I recently attended an event in Kansas City where Ike Skelton was a speaker. It was an incredibly thoughtful take on civil military relations in the United States. I think the speech is worth sharing. Isaac Newton "Ike" Skelton IV (born December 20, 1931) is the former U.S. Representative for Missouri's 4th congressional district. During his tenure, he served as the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. On November 2, 2010 he lost his seat to Vicky Hartzler. For more on Ike Skelton, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ike_Skelton.
Two things before the article. 1) I love that his parents named him Isaac Newton. 2) This is one of my favorite things about Ike Skelton, in 2010,
"Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., had just finished addressing his Republican colleague Todd Akin Thursday. Skelton then turned to the side and muttered "stick it up your ass.""
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/rep-skelton-to-rep-akin-s_n_315821.html
The original article appears here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/rep-skelton-to-rep-akin-s_n_315821.html
The original article appears here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/rep-skelton-to-rep-akin-s_n_315821.html
The following is the text of Ike's speech.
West Point Society of Greater Kansas City, MO
Founders Day Speech by Ike Skelton
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Thank you for that kind introduction.
Through the years, West Pointers have written numerous
chapters in the growth and development of the United States, from the Westward
Movement to International leadership.
And I know your association with West Point makes you quite proud.
In the spring issue of the Quarterly West Point
magazine, the pictures of Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur,
and Dwight Eisenhower are on the cover, together with these words are:
“At West Point, much
of the history we teach was made by the people we taught.”
I have spent most of my adult life working with and on
behalf of the U.S. military. Nothing in
my long career has given me as much satisfaction. Today our troops, the training,
the equipment, and the performance are the envy of militaries --- and societies
--- all across the globe. Our military
is the gold standard for 21st century armed forces.
Throughout my career, and indeed across the centuries of
U.S. history, the American people have had a complex and ambivalent attitude
towards their military. Tonight, I want
to take a few minutes to think out loud with you about the state of relations
between the American armed forces and the American people they are sworn to serve. Let me offer some thoughts.
Since 1776, when the
United States won its independence from Great Britain, there has been an
underlying dislike of large standing militaries in the American public. This attitude was codified in Article I,
Section 8 of the Constitution, which gave Congress the power to raise and
maintain an army, but placed a strict term limit of two years on the funding of
such an army.
From 1776 through the end of the Second World War, the
United States government called on citizens to take up arms to fight its wars,
but upon the conclusion of a war, the nation would shrink the military back to
peacetime levels, and the military members would return home to their civilian
lives -- much the way George Washington did after leading the Continental Army
against British forces. In the 20th
century, the Cold War began to change that pattern of build-up/draw-down, but
the ambivalence remained.
In 1973, at the end of the Vietnam conflict and with
great distaste for the Vietnam era draft, the United States military became an
all-volunteer force. This had a dramatic
impact on civil-military relations. This
new force consisted completely of individuals who chose to
serve their country, in peacetime and in wartime.
Draftees previously provided a bridge between the
military and society. Although most
ultimately chose civilian careers, their service fostered a sense of
understanding of the military among the broader population.
Yet, events of the past decade --- the stresses and
strains --- have taken their toll. This evening I would like to make a few
comments on the gap that I believe has emerged in the past decade or so between
the United States military and the society that it serves.
There are two key points that I would like to leave you
with tonight. First, there is a
civil-military gap, it is serious, and it is growing. Second, there are two sides to this gap. Both the military and society have
contributed to the creation and expansion of this gap. Consequently, there is work that must be done
on both sides in an effort to narrow this gap.
The existence of a civil-military gap is clear, at least
to me, and to Admiral Mullen, Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who
has spoken eloquently and passionately about it. At a conference on military professionalism
that was held here at NDU last year, Adm. Mullen stated, “our audience, our
underpinning, our authorities – everything we are, everything we do comes from
the American people. And we cannot afford to be out of touch with
them.”
The starting point is statistics: less than one percent
of Americans serve in the armed forces.
Civilians who do not know anyone who serves are more likely to feel
disconnected from the military because they feel that military activities do
not have any impact on their lives --- or vice versa.
Many Americans do not pay attention to what the military
is doing. This is largely the result of
the mindset that when the United States is at war, the military is handling it,
so there is no need for ordinary civilians to take an active interest or to
contribute to ensuring success in the conflict. The gap is also visible in that many
service members tend to interact mainly with fellow service members in their
personal lives.
This limits the opportunity for civilians and service
members to form personal connections that would foster communication and
understanding between the two groups.
In 1999 the Triangle Institute for Security Studies did
a study on civil-military relations. The
authors, Peter Feaver and Richard Kohn, predicted that if the civil-military
gap continued to widen, the military would develop a culture distinct from that
of society writ large.
This study serves as a warning. A lack of communication and understanding
between the military and society could be detrimental to the military as it
could result in decreased support for ongoing wars -- as we are seeing now --,
increasing difficulty in recruitment and retention, and even cuts in military
benefits, personnel, training, and equipment.
