Background: Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 - May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. He is known for alleging that numerous Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. Ultimately, the smear tactics that he used led him to be censured by the U.S. Senate.
Context: In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service. His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant.  McCarthy reportedly chose the Marines with the hope that being a veteran of this branch of the military would serve him best in his future political career. According to Morgan, writing in Reds, McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P. Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the Army Air Force in early 1942, and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero--join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?"  He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August 1942 - February 1945), and held the rank of captain by the time he resigned his commission in April 1945. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer, acquiring (or perhaps giving himself) the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of major.  He later falsely claimed participation in 32 aerial missions in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps chain of command decided to approve in 1952 because of his political influence. McCarthy also publicized a letter of commendation which he claimed had been signed by his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, then Chief of Naval Operations. However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters as an additional duty, and that he signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it in the process of signing numerous other such letters. A "war wound"--a badly broken leg--that McCarthy made the subject of varying stories involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was sarcastically used as a term of mockery by his critics.  McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. After he left the Marines in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin. In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Question: What did they say to him
Answer: His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant.

Background: Steven Paul Smith was born at the Clarkson Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, the only child of Gary Smith, a student at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Bunny Kay Berryman, an elementary school music teacher. His parents divorced when he was six months old, and Smith moved with his mother to Duncanville, Texas. Smith later had a tattoo of a map of Texas drawn on his upper arm and said: "I didn't get it because I like Texas, kind of the opposite. But I won't forget about it, although I'm tempted to because I don't like it there."
Context: His first release, Roman Candle (1994), came about when Smith's girlfriend at the time convinced him to send a tape of "the most recent eight songs that [he'd] recorded on borrowed four-tracks and borrowed guitar" to Cavity Search Records. Owner Christopher Cooper immediately requested to release the entire album of songs, which surprised Smith, as he was expecting only a deal for a seven-inch record.  Regarding the record, Smith said: "I thought my head would be chopped off immediately when it came out because at the time it was so opposite to the grunge thing that was popular ... The thing is that album was really well received, which was a total shock, and it immediately eclipsed [Heatmiser], unfortunately." Smith felt his solo songs were not representative of the music Heatmiser was making: "The idea of playing [my music] for people didn't occur to me... because at the time it was the Northwest--Mudhoney and Nirvana--and going out to play an acoustic show was like crawling out on a limb and begging for it to be sawed off."  The instrumentation of the recordings was primarily acoustic guitar, occasionally accompanied by brief electric guitar riffs or a small drum set played with brushes. Only the final track, an instrumental titled "Kiwi Maddog 20/20" (a reference to the low-end fortified wine), had full band instrumentation.  One of Smith's first solo performances was at the now-defunct Umbra Penumbra on September 17, 1994. Only three songs from Roman Candle were performed, with the majority of the ten-song set being B-sides, Heatmiser tunes and unreleased tracks. Soon after this performance, Smith was asked to open for Mary Lou Lord on a week-long U.S. tour. She later recorded one of his songs, "I Figured You Out", which he had discarded for sounding "too much like the Eagles".  The same year, Smith released a split 7" single with Pete Krebs, contributing the track "No Confidence Man" as the single's B-side.
Question: Did they have any influences?
Answer: