The Brass Loves Bush

Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are scheduled to testify before Congress this week about U.S. military readiness.

Their message that the military needs billions more dollars will be heard loud and clear on the campaign trail - the last place that JCS Chairman Hugh Shelton wants to be heard, reports CBS News Correspondent David Martin.

"We in the military have been for many, many years, since the beginning of this nation, had a policy of being apolitical - making sure that we in fact did not get caught up in the politics," Shelton said.

But that has not stopped scores of retired military officers from Colin Powell on down from endorsing the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney ticket for the White House. There's no law against it, but the sight of so many former admirals and generals throwing their prestige behind a candidate causes concern among other retired officers.

"I think this is dangerous for the country and harmful for the armed forces," said Gen. Wesley Clark, the now retired commander of the war against Yugoslavia.

Clark said endorsing candidates throws a shadow across the active duty military: "I think the shadow is to encourage people who are still wearing the uniform to align themselves, or consider aligning themselves politically."

Some of those who have endorsed Bush, like the former Chief of Naval Operations, served until very recently under President Clinton.

"Former generals and admirals should know the complexities that they're involved in, and should be very careful about simplifying and making it sound like a bumper sticker," said Lt. Gen. Terry Scott of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

To those who say the nation's defense is too important to be reduced to campaign slogans, the retired generals say they are doing nothing more than exercising their constitutional rights - after a lifetime spent defending the Constitution.