Last week I applied for a Colorado driver’s license. When completing the required form the clerk asked if I had served in the military. Colorado includes the option of acknowledging military service on the license itself. I said “Yes” to the question of service and “No thanks” to the option.

“It was 48 years ago,” I offered pleasantly. She smiled broadly and said, “Thank you for your service!” She had no way, of course, of knowing anything about my “service,” whether honorable, dishonorable or indifferent.

For the record, if my military service fit any of these categories, “indifferent” would be the one. I was drafted in 1966, attended basic training, advanced infantry training and then officer candidate school. I was assigned to Fort Stewart, Ga., and to several bases in Thailand. I was honorably discharged as a first lieutenant after three years of undistinguished service.

Several years ago I received a very surprising call from a member of my officer candidate school graduating class. He was organizing a reunion of graduates. We were, to be sure, a select group. Only about 80 out of a starting class of 180 survived the training. Several of the 80 did not survive the war. The caller, who went from active duty to the Army Reserve, was awash in nostalgia. His service was clearly the high point of his life.

To my surprise, most of the others shared that feeling. I did not, and I politely declined the invitation to that and a subsequent reunion. It is clear from a class website and regular communications that these men are “patriotic” and, for the most part, fiercely supportive of the president. They regard liberalism as political correctness, they regard protest as treason and they long to see America Great Again.

The idea that there is something de facto distinctive or distinguished about military service is a dangerous and meaningless convention.

While all but 13 U.S. presidents served in the military, in modern times only Dwight D. Eisenhower was a career soldier. The adulation afforded Eisenhower was understandable given the recently ended war and his stature.

Ironically, one of his strengths (I’m no fan generally) was his prescient recognition of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. In his farewell speech he said, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.”

Persist it did, and this dynamic plagues America to this day.

Retired Gen. John F. Kelly, a man of roughly the same vintage as my OCS class, holds the same narrow views as my old mates. When he replaced Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff, a grateful nation sighed with relief, certain that a military man in the White House would moderate the Tweeter-in-Chief and bring order to chaos. Donald Trump is a miserable man, a draft dodger and charlatan. His embrace of military men, including John Kelly, is not a virtue. It is a signal of his affection for authoritarianism.

In a New York Times op-ed last week, Charles Blow expressed great dismay that Kelly takes such a hard line on immigration. He points out, correctly, that Kelly is not just Trump’s stooge on this issue, but may hold equally or more noxious views on immigration. Shocking!

Military training is in many ways the antithesis of preparation for civilian leadership. Military men and women are no more, and usually no less, virtuous than anyone else. In fact, a career military person is less suited to public office than a civilian. The military insists on obedience and conformity. Public service requires skepticism and flexibility. Military service requires obeying the rules and unconditional respect of authority. Political leadership requires questioning the rules and being appropriately suspicious of authority and, particularly, authoritarians.

I do not mean to insult those who serve or diminish the debt of gratitude we owe. Military women and men often make enormous sacrifices including, of course, their lives. Many, many soldiers are brave, honorable and deeply humane.

Kelly himself is no stranger to enormous sacrifice. His son, Marine Lt. Robert Kelly, was killed in 2010 while serving in Afghanistan. My concerns about his political service do not negate my empathy for what must still be unspeakable grief.

But the uncritical praise automatically lavished on members of the armed forces is both unwarranted and dangerous when it is extended to matters of civic life and public service.

This is very clear in the knee-jerk adulation afforded Kelly and the expressions of surprise as we learn what kind of man he really is.

Steve Nelson lives in Boulder, Colo., and Sharon. He can be reached at stevehutnelson@ gmail.com.