I was recently at a rest stop on an interstate, one of the large ones that contain half a dozen fast food outfits, and even a Starbucks for us la-di-da types. The place was swarming with young people, at least a hundred of them, almost all of them white and all of them wearing blue slacks and wearing jackets that said “USNA”. They didn’t look at all military, so I assumed that they “couldn’t” be from Annapolis and guessed vaguely that they might be from some sort of fancy prep school that served as a “feeder” for the academy, though if I had thought about it a little bit longer it might have occurred to me that they didn’t look like high school kids..
Their jackets all had a crest of sorts, but my eyes aren’t that great, and it seemed to me that a 74-year-old man should have better things to do than stare at the chests of young people, so I gave up on that. While waiting at the Starbucks counter for my turkey pesto panini, I decided that if I wanted to satisfy my curiosity I would have to take the plunge and actually ask a question, so I said to the young woman standing next to me “What does ‘USNA’ stand for?”
“United States Naval Academy,” she said. “It’s in Annapolis.”
“I’ve heard of it,” I said.
I probably should have quit while I was ahead, or at least not behind, but I didn’t, instead blurting out “You don’t look very military,” clumsily trying to soften it by adding “Speaking as an old army man.”
“Yeah, they don’t make us cut our hair any more,” she said.
By this point I figured that I had bored her enough, so I shut up. Her coffee came a few seconds later and she was gone, leaving me to ponder, you know, what the fuck has happened to our military?
When I was young, West Point and Annapolis were among the most famous colleges in the country, and the Army-Navy game one of the premier sporting events and social occasions. I was quite surprised that the young woman felt she needed to tell me that the naval academy was in Annapolis, but it’s now a good 30 years after the end of the Cold War, and despite our grotesquely stratospheric defense budgets, which are entirely unnecessary, and despite our grotesquely compulsive overseas interventions, which are also entirely unnecessary (and disastrous), the military bulks significantly less large in the public consciousness than it once did.
But what really intrigued me was, as my blurted comment suggests, what appeared to me to be the overwhelming “civilianizing” of the American military. The outfits they were wearing were not “military” at all, could not be considered uniforms in any sense of the word. They looked like a privileged clique rather than a disciplined cadre. Above all—to anyone who actually served in the military—they had no hats! No hats! A soldier, or a sailor, is always “covered”! Well, outside. Since they were inside, they wouldn’t be wearing their hats, but they would be holding them.
Almost as bad as the lack of headgear was the abundance of hair. For the army officers I knew, the severe, “whitewall” haircut, even more closely cropped than the intentionally demeaning haircuts given to new recruits, was a badge of honor, a ritual humiliation, a near castration, in fact, intended to demonstrate a complete renunciation of the self and surrender of the will—“I don’t question orders. I obey them.”
I was also struck by the fact that the woman did not address me as “sir”. I think even 20 years ago she would have. But the need to bring young people into the military—and the need to bring them in as career officers in particular—in the face of peacetime economy that can offer fabulous rewards to the bright and intensely motivated means that it’s the recruits who call the tune, and it’s the military that must dance.
I was deeply disappointed to see that the group was overwhelmingly white. I did not see a single black or Hispanic among them, and only one Asian. Four years at Annapolis is certainly a demanding ordeal—one far beyond my capabilities—but, on the other hand, it’s free, and, according to Wikipedia, if you make it, your starting salary is $80,000+. Yeah, you’re in for six years, but once you’re out you’re in pretty good shape, unless you’re planning on being one of those dot comm billionaires. And naval officers don’t get shot at all that much.
I certainly don’t miss the “old military”. When I was in Vietnam, General William Westmoreland retired,1 and the army put out a fancy brochure extolling his accomplishments and his “philosophy of life”, which, as far as I could tell, consisted of the following: “Never question a superior, and never drink with the enlisted men.” John Kelly, not as bad as President Trump, is still a disciplined bully who has contempt for just about everything that has happened in the U.S. since 1960, and, in particular, thinks that black women should be sweeping floors and making beds instead of sassing presidents and having seats in Congress. Jim “Jew Joke” Jones, or “Jay Four”, as I like to call him, like Kelly a four star Marine, who kicked off a speech delivered at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy with, yes, a Jew Joke, also failed to impress. Okay, there have been lots of brave, dedicated, intelligent officers as well—and I have known many—I’m just saying that the “new” military probably isn’t a step down. It’s just different, that's all, and just, you know, very largely unnecessary! Because we have no enemy!
1. Westmoreland was the hapless four star who had the misfortune to be in charge of the main build up in Vietnam, cresting as I was inducted in February, 1968, a mere month before “Tet” (which I fortunately missed). The U.S. already had half a million men in Vietnam in late 1967, and Westmoreland was coming back, ready to ask for another 100,000, completely misjudging not only the mood of the country, but even President Johnson. The request for the increase was never made, Tet broke, and Westy was history.
