[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 111 (Thursday, July 31, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H6694-H6696]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   IMPROVING CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Skelton]) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, General Colin Powell often described the men and women he led as 
an exquisite military force. I do not believe he was overstating the 
situation. Soldier for soldier, sailor for sailor, airman for airman, 
marine for marine, the U.S. military today is as fine a fighting force 
as has ever been assembled, perhaps the best ever.
  It is a force that is well trained and well led. It is equipped with 
modern weapons. It has worked hard to devise and implement a body of 
military doctrine that multiplies its effectiveness.
  The military services are more and more able to work jointly to carry 
out their missions. It is, above all, a high quality force made up of 
well-educated, carefully selected, disciplined volunteers. When called 
upon, the members of this force have served with as much bravery and 
distinction as American soldiers ever have.
  A large part of the reason for this exquisite character of this force 
is that it is comprised of professionals. As virtually all senior 
military officers now acknowledge, the all volunteer force, or AVF, 
that was instituted in 1973 has been a remarkable success.
  The all volunteer force, to be sure, took some time to fulfill its 
promise. In its early years the all volunteer force was plagued by a 
host of difficulties. Like the country as the whole, the military had 
to recover from the fissures of the Vietnam era, and adjust to sweeping 
cultural changes as the baby boom generation grew up.
  Both the country and the volunteer force got through it. Nurtured by 
a cadre of military leaders that matured after the war in Vietnam, the 
all volunteer force today has shown, first, that a high-quality 
personal military force can be recruited and sustained by a democratic 
Nation, and second, that a professional force can exploit modern 
technology and carry out an extraordinarily broad range of military 
missions with great loyalty and dedication.
  One of the concerns that people had when the all volunteer force was 
instituted, however, seems to me to deserve some additional attention 
today, especially as the country makes a transition from the Cold War 
era to a new period in world affairs. This is the issue of civil-
military relations, by which I mean the relationship between the 
professional military force and the broader society from which it is 
drawn and which it serves.
  Let me be clear at the outset that I am not worried about a loss of 
civilian control over the military. On the contrary, it is built into 
the very fabric of the U.S. military to be dedicated to the defense of 
democratic institutions.
  I am only slightly more concerned about the supposed politicization 
of the military, a situation in which many members of the Armed Forces 
feel themselves at odds with their elected and appointed leaders in the 
executive branch. Though this could become a problem, it is incumbent 
on senior officials in the executive branch and on senior officers in 
the military to prevent a serious rift from growing.
  What I am mainly concerned about is that the professional military 
may be becoming more and more isolated from the rest of society, to the 
detriment of popular understanding of the needs of defense. The result 
will not be the evolution of a rogue military force, but rather, the 
loss of public support for necessary military preparedness.
  Indeed, for most Americans, the military is an institution, as a 
rule, simply off the screen, unless an international crisis develops, 
or some military scandal gets on the front pages. Because the military 
is off the screen for most Americans, it is also increasingly off the 
screen for Congress.
  The solution to this problem, it seems to me, has to be addressed 
mainly by the military itself. Above all, the military has to try 
harder to establish and maintain better ties to the communities in 
which it works.
  Mr. Speaker, the reasons for a gap between the professional military 
and the rest of society are deep-rooted. For most of American history 
the peacetime standing army was very small, and sometimes quite 
isolated. After World War II and the Korean conflict,

[[Page H6695]]

that changed. For the first time in peacetime, the United States 
maintained a large standing army, with the bulk of its personnel 
provided through conscription. As a result, a large part of the male 
population had direct experience in the military, and, in almost every 
American family, someone had served.

