Should the Commander in Chief have military experience?

Call me OCD, but look at that nasty looking salute the Airman is giving the POTUS. Even Reagan's salute is more crisp than that, lol.

But yes, in the perfect world I would expect the POTUS to have military experience. Head coaches have to have experience in their respected sports. CEOs have to have experience in their respective fields, eye. So if POTUS wants to be CiC, then he should have experience in the military.

Yes..however, we'd have to change the requirements for President. And we'd have to better define "experience". Actual combat experience--where someone is trying to kill you and you try to kill them instead sounds more legitimate than being a desk jockey at camp podunk. Similarly, serving in a combat zone might have more credibility than working at the PX or entertainment services. At a minimum, some form of national service--service beyond self is what I look for...

It should be MANDATORY for the Commander in Chief to have Military experience!!!!!!!!!!!!
So he or she would have some military bearing and a sense of how the military operates, but should heavily rely on his or her top military advisers, and let them do their job WITHOUT micro managing them!!!!!!!

Would I prefer they had some experience, sure. But I do not expect it. We are a volunteer force and have built ourselves into an elite military because of it. By expecting others to join just so they can fill a box for future endeavors leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The military has a hard enough time screening out folks who can't cut it without adding others who have no care other than to have the bullet on their resume.

Not a Constitutional requirement, but highly recommended that voters step in and factor the candidate's military experience in with their decision making... All other things equal, you would want to pick the candidate with the military background.

NO, but there should definitely be a moral and intellectual test since C-in-C is basically an officer. Such a requirement would have spared the US from the likes of Reagan and GW Bush nearly destroying this nation, its economy and its society.

I feel that military service in leadership roles will help the potential President deal with military matters as well as non-military matters, but even those who never served can make the critical decisions.
I think more than anything else a President needs the best advisors that he can find and lately our Presidents have not had the best advisors.
The President ends up making those decisions, just like in WWII to drop the bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I am sure he got more advice than he could ever use on that decision but ultimately he made that decision and it worked out to end the war at a supreme cost of lives.
I don't like how President Obama conducts business but I do applaud him on giving the green light on the bin Laden mission. Many people think it was a no brainer but there are more factors to decisions than the average person who has never served can imagine.

I think it is important that the President be well-versed and well-invested in the American experience. They should have lived long enough to have gained wisdom through experience, worked hard not only to achieve goals, but maintained a level of success, and yes...spent enough time in the uniform to understand and appreciate the challenges therein.

NO! While I love some of the Military Men that have become President I am well aware of how easily that can become a Fascist Military Dictatorship. We need not look further that our neighbors in Central and South America to see how that can turn out and we are dealing with the Ramifications of that with the "Illegal" Aliens fleeing there to here to escape the Turmoil that created.

Thought: No Presidents served in combat in Korea, Vietnam, and so far, in the Middle Eastern Wars.