Book Review: Why veterans run: Military service in American presidential elections 1789–2016

• Author: Donald Inbody
• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X19901300
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Teigen, J. M. (2018). Why veterans run: Military service in American presidential elections

1789–2016. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. 285 pp. $29.12 (paperback),

ISBN 978-1-4399-1436-6.

Reviewed by: Donald Inbody, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X19901300

Conventional wisdom among political elites tells us that military service is an

advantage in electoral politics. Political parties have been nominating veterans to

public office since the beginning of the American Republic. Starting with George

Washington, 46 of the 72 major party candidates for president had prior military

service. Of those, 26 ultimately served as president of the United States.

So, does military service provide a real advantage to a candidate? That question

has not been sufficiently explored until now. While many examples in American

presidential elections appear to support the conventional wisdom, Jeremy M. Teigen

in Why Veterans Run: Military Service in American Presidential Elections 1789–

2016 raises enough counterexamples to question that wisdom.

The book takes the reader through the topic in eight chapters. The first two

explain the question and how Teigen went about analyzing the problem. For the

purposes of the book, he defines military service as “time in the activated militias, in

volunteer units from the states, or in one of the federal military branches in times of

war or peace” (p. 10). Military service is divided into five categories: nonveteran,

common veteran, combat veteran, battlefield general, and career general. The cate-

gorizations are useful making comp arison of the military service of in dividuals

through American history clearer, given the differing natures of service in each era.

He finds that American voters favored different types of military service in different

periods. Sometimes, they elected generals, but other times they elected junior offi-

cers. Some periods saw few veterans running for president while others saw many.

Bringing classical civil–military relations theory into the argument, Teigen ques-

tions Samuel Huntington’s notion that Americans eschew military professionals but

like military heroes. Since the presence of candidates with military backgrounds

varies widely throughout American history, there must be other variables at work.

So, Teigen divides American history int o several eras in order to dig out those

variables and compare them across time.

Armed Forces & Society

2020, Vol. 46(3) 528-533

ªThe Author(s) 2020

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