TOM CLANCY - CHICKENHAWK?

[JEFF9K]

Author Tom Clancy, the “hawkish master of military thrillers,” has died at age 66 of what nndb.com describes as “illness.”

He wrote popular military novels and was a staunch Republican who appeared on Fox News and blamed the events of 9/11 on Democrats.

Clancy was eighteen years old at the height of the Viet Nam War but didn't serve due to some combination of being in college and being nearsighted. Funny, that's the same thing that kept Newt Gingrich out!

Even stranger is the fact that Clancy was never seen wearing glasses and Gingrich is only rarely seen wearing them, per my Google Image search.

http://www.nndb.com/people/504/000022438/

hawkish master of military thrillers http://www.newser.com/story/175218/author-tom-clancy-dead-at-66.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=alltop&utm_campaign=home_rss

[Scuba]

1. The "glorification of war" novels are never written by combat veterans. This is not coincidence.

[Ranchemp.]

4. Tom Clancey never wrote a book glorifying war,

his one and only book about war, Red Storm Rising, was about how WW3 between the U.S. and the former U.S.S.R. might have started in the 80's and how that war might have progressed.
I've read the book several times and there was no glorification of war.

He also stated that Bush had no justification for invading Iraq.

I, for one, enjoyed reading his books, both fiction and non fiction, they were well researched and written.

[pediatricmedic]

11. Have to agree, his books were more tech manuals with suspense and drama thrown in

I still enjoyed his books no matter his political leaning or views.

[Scuba]

12. There was lots of glorification in Red Storm Rising, many heroes.

On the other hand, very little "collateral damage".

[Ranchemp.]

13. You said glorification of war, not of the characters.

He glorified the characters on both sides of the conflict, whether they were tank commanders, fighter/bomber pilots, naval commanders, ground troops, but not the war itself.

[Scuba]

14. Such hair splitting just doesn't flip my flapjacks.

[Ranchemp.]

15. Ok.

We'll just have to disagree on this topic.

[hatrack]

18. He had "characters"? I thought he had cardboard cutouts, each carrying little flags.

Made keeping good guys and bad guys straight much easier!

[Bigmack]

25. You got a point, there...

Ones like "All Quiet on the Western Front"... "The Short Timers", "The Things They Carried"... were all NON-glorification of war books by actual combat veterans.

(I always felt war movies should be in Smell-O-Vision... rotting blood and shit and unwashed bodies and burning c4 and... like that. Give the folks a real experience.)

[HappyMe]

2. I read one of his books. Tedious.

The dialog sucked too.

I'm not surprised he was a repug.

[MADem]

3. Mister "Vicarious Military Service." How else will chickenhawks be able to ooh-rah over military

weaponry?

He wrote books for guys like Ronnie Reagan, who defended the Hollywood Canteen against the possibility of invasion by hordes of Nazis intent on donuts, coffee and a jitterbug dance....

Macho Thrillers for the "Low T" armchair crowd.

Real service members know it just ain't like that.

[MADem]

5. To be fair, Clancy is wearing glasses in the picture at your IMDB link.

I usually saw him in tinted glasses, rarely did I see him without them. I still think he wrote books for Low T chickenhawks, though!

Perhaps he got those permanent implants in his eyes that are popular with older people? They're often stuck in there as an adjunct to cataract surgery...?

[HappyMe]

6. The leather jacket shot looks

kind of 'Mission Accomplished' to me.

[JEFF9K]

16. Glasses.

One of your pictures above does indeed appear to show Clancy with tinted glasses that correct for nearsightedness.

Others seem to show him with standard non-correcting sunglasses. The picture on the bottom shows him with glasses that appear to be not thick at all, suggesting that they are reading glasses for "farsightedness."

I have some friends who served in the military yet are so nearsighted they are lost without their glasses and can't wear contacts.

Clancy's reasons for not serving seem kind of suspicious to me.

[MADem]

20. I am blind as a bat and I have thin glasses--they cost the earth but they correct brilliantly.

The "thick glasses" paradigm has gone by the wayside. That's been the case for awhile, now. Some people go the bifocals route, others have 2 pairs of glasses for distance and close work. They even make bifocal contacts these days--I have a relative who swears by them but it's not for me!

I also am retired Navy, and wore contacts in service--the only time they're contraindicated is if you're around solvents or something that's going to mess 'em up--in which case you really should be wearing eye/face protetion as well...

