Times-Union readers want to know:
I saw a video of President Obama getting on a helicopter without saluting a Marine and the story said that the pilot asked him to get off the aircraft. Is this true?
Marine One is the designation for any Marine Corps aircraft carrying the U.S. president, but as Snopes.com points out, the name usually refers to a helicopter used to take the president to and from Air Force One, on short trips, or to locations without adequate landing areas.
On May 24, 2013, a video of Obama boarding Marine One en route to Annapolis, Md., was run on several major media news outlets, Snopes.com reported. The footage shows Obama climbing the steps up to the helicopter while seemingly paying no attention to the nearby Marine guard (who saluted the president), conversing briefly with the flight crew, then exiting the aircraft and jogging down the steps to acknowledge the Marine before reboarding.
Many news outlets, such as ABC News and CNN, accompanied this video with articles speculating that Obama had "forgotten" to salute the Marine and had disembarked the helicopter to address him, Snopes.com reported.
Obama is seen ducking his head out, waving to the pilot, and coming down the steps to shake the hand of the Marine.
You can't hear the audio of the clip, but you can see that a few words are spoken between the two.
Over the past few years, the video was shared with the claim that Obama had been forced to disembark Marine One at the insistence of its pilot, who supposedly refused to carry the commander in chief until he went back out and saluted the Marine. These claims originated without any additional information about the incident and were based on assumptions, Snopes.com point out.
Actually, no regulation specifies that the president should salute (or return the salute of) military personnel. In fact, U.S. Army regulations, for example, state that neither civilians nor those wearing civilian attire (both of which describe the U.S. president) are required to render salutes. The regulation states:
"The President of the United States, as the commander in chief, will be saluted by Army personnel in uniform.
"Civilian personnel, to include civilian guards, are not required to render the hand salute to military personnel or other civilian personnel.
"Salutes are not required to be rendered or returned when the senior or subordinate, or both are in civilian attire."
Although other presidents have saluted military personnel on various occasions, the returning of presidential salutes did not become commonplace until President Ronald Reagan began the practice in 1981, Snopes.com found.
Reagan explained his decision a few years later in remarks to U.S. service members and their families stationed in Iceland:
"I can't resist telling you a little story that I've just told the marine guard at the Embassy. The story has to do with saluting. I was a second lieutenant of horse cavalry back in the World War II days. As I told the admiral, I wound up flying a desk for the Army Air Force. And so, I know all the rules about not saluting in civilian clothes and so forth, and when you should or shouldn't. But then when I got this job and I would be approaching Air Force One or Marine One and those Marines would come to a salute and I - knowing that I am in civilian clothes - I would nod and say hello and think they could drop their hand, and they wouldn't. They just stood there. So, one night over at the Marine Commandant's quarters in Washington, and I was getting a couple of highballs, and I didn't know what to do with them. So, I said to the Commandant, I said, 'Look, I know all the rules about saluting in civilian clothes and all, but if I am the Commander in Chief, there ought to be a regulation that would permit me to return a salute.' And I heard some words of wisdom. He said, 'I think if you did, no one would say anything.'
"So, if you see me on television and I'm saluting, you know that I've got authority for it now - and I do it happily."
So returning salutes by the president is a modern-day courtesy and not a requirement. A pilot refusing to let the president aboard his aircraft could be tagged as insubordinate. But it does appear that the president returned to address the Marine, whether he thought of it himself or was reminded to do so by someone else, such as one of the flight crew.
In any case, Obama did not return the salute of the Marine seen in this clip. He walked up to the Marine, shook his hand and exchanged a few words with him, but he did not salute.
Carole Fader: (904) 359-4635
