Sure, I'm a die-hard Obama supporter -- but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to give credit where credit is due.
Hillary says she's been tested, she's been vetted, she's got the experience needed to serve effectively as Commander in Chief...and my wartime experiences with her definitely back up that claim up.
I bumped into Hillary -- literally -- in the late 60s, when we were both thrown into the air when the bar we were drinking in was blown up by the Cong. The rest, as they say, is history.
More below...
Those were the days, my friend, back in the 'Nam. As miserable as we both were, Hillary and I agreed that we had never felt more alive.
After dusting ourselves off and pulling the burning survivors from the wreckage of Bar Saigon, we experienced that iron bond of friendship that gets forged only in the heat of battle.
Hillary was the only other woman on the march who could open a bottle of beer with her teeth, and we both killed time learning how to juggle live grenades without dropping a one.
When we weren't cleaning our weapons or smoking weed, we'd sit around the campfire, making fun of Charlie and figuring out new places to drop napalm while we dried our socks by the fire and sucked down MREs with a little Tabasco.
Every once in a while, a bullet would whiz by overhead, and I remember clearly that it was Hills who taught us all how to drop to the ground and make our way back to camp on our stomachs.
By the time we all found ourselves scrambling into a chopper from the roof of the Embassy, Hillary had collected a necklace of VC ears, a big box of poetry and chocolates from every eight-year-old in Saigon, and the love of a grateful nation.
I knew, as we hovered there above the Mekong, watching people scramble for safety in the thickets of the rice paddies, that I had witnessed leadership that was truly remarkable.
Once we were stateside, I tried my best to keep up with Hills, but we were both busy, living our lives and trying to make sense of the non-combat world. After a few years, we stopped writing and calling, and, as often happens in life, we each moved on with our lives.
I hadn't thought about Hills for years when I found myself face-to-face with her on the streets of Baghdad. I should have known that Hillary would never miss the chance to mix it up during the Gulf War -- and she didn't disappoint.
Hillary was always dirtier, sweatier, harder-working than the other soldiers. Quick with an off-color joke to help lighten the load. Great, of course, at showing the grunts how to dodge the sniper fire.
True to form, whenever she did door-to-door searches with her unit, she took the time to share candy and poetry with the eight-year-old girls she met.
Yes, I'm voting for Obama. But Hillary? Her experience under fire inspires me as nothing else in this military life ever has.