is quite strikingly dissonant to people who knew her back then.

Schultz whined: “I just find it really unreasonable, Andrea....this is a personal story that Hillary Clinton has told, and it's not the first time she told it. It didn't come out of the blue.”

The head of the DNC talked herself into such a corner that she actually wound up defending Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson:

Do we need every single experience in a person's life to be written in stone and blood and verifiable? There are things that happen to people all across America that can't be verified. And I know your next question's going to be about Ben Carson. And I think quite frankly, the same goes for stories about Ben Carson.

Wrapping up the unusually contentious exchange, Mitchell lobbed a softball as a peace offering: “I was gonna play a little bit of Donald Trump and try to see how you react to him questioning her [Hillary Clinton’s] credentials on women's issues. Let's play Donald Trump....Have at it.”

Schultz predictably jumped at the chance to bash the entire GOP field:

And the Republicans have all talked about issues that would turn the clock back for women, whether it's on our health care, whether it's on making sure that we can get equal pay for equal work, whether it's making sure that we have access to an affordable education which so many women don't have access to now that you've got families in America who are headed by women, 40% of those who have children in the household.

 

[enhanced_deficit]

She also tried to invade Iraq in 2003 and was successful in supporting Bush's Iraq war.

She trusted the President.

 

[sparebulb]

I believe that she wanted to be a marine.

She never said for whom.

 

[brushfire]

Bullsh!tters gonna bullsh!t

http://www.wnd.com/2006/10/38409/

 

[anaconda]

This is on par with Elizabeth Warren's claims about being the first woman to breast feed while taking the New Jersey Bar Exam and being a native American.

 

[Ronin Truth]

The Marines didn't want her either, eh?

 

[timosman]

The Marines didn't want her either, eh?

How was your day at work, honey?

 

[Sola_Fide]

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/15/us/hillary-clinton-says-she-once-tried-to-be-marine.html

I was going to make joke about them denying her based on being a woman, but as I read the article I see Hillary already covered that.

 

[euphemia]

Lead balloon.