The next soldier President?

President Barack Obama is the latest in a line 0f Commanders-in-Chief stretching back to 1993 who never served in the U.S. military during an armed conflict.

That means a new crop of Americans are about to reach voting age without ever seeing a service-member in the White House.

(George W. Bush was a reservist in the Texas Air National Guard; but he avoided fighting in Vietnam.)

But on this Memorial Day, I wonder if Obama may also be the last non-vet President for a while.

Assuming he serves two terms, Obama will leave office in 2016. By that time, a generation of Iraq-and-Afghanistan-era service-members will have come of age politically.

Service has always been a big plus for American presidential candidates. It’s not difficult to imagine both parties searching their ranks for Vet standard-bearers.

Already, a first generation of soldiers from our latest wars have been elected to the House of Representatives — Patrick Murphy, Joe Sestak, Tim Walz, and Chris Carney won office in the Democratic landslide of 2006.

And last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that no fewer than seventeen Iraq vets were running for Congress as Republicans.

If this trend continues — if these wars continue — we could reverse or at least moderate a shift toward leadership by non-service members that dates back to the end of the Vietnam War.

(It’s worth noting that no Vietnam vet ever managed to reach the White House. John Kerry and John McCain came closest…)

What would that mean for American politics? For our foreign policy?

How would George Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama and Joe Biden view our current entanglements had they faced hostile fire?