Today's Military: Conservative, Right, and Principled

America's society today is going through rough times; times where America is looking to its military protect and represent them. This military needs fight for every freedom the American people have, as well as to be its voice across seas to those it interacts with, to be its eyes seeing what the real situation is, to be its ears in hearing all that cannot be heard from the television sets of American homes, and to be its brain in understanding what is actually going on and why. However, this is not what is happening as this country is at war. The soldiers are fighting and protecting, but the people of America have different political and moral views than that of its protectors. These people are not on the front line, and they are not going through what the military is going through, but simply taking what they can from the media and their civilian leadership. All of this is contributing to a gap that is forming between the American public and its military. Within Gordon Trowbridge's essay "Today's Military: Right, Republican and Principled," these important issues are highlighted, concluding that the Civilian-Military gap that has been apparent since Vietnam is influenced by the military's apparent conservatism, higher values, and different lifestyles, as well as their questioning of civilian leadership.

The Military Times Poll discovered that more than half the military members questioned considered themselves conservative or very conservative, whereas the general public is divided equally with about a third each conservative, moderate, and liberal. Samuel P. Huntington1, author of The Soldier and The State, wrote in his article "The Military Mind," how the military man is thought to be opposed to democracy and have a heart for the organization of society based off of the chain of command. This is a seemingly obvious point seeing as though general democratic views keep most democrats from joining the service. Colonel Mackubin Owens2 addressed this issue in an interview with PBS stating "the military's functional imperative - what society asks the military to do - attracts a more conservative sort of person," which is practically undeniable. Liberals have always had a more passively aggressive stance on conflict and an opposition towards the military and war. According to Democrat Gazette writer Mike Whitney3, "the United States military is the greatest destabilizing force in the world today" and Democratic leadership "needs to expose this charade and chart a course for the systematic dismantling of the military." These being common views among democrats, many would rather negotiate between the leadership of countries than take a stand and fight in war. For these reasons, it is not surprising that the composition of the military would not parallel that of the society it is fighting for.

Yet another point of the poll was that sixty-six percent of those questioned believed members of the U.S. military had higher moral values than U.S. civilians. This is of course seems more arguable, however when looking at the military lifestyle it becomes more clear as to why this is believed. The military is one of the most demanding professions in the world and the selfless choice to join alone says a great deal about an individual, however its what is required of the individual once they are committed that really exemplifies their high moral values. Individually, each service has core values for each member to emulate in their everyday lives. The Army's include Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless-Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage, the Air Force's consist of Integrity, Service, and Excellence, and the Navy's embrace Honor, Courage, and Commitment4. Each member is required to live by these as guidelines for their everyday lives, not just when they are on duty. In an article by a United States Air Force Academy professor, Dr. Carl Ficarrotta5, he explains how "military people must be scrupulously honest with each other when there is some military issue at hand. They must be selfless when it comes to the demands of military work. They must be courageous when there is some military task to be performed... When someone assumes the military role, unless he's a fraud, he at once assumes some special moral obligations," and as previously explained, this inevitably overlaps even when not in uniform. Military life simply instills discipline, respect, loyalty, and commitment within those who live it. It has long been considered a life of sacrifice, not of personal gain. None of this is to say that U.S. citizens cannot have these same moral values; however it is not demanded so greatly of them as a whole so it is therefore not as likely.

These figures documented in the poll, among others, add to the debate that there is a gap in the attitudes of the American public and the U.S. military. However, it is illogical to think that they would have similar attitudes towards politics and wars seeing as though there are such great differences in their ways of life. In the words of previous Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen6, "where the civilian world doesn't fully grasp the mission of the military... the military doesn't understand why the memories of our citizens and civilian policy makers are so short, or why the criticism is so quick and unrelenting," and this is very accurate. Whereas one is viewing the results of the actions being done through political figures words and the media, the other is doing the act and understanding why first hand. This may be why military officers are twice to four times as "casualty averse" and hesitant to take combat losses as civilian leaders are, yet the American citizens are the first to stand up to say people should stop dying over in Iraq7¬. The average American knows so little about the military anymore, and what's even worse is that when polled the average middle- to upper middle-class family spoke that they did not look at a military career as one they wanted their children to follow8. There is no denying