                              {time}  1945

  Moreover, millions of Americans continued their direct involvement 
with the military after active duty by serving in the National Guard 
and Reserves.
  At least until the war in Vietnam, the large standing force and the 
draft enjoyed widespread public support. Indeed following World War II, 
our sense of identity as a Nation involved pride in the global role 
that our military played in preserving peace. Service in the military 
was accordingly also a matter of pride. It was a way of serving the 
Nation as a whole. Pride in the military was a fundamental element of 
our social and political makeup. Moreover, a key result of the draft 
was that the service in the military cut across cultural, socioeconomic 
and regional lines. It was, therefore, an important source of national 
unity.
  Perhaps the most lasting damage caused by the war in Vietnam was that 
it reversed the unifying effects of military service and aggravated 
social divisions. The children of the economically and educationally 
better off often avoided service in the military during the Vietnam War 
while the children of less privileged families were called up and sent 
to fight. This left a social and cultural gash across the country which 
has never completely healed.
  The decision to abandon conscription after Vietnam was necessary and 
ultimately good for the military. The all-volunteer force has been a 
success, but it has come at a price in civil-military relations. Now 
the number of people with military service has declined steadily over 
the time. Many, both within and outside the military, regard the 
professional military force as something different from the rest of 
society. As a Nation, we have slowly lost our sense of the military's 
global role and of service in the military as a key part of our 
national identity.
  In the meantime, public attitudes toward the military have evolved 
over the years, largely for the better but also in a way that is more 
difficult to discern, partly for the worst.
  After Vietnam many Americans looked on the military in a negative 
way, even many who supported a strong defense were disdainful, wrongly, 
I think, of the military's performance in the war while others 
distrusted anyone in uniform. During the 1970's, military leaders, to 
their ever lasting great credit, resolved to fix what was broken and to 
make the new all-volunteer force work. But it was a task made all the 
more difficult by budget constraints and by hurdles to recruiting top-
notch people.
  A turning point in public attitudes, I think, came in 1980, with the 
failure of the Iran hostage rescue mission in Desert One. After that 
many Americans resolved never again to allow the Nation to be in such a 
position of apparent weakness. Public support for the military grew 
dramatically stronger and with public support a rejuvenated officer 
corps was able to bring to fruition the developments in doctrine, 
education and training, weapons technology and jointness that had been 
initiated in the darkest days after Vietnam. The result was a string of 
military successes, though not without some shortfalls along the way, 
culminating in the American led victory of coalition forces in the 
Persian Gulf War. The outpouring of popular enthusiasm following the 
war was heartening, especially to those who had worked to rebuild the 
military after Vietnam. General Schwartzkopf said for him that the 
public reaction to the Persian Gulf War finally healed the psychic 
wounds he had suffered with ever since Vietnam. It was a moment of 
national unity that recalled for me the closeness between the military 
and the public that those of us in the post-World War II generation 
grew up with. But it is not quite the same.
  The difference, I think, lies in the lack of deeper understanding 
between the professionals who serve in the military and the public that 
admires the military but does not fully identify with it. The danger is 
not that any significant part of the public distrusts or disdains the 
military, as was the case after Vietnam, but that the public does not 
really know what it is like to serve in the military and therefore 
neglects things that are necessary to keep the military focused and 
strong and effective.
  Many symptoms of the civil-military gap are apparent. Recently Tom 
Ricks, an outstanding military affairs reporter for the Wall Street 
Journal, wrote an excellent article in the Atlantic Monthly entitled 
The Widening Gap Between the Military and Society. He began by relating 
interviews with young men and women who had recently begun military 
service. Overwhelmingly their reaction on returning home for visits was 
a sense that the military was in many ways different from and, most 
importantly, better than the civilian world that they had left behind. 
Repeatedly his respondents cited public disorder, lack of discipline, 
drug and alcohol use, sloppy appearance, a lack of direction among 
former peers and a score of other flaws in civilian society.
  Ricks acknowledged that the results were due in part to the fact that 
the military services trained new recruits to have a sense of 
uniqueness as an aspect of pride in their service.
  He sees something deeper in the sentiments of these military 
recruits, and I agree with his conclusion, that the military 
increasingly sees itself as apart from and in many respects better than 
the society it protects. For my part, however, I have been concerned 
less with the implications of military perceptions of civilian society 
than with the implications for civilian perceptions of military 
society.
  One implication is this, in the long run a military that sees itself 
as a cultural elite will at best foster misunderstanding and at worst 
create public resentment. At the very least, the public will begin to 
regard unique features of military life as somehow peculiar. Consider 
the recent public reaction to cases of adultery in the military. From 
the military's perspective, rules against adultery are not simply a 
puritanical anachronism. Rather, they follow from the critical 
requirement that members of the services refrain from activities that 
undermine good order and discipline. Good order and discipline are 
essential to a system of command that must be effective when matters of 
life and death are at stake. That rules against adultery are enforced 
in some cases and not in others is not necessarily a result of 
preferential treatment. Rather, the rules are enforced when good order 
and discipline are threatened.
  To many civilians however, these notions are entirely alien. The 
military for its part has not done a good job of diffusing the 
sensationalism of much reporting about the issue in part, I believe, 
because it has not thought it necessary to explain why and how its 
rules must be unique. For many in the military, it was sufficient to 
say simply that we have a higher and better standard.
  Another symptom of the civil-military gap lies in the sense of 
grievance that some members of the military services harbor about 
various issues that affect them. As those who served in the military in 
the past always knew, it is a deep rooted and innate feature of 
military life to gripe about almost everything. The old comedy series 
Mash is as much about the apparent arbitrariness of life in the 
military and constant griping about it as anything else.

  Today, however, there is often something deeper in the complaints in 
the ranks. Often people in the military today feel that they are being 
made objects of social experimentation because of sexual integration, 
rules against sexual and racial harassment or even changes in health 
care for military dependents and other measures. In fact, the military 
has done an excellent job over the years in responding to changes in 
social norms.
  Witness the relatively successful racial integration of the military 
compared to the rest of society. For good or ill, the military is never 
going to be insulated from battles over changes in social relations, 
including relations between the sexes. These changes will necessarily 
create frictions. But if the military feels itself as somehow unique, 
as if it should be insulated from these social changes, then the

