At a campaign event in Washington, Hillary Clinton took the stage the other day with former Army Secretary Togo West, who ran the campaign in Bosnia back during the Clinton Administration. Hillary told her audience a little in her speech about a visit she made to Tuzla, and I can only think she did so in order to show that she’s a hard-nosed risk taker, that she has been under fire. Here’s the brief bit from realclearpolitics.com:

I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base. But it was a moment of great pride for me to visit our troops, not only in our main base as Tuzla, but also at two outposts where they were serving in so many capacities to deactivate and remove landmines, to hunt and seek out those who had not complied with the Dayton Accords and put down their arms, and to build relationships with the people that might lead to a peace for them and their children.

As the AP notes in another article, Hillary Clinton’s own autobiography describes this incident far differently. For instance, her description there has her meeting with schoolchildren on the tarmac outside the airplane (the “greeting ceremony at the airport) instead of running “without heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.” Seems an interesting difference to me. In the autobiography one of the major themes is Hillary Clinton’s lifelong work on behalf of children, a lifetime of dedication we ought to all praise. So, yeah, I understand that greeting children who have survived a very rough couple years in a war-torn country is a moving passage and fits the theme of the autobiography. That was then, this is now, and Hillary Clinton wants us to know she can answer that red phone better than anyone. That means she must show a bit of a macho side I suppose, so the incident about the landing in Tuzla in 1996 has changed. It now is told without the children she met, and with much more danger, despite other eyewitnesses to the event. All “misremembering” on Hillary Clinton’s part is that is detailed in an article from the AP.

But this is a minor incident, really. Don’t we all “augment” our resumes for different audiences, after all? I say it isn’t really a big issue here. What is a big issue is that now we know that one of Hillary Clinton’s main accomplishments is that she visited the troops. Togo West mentioned that role in his opening remarks to her talk the other day, and Hillary Clinton reiterated. Again from realclearpolitics.com:

I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn’t go, so send the First Lady.

Again, I don’t see this as a big issue, but more a chance for a little comedy. After all, one of the guys on that very trip, an eyewitness who disputes Hillary’s latest version of the story, is Sinbad, a seriously “B” List comedian who also visited the troops on that visit. So I’m thinking it is time to fill out the Hillary Clinton Cabinet with folks who have also visited the troops. Here’s the rosters of the USO visits from 2006, 2007 and 2008. Have fun picking out who you think, among these wonderful stars, should fill roles in a future Hillary Clinton Administration Cabinet. I’ll go first.

Chuck Norris, Secretary of Defense. Sure, he was supporting that other candidate with Hope, Arkansas ties this primary season, but he visited the troops, and he’s an awfully tough guy.

Now it’s your turn.