Also, he may have undergone surgery to correct nearsightedness, and/or had a permanent contact lens implanted under his corneas. Or maybe he's just wearing regular disposable contacts in the pics where he's frame-free.

If he can't correct to 20/20, or something very close to it, he can't serve. Plenty of folks can get around fine without being able to see as good as most folks.

[JEFF9K]

21. Nearsightedness

The picture of Clancy with somewhat thick prescription sunglasses suggests that he was/is somewhat nearsighted but not disqualifyingly so.

[MADem]

22. It doesn't matter how "nearsighted" he is--what matters is if he can correct to 20/20.

At the time he was applying, that was a requirement for an officer of the line. Not sure if that's still the case, but it was when I went in.

[Populist_Prole]

7. It got me thinking, and now that I have...

Every single person I know that likes his books are all right wing chickenhawks.

Hell, back when I was younger, stupid and impressionable I was a republican and liked his books; but that's another story. Thinking back on reading them, I can now reflect on what escapist jingoistic garbage they were. It was always square-jawed, clean cut white guys that were hero protagonists, with a sprinkling of competent Italian American/African American/Hispanic Americans thrown in just to show that it wasn't an all Anglo show...big melting pot and all that.

[Ranchemp.]

9. I'm no rightwing chickenhawk,

and I loved reading each and every one of his books.

I had the pleasure of meeting the man one time and he was pleasant, courteous, intelligent and very well spoken.
I disagreed with his political stance, but I wasn't there to talk politics, I was there to talk about his books.

[JEFF9K]

19. That's fair.

I wouldn't be so ticked at this guy if he hadn't blamed 9/11 on Democrats.

[JEFF9K]

17. Attacked.

I'm really catching hell on this thread at PoliticalForum.com, which is about 70% Republican morons, but they can be fun to argue with.

[NV Whino]

8. The only decent book he wrote was Hunt for Red October

Other than that, he was a raving Republican, pushing the Republican agenda.

[TorchTheWitch]

23. Without Remorse was my favorite

An actual story without all that constant military jargon. I'm bummed that they never made a movie out of this one.

He also seemed to have a bad habit of going WAY in depth into characters that were so ridiculously minor it wasn't even necessary to come up with a name for them.

[Common Sense Party]

24. That was my favorite as well. Revenge was sweet

(though gruesome) in that one.

They could easily make that into a movie today.

[RGinNJ]

28. I was a Sonar Technician in the Navy, Jonesy was always my favorite.

[rppper]

30. Submariner?

SK/SS...one boomer 3 fast boats...best ride in the navy IMHO...the pic is me...

[AngryOldDem]

31. I tried reading that. Several times.

Because everybody was saying Tom Clancy was all that and a bag of chips.

I just couldn't get into it. Just like I couldn't get into Clancy's politics. Guy was just always so off-putting in interviews. But RIP anyway.

[a kennedy]

10. So that's why faux noise was talking about how great an author and man he was.....

duh..... I did like the movie Hunt for Red October.

[Demo_Chris]

26. You know, it's actually okay to like his writing even if he was a Republican...

Now admittedly, I don't believe I have read anything written by him in the last couple decades (when I was in the army myself), but I recall thinking he was okay. My tastes lean toward other things. But what of it?

I am not so wrapped up in politics that I believe my side holds a monopoly on either good people or correct answers to every question. Much of the time we cannot even decide among ourselves what's right and what's not, the point is that we are open to the question. If Clancy arrived at different conclusions what does it matter? And more, what sort of person would dismiss another person's work simply because they disagreed with him or her politically? Does that not smack of Tea Party fanaticism and cognitive dissonance?

[Lint Head]

27. At least he gave his life for his country, would be another tale of fiction.

[4bucksagallon]

29. My age, Republican, no military service..........

Par for the course in Republican circles, I guess I will have to stop calling them chickenhawks they are now becoming mainstream. The Republicans have even altered the meaning of chickenhawk on the urban dictionary to something like, an older man in love with a younger man or some such nonsense. Instead of what it used to be, A person that promoted war but refused to serve although cheering for others to serve. Like Wiki it is all about who's doing the editing/voting, one would guess.

[jmowreader]

32. I thought it was Clancy's back problem that kept him out of Vietnam

It's the same back problem that kept 95 percent of the Republicans out of the war: there's a six-inch-wide yellow stripe running right up the middle of it.