Hugh has come out for Hillary.

Retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, the North Carolina native who was the nation's top military officer, is endorsing Sen. Hillary Clinton for president.

"I've been with Senator Clinton when she has been with our military men and women," Shelton said in a statement released by the Clinton campaign earlier this month. "I know from those experiences that she understands the demands and sacrifice of military life. I am confident she will always put the readiness and well-being of our troops first. She is ready to be commander in chief."

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, has military credentials of his own as a naval aviator who was tortured during more than five years of captivity in North Vietnam. Retired Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of coalition forces in the first Persian Gulf War, is among military heavyweights backing McCain.

Sen. Barack Obama has received an endorsement from retired Gen. Tony McPeak, former Air Force chief of staff.

With a tight race between Clinton and Obama and a North Carolina primary on May 6, anything that tips the scales could be significant.

After being silent on politics during his military career, Shelton endorsed Democrat Erskine Bowles' bid for the U.S. Senate being vacated by John Edwards in 2004. The retired four-star general declined to endorse a presidential candidate four years ago.

Bowles, who lost to Republican Richard Burr, was President Clinton's chief of staff in 1997 when Shelton was selected to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Shelton previously has commanded the 82nd Airborne Division and 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg and U.S. Special Operations Command at Tampa, Fla. He has defended President Clinton's military policies, saying the military cutbacks of the 1990s were the result of a bipartisan consensus to reduce Pentagon spending after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union.

"The cuts started off under Bush One," Shelton said. "Everyone thought that was the right thing to do."

Critics have said the military suffered from neglect and underfunding while Clinton was president from 1993 to 2001. Shelton said the Clinton administration left a force that was "well-trained and well-equipped" for campaigns in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.

Under the Clinton administration, the military received the largest pay raise and procurement increases in recent years, Shelton said.

Sen. Clinton, who has sometimes been portrayed as being anti-military, has a long list of military supporters on her Web site.

Shelton is among more than 30 retired generals and admirals who have endorsed the New York senator's bid for her husband's old job. Others who have come out in support of her campaign are retired Gens. Wesley Clark and John M. Shalikashvili. President Clinton selected Clark, a fellow Arkansas native, for promotion to four-star general. Shalikashvili was Clinton's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1993 to 1997.

"I am so proud to have the endorsement of General Shelton," Sen. Clinton said on her Web site. "He has spent his career commanding our country's elite military units. He commanded at the highest level of our nation's armed forces, while always remaining dedicated to the effectiveness of their combat capabilities and the well-being of their families."

Clinton's Web site also touts endorsements from retired officers including Gen. Johnnie E. Wilson and Adm. William Owens, Lt. Gens. Joe Ballard, Robert Gard, Claudia J. Kennedy, Donald L. Kerrick, Frederick E. Vollrath, Vice Adm. Joseph A. Sestak, Maj. Gens. Roger R. Blunt, George A. Buskirk Jr., Edward L. Correa Jr., Paul D. Eaton, Paul D. Monroe Jr., Antonio M. Taguba and Rear Adms. Connie Mariano, Alan M. Steinman and David Stone, Brig. Gens. Michael Dunn, Belisario Flores, Evelyn "Pat" Foote, Keith H. Kerr, Virgil A. Richard, Preston Taylor, John M. Watkins Jr. and Jack Yeager.