As the American public becomes more disconnected from the military,
people will be less willing to lend full support to military endeavors.
This will also have negative impacts on recruitment and
retention, in terms of both quality and quantity. Talented individuals who have other career or
education options in civil society will be less likely to choose the military
life if the American public is not fully respectful and supportive of the
military. Likewise, many of the most talented military members may chose to
leave the military sooner than they otherwise would if they feel that their
hard work and dedication are not appreciated.
Ultimately, if the military has trouble attracting and
retaining intelligent and motivated individuals, then the U.S. armed forces may
well become something less than what they are today. .
This brings me to my
second point. There are two sides to
this gap, and we must look to both sides if we are to understand the problem,
and we must get both sides to work to narrow the gap.
First, the military.
Today, as you know far better than I do, the military is worn out. Between the ongoing wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, recent involvement in Libya, and various humanitarian efforts, the
U.S. military has been stretched, and stretched, and stretched. Service members are spending a lot of time
away from home, and thus are physically disconnected from life in the United
States.
When they are at home, service members continue to carry
a heavy work-load to support those serving overseas and to catch up with their
family responsibilities. Consequently,
they make little effort to get involved in their local communities.
This is exacerbated by general negative public opinion
towards wars in which we are involved.
You can plot it over time. The
attitude of the public is not just an abstraction: it can have a strong effect
on individual soldiers. Service members
might be inclined to believe that society does not care about the sacrifice
that they are making and the risks that they are incurring. These feelings might be intensified by the
calls for cuts in the defense budget.
Feeling unappreciated can lead individuals to withdraw from civil
society and seek the company of fellow service members who do understand. This is a
problem we have seen before, such as after the Vietnam War. Too many members of the armed services
adopted an “if they don’t care about us, then we don’t care about them”
attitude towards society. Do not fall
victim to this mentality. To do so would
adversely affect troop morale and perpetuate and intensify the problem.
Second, American Society: This feeling among service members of being
under-appreciated stems from the fact that society as a whole takes the
military for granted. Most Americans do
not know anyone who serves in the armed forces, so they do not take the
initiative to understand the military. In
American society there is a prevalent “out of sight, out of mind” mentality towards
the military. This is reminiscent of the
sentiment of British society towards its military in the late 1800s. Rudyard Kipling captured this well in his
poem “Tommy”. :
For it’s Tommy this, and’ Tommy that, an’
“Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the
guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’
anything you please;
An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool -- you bet
that Tommy sees!
The problem of the civil-military gap is
self-perpetuating. As service members
spend less time actively involved in their local communities, the American
population will become even more disconnected from the military and will be
less likely to invest the time to understand and gain an appreciation for the
military. The two sides feed off of each
other, creating a cycle that must be broken before it becomes detrimental to
military efforts.
A worst-case scenario
would be the two sides giving up on each other.
As generals and admirals, present and past soldiers, you
are the leadership in the eyes of the public.
If the public sees you reaching out and attempting to foster stronger
ties between the military and the local community, then people will be more
likely to reach out in return and to respect and appreciate the work that the
military is doing.
I would like to leave you with a few suggestions for
initiating this change. First, be aware
of the state of civil-military relations on the local level. Engage the community in two ways: first, through encouraging service members to
play an active role in community life, and second, by inviting the community to
get to know the military. To increase
the presence of service members in the community, use your position of
authority to influence and encourage your troops to get involved in the
community, whether that be joining a local civic club, sending their children
to an off-base school, or joining or coaching a local sports team. The type
of involvement is unimportant. What
matters is that the public sees service members and their families as active,
contributing members of the community.
You should also make a point of urging motivated and charismatic
individuals are assigned to community liaison roles at the base or post. Such individuals could prove extremely
effective in building a strong outreach campaign and helping individual service
members to get involved.
As for inviting the public to learn more about the
military, you could urge that your local base or post hosts a certain number of
events each year, events that are open to the public. These events could be ceremonies honoring
achievements of individuals, or a military version of “show and tell.” Here too, the precise nature of the events is
of little importance. What matters is to
foster a sense of inclusion among local civilians.
As the Roman orator Cicero said, “Gratitude is the
greatest of all virtues.” Today the
public may not show the military as much gratitude as it deserves. Society must understand the military if the
civil-military gap is ever to narrow.
Understanding will foster appreciation.
Society must have greater exposure to the military in order to gain a
greater understanding. Lack of knowledge
often comes from lack of communication. This
is where you come in. Because of your
background and experiences, you can improve communication between the two
sides, foster understanding of the military’s role, and ultimately increase the
appreciation that American society has for the military and its mission. You can create this change starting at the
local level. Remind the American people
and yourselves that you are citizen-soldiers and thus you are their
military.
Thank you very much – it is certainly good to be with
you.