[[Page H6696]]

battles themselves will be unnecessarily destructive both within the 
military and between civilians and the military.
  To be sure, there is much for service members to feel aggravated, if 
not aggrieved about. For my part, I believe the current pace of 
military operation is putting too much of a strain on military 
families. I think the solution is to be more selective in committing 
forces abroad and to maintain an adequate force structure. But 
legitimate complaints from within the ranks will be unnecessarily 
divisive if the civil-military gap does not narrow.
  Solutions to some of these problems cannot be found solely within the 
military. For their part senior civilian officials in the executive 
branch must constantly be aware of the need to prevent the gap from 
growing wider. For its part, the Clinton administration deserves some 
credit for working so hard at this when its relations with the military 
could easily have soured.
  Early in the administration, the conflict over gays in the military, 
apparent disrespect for military officers among some younger White 
House staff members and I believe, most importantly, a failure to be 
clear on the military role in Somalia, all created a potentially 
disastrous lack of trust to develop within the military.
  Secretary of Defense Perry, especially, did much to reduce the 
tension, above all with his focus on the quality of life of people in 
the service. Moreover the administration has learned that the use of 
military force abroad must be thought through carefully. In Haiti, in 
Bosnia, whether one agrees with the mission or not, it is clear that 
the administration worked to define the goals of the military actions 
carefully. I am still concerned that the administration is asking too 
much of people in uniform but at least it is not lightly taking risks 
with the lives of military service members.
  Congress also has a role to play in keeping the civil-military gap in 
check. Perhaps most importantly it is incumbent upon Members of 
Congress to seek consensus on social and political issues that might 
otherwise have a polarizing effect within the military. I think we have 
done a good job of that in recent years.
  For the most part, however, I do not believe the military can look 
elsewhere to narrow the civil-military gap. Instead it is incumbent on 
the military leadership to work at reducing this civil-military gap as 
assiduously as it has worked at leadership development, recruit 
training, doctrinal improvements, jointness or other key aspects of 
organizational management. The public is not going to become more 
understanding of military concerns and the military requirements on its 
own, rather, the military itself must reach out to the public to create 
better understanding, even among those who have never served in the 
military. In carrying out this responsibility, there are several things 
the military should continue doing and some things it should do much 
better.
  One thing it must continue doing is to educate its own leadership in 
civilian affairs. One thing that is especially striking to me is the 
growing portion of the military, both officer and civilian, that comes 
from military families. According to Professor Eliot Cohen of the Johns 
Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, roughly 25 percent of 
the current force comes from families of service members. This is a 
startling figure which suggests that the professional military could in 
time become almost a separate caste unless measures are taken to 
broaden the experience of military service members to include 
educational, cultural and social contacts within the civilian 
community.
  I am also struck by the fact that an increasing proportion of the 
officer corps is being drawn from the military service academies 
relative to the proportion from ROTC or officer candidate schools. 
According to a recent Congressional Research Service report, if we 
exclude officers serving in the health care professions, chaplains and 
some other categories, about 22 percent of the officer corps in 1995, 
was comprised of graduates of the military academies, a dramatically 
higher portion than in the past, when ROTC and OCS sources were 
relatively greater sources of officers.
  Among general and flag officers the proportion from the service 
academies is even greater, about 36 percent in 1995. I would not 
suggest because of this that we close or significantly reduce the size 
of the academies. I do think, however, that it becomes more and more 
imperative that as a military officer advances, he or she receive 
education in nonmilitary institutions and that military training 
institutions make it a point of broadening the intellectual and 
cultural perspectives of their students.

                              {time}  2000

  Most importantly of all, I believe that the military must take steps 
to ensure that the military commanders are held accountable for 
building much better relations with the civilian community.
  In my own experience representing a congressional district with large 
military bases, I know that some military officers are excellent at 
community relations and others are not. Increasingly there is no 
substitute for having commanders who are good at it. Even the most 
mundane community activities are profoundly effective in building 
public identification with an understanding of the military.
  Participation in Lion's Clubs, sponsorship of Little Leagues, and of 
Boy and Girl Scout Troops, involvement on school and other similar 
affairs are essential. Community relations should be made a prominent 
factor in officer efficiency report ratings that determine whether an 
officer will be promoted.
  Military leaders should also vastly expand programs to educate 
civilians about the military. There should be many more opportunities 
for civilian community leaders to visit military facilities and 
interact with military personnel.
  One final step is also critically important, and that is for the 
active duty Army and the National Guard relations to improve. National 
Guard and Reserve troops are truly a national treasure for the simple 
reason that they remain true citizen soldiers.
  Relations between the active duty force and the National Guard and 
the Army, however, are laden with distrust. This rift must be healed. 
The active Army leadership must work on ways to integrate the Guard 
forces into military plans, and must genuinely rely on the Guard as a 
key element of the force.
  Mr. Speaker, the professional U.S. military force of today is by 
every measure the best in the world and perhaps the best in history. It 
is, however, a difficult matter for democracy to maintain a large 
professional military establishment. To make it work requires that 
military leaders pay serious attention to the social and political 
issues that arise.
  Both the military and the society as a whole will greatly benefit 
from the military leadership if the military leadership works more 
assiduously to prevent a widening rift from developing between civilian 
and military societies.

                          ____________________