I was listening to a political commentator on youtube, he was generally quite biased. But one comment he said got me thinking. He claimed that Obama did not have a good relationship with the Military because Military Officials did not want a " Black Commander In Cheif and he was significantly younger than most of the Military Generals."
Whilst I dont agree with him, his comment regarding age got me thinking. Is there any such correlation?
So to skirt the 20 years rule but to provide a helpful baseline the average age gap between President Obama and to use one example his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, when the JCS took over was about 8 years.
Lets look at a few other Presidents then.
Truman was 9 years older than General Bradley when the office was created.
Ike: Ike was actually on average 8 years older than his JCS(Admiral Radford and General Twinning).
JFK: He was on average 19 years younger than his two(Lemnitzer and Taylor).
LBJ: Was on average just 3.5 years younger(7 years younger than Taylor, but born just a few months after Wheeler in 1908).
Nixon: Actually starts the opposite trend for GOP Presidents, he was younger than 2 of his 3 Chairmen, only being 5 years older than his final one which served him for just over a month at the end of his administration.
Ford: Ford then is back to form being older than General Brown(the Nixon holdover) by about 5 years.
Carter: Had 2 and was an average of 4.5 years younger.
Reagan: Was a far outlier as well, across 3 Chairmen he was on average 12 years older than the nation's top officer.
Bush 41: Was then on average 7 years older than his guys, including a 13 year age gap with Colin Powell.
And finally Clinton: Was about 10 years younger across his 3 guys which do not violate the 20 year rule. Including a sudden switch to being 9 years younger than Powell.
So from that we can draw that generally Republican Presidents tend to be older than their guys than Democratic ones. The average being that the Dem POTUS's were about 6 years on the younger side, Republicans being about 7 years older.
Given the huge number of other issues facing national security and the administrations over that time, while age difference may have impacted personal feelings, and reared its ugly head at times like the Ike-Kennedy transition. It can at best be said to be one factor among many.