This is not why we refer to them as “general elections” but it’s about this time when scores of retired general officers appear from their obscurity and will endorse a candidate of their choosing for the presidency of the United States.
Democrats, often seen as soft on national defense probably because they see themselves that way, will parade these names out in public to show everyone that Democrats are just like everyone else. Republicans will come up with three times that number because statistics show that an all-volunteer military generally tends to be 65% conservative, hail from the largely conservative south or intermountain west, and may self-identify as Republican. Republicans can come up with generals anytime they want.
This is also the time when the experts in civil-military relations, likely academics who are Democrats, will tell you that this is unseemly. Military officers should be non-partisan they tell us and these general officers only exacerbate the current malaise in civil-military relations that has existed since before Vietnam. They will tell you that this is more evidence that the military is no longer the “neutral instrument of the state and the embodiment of the nation.” They may also use language that would lead you to believe that these actions, such as the generals’ endorsements, might even be a bigger threat to the United States than that posed by Al Qaeda or ISIS.
I suppose these civil-military experts would also prefer that senior military officers give up thinking and feeling for their country. Thankfully, I’m well within the law established by the Federal Hatch Act of 1939 which allows me to write this column.
Ask yourself the question, “Why was the motion picture ‘Saving Private Ryan’ so popular?” The answer is simple. The movie depicted the devastating truth of death and dismemberment, of lives put at risk and lost. Freedom only comes at a very great price, and the currency of exchange for that price is truth. The movie was popular because people understand that sacrifice, though their memory of sacrifice fades until a 9-11 comes along or worse. Since World War II, and especially so in recent decades, our nation and the leaders that represent her have defined down what is truth in lieu of pursuing ever greater freedoms.
It matters little to debate the question, as Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?” Such debates don’t fit nicely into thirty second sound bites or even on Fox News. Rather, most thinking people hold to the maxim that truth begets freedom (spelled “Omaha Beach” or “Okinawa”). But in these favorable economic–even opulent–times, Americans have come to believe in an aberration of that maxim–that freedom leads to more freedom. For Pilate, only the shouts of the crowd (“We have no king but Caesar”) threatened his freedom of action and we all know what happened to Truth after that.
Military professionals today find themselves–not unlike the ancient Byzantine army–faced with defending an opulent republic by privately holding on to virtues that society has indolently dismissed and potentially fighting with truth that society chooses to redefine daily by focus group or special interest lobby. If, as the experts assert, the military is no longer the “neutral instrument of the state and the embodiment of the nation,” then I’m compelled to ask, “who changed–the military or the nation?” The culture in Byzantium changed, but its army did not. The result: the culture survived hundreds of years longer because its army held to higher virtues.
If the flag officers are “coming out” for one party or the other, then the civil-military experts and I agree that they should not, but for different reasons. From my perspective, they should reject the relativism each party espouses for itself and against the other, and choose instead to champion the virtues of duty, honor, and country for a nation so little familiar with them.
They are exhibiting only symptoms of a greater national illness–Americans, regardless of party affiliation, value “freedom” more highly than “truth.” Having already risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, these generals are really looking for anyone who espouses truth more than freedom–patriots passionate in their struggle to find the soul of their country. I identify with their struggle, but methinks they’ve never had to search for it before and are looking in the wrong places.
If the generals want to help a nation so in need of it, then they should be touring en masse and campaigning for the preeminence of truth over freedom. And if the military establishment and the American people wish to preserve the special relationship of trust between them, then I remind everyone that at the root of trust is the word truth, not freedom.