On Veterans Day, Obama should pack his bag for Iraq

Campaigning may be over, but Barack Obama should gas up the 757 for one more trip.

Tomorrow, he should visit the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He should go there on Veterans Day to say thank you for their service.

It would be a good use of all of his leftover donations. Call it a "money-where-your-mouth-is" trip.

This wouldn't be a "Mission Accomplished" journey, because Mr. Obama's mission is just starting.

He wouldn't need to take a roster of prospective defense secretaries, military advisers, private contractors, lobbyists, aides and staffers and he no longer needs to politic the troops.

After January, he will have the undying attention of all fighting men and women, from grunts to generals - and the respect of privates, airmen, petty officers and commanders.

That's how American soldiers see their commander-in-chief, whether they voted for him or not.

An Obama trip tomorrow would also be well-camouflaged by John McCain's first postelection appearance - a Veterans Day interview on the Jay Leno Show.

Besides, it would be a good chance for President-elect Obama to remind them that he would not be headed to the White House were it not for the military.

"America's commitment to its servicemen and women begins at enlistment, and it must never end. Without that commitment, I probably wouldn't be here today," Obama said in his bench mark speech to veterans on Aug. 21, 2007.

"My grandfather - Stanley Dunham - enlisted after Pearl Harbor and went on to march in Patton's Army. My mother was born at Fort Leavenworth and my grandmother worked on a bomber assembly line," Obama told the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City.

"After my grandfather stood up for his country, America stood by him. He went to college on the GI Bill, bought his first home with help from the Federal Housing Authority. Then he moved his family west to Hawaii, where I was born, and where he and my grandmother helped raise me. He is buried in the Punchbowl, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, where 776 victims of Pearl Harbor are laid to rest.

"I knew him when he was older. But I think about him now and then as he enlisted - a man of 23, fresh-faced with a wiseguy grin - when I see young men and women signing up to serve today. These sons and daughters of America are the best and bravest among us. And they are signing up at a time when the dangers that America faces are great," said Obama.

During the first speech that made him famous, at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, Obama told the same story of his grandparents. Then he said: "When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world."

Obama has called it "a sacred trust." Now that he's about to be in charge of that trust, he needs to go overseas and tell our troops that - not on a junket or as part of a European campaign swing but as almost commander-in-chief.

He needs to tell the 20-something GIs what he promised their parents during the campaign: "As president, I will ensure that every service member has what they need to do the job safely and successfully. "

If President-elect Obama can't pull together a trip to see the soldiers on Veterans Day, there is always Thanksgiving or Christmas. But he has to go.

As Obama himself has said, "It's not enough to lay a wreath on Memorial Day, or to pay tribute to our veterans in speeches. A proud and grateful nation owes more than ceremonial gestures and kind words."

Looking them eye to eye, without asking for a $5 contribution or their vote, would be a start.

As Obama's historical mentor Abraham Lincoln said in his second inaugural address, "We have a duty to care for him who shall have borne that battle, and for his widow and orphan."

Yes we do.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC 7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com