Buzz's Bedtime Stories

Tonight’s edition of “Buzz’s Bedtime Stories” recounts my leaving of the Clinton White House. It’s a sober one. (A thread) 1) As I walked out of the White House for my last time in the Spring of 1998, I was filled with emotions, mostly relief. The aura of the White House that had initially amazed me when I’d arrived two years earlier was gone, drained from me. Now, I left with foreboding and a sense of defeat. The battering the administration was taking from the endless scandals (and rightly so) had so deflated the building’s morale that those who’d once vigorously defended the president now had little or nothing to say. The military aides, while officially apolitical, felt just as tarnished by our association with the shame and embarrassment that was overwhelming the White House staff. We discussed the stigma that would be attached to each of us when we returned to our services. One of the aides refused his official Oval Office farewell with the president. Another aide was concerned about the negative repercussions from having the president’s name and signature on his annual evaluation report. Collectively, we were all concerned about returning to our respective services into positions of command and having to lead young men and women who knew that our resumes included as an aide to President Clinton; we feared it would taint us as being “political” officers rather than sincere, trustworthy, committed, and moral leaders of warriors. At one time, or another, we all wanted out. At one point, we even discussed resigning en masse. We were a team. The symbolic nature of the five military aides leaving our positions simultaneously in disgust was something we contemplated. We recalled the Joint Chiefs during Vietnam and their failure to take a principled stand. Now, although much more junior in rank, we too had an opportunity to do the right thing. We’d been carefully selected for this assignment, we were more than capably representing the services that promoted us, and we constantly strove to professionally represent the calling of military officership. We were also very conscious of the fact that we represented all of the previous military aides who had served their presidents with honor and distinction, and for those to come. Continued…