An Officer And A Gentleman

This ain't a political blog. I've refrained from telling you all to vote for a particular candidate not because I have some deep commitment for balance or have the all-too-American ideal of political apathy. I just don't think I'll change anyone's mind is all. And I'm not arrogant enough to think I'm the guy to be telling you anything...I'm not some star of some movie, or anything. heh. Honestly though, the following is not a strike or cheer for any of the candidates. I'm not making a statement on the issue of the election in November. Enough text has been typed about that worldwide. (Besides, my relationship with the Army, or rather specifically, my continued future relationship with the Army would preclude me from such overt political displays of endorsement) This discussion is merely on "officership." And responsibility.

That said, there's been plenty debate about the whole Kerry swiftboat stuff. If you don't know what I'm talking about, skip this post and continue onto another post of another date below (I promise you'll be entertained somewhere beyond today's...I'm particularly fond of my family stories post and top gun post)

I think John of ARRGHHH! on his blog has a very interesting viewpoint of the whole thing, that is definitely worth a read. (Go ahead and read it first. The link opens up a new window. I'll wait. I swear.) I've visited his blog for a while now. It doesn't hurt he's got a Field Artillery background and that he's a gun-nut like me (I guess that's being redundant, huh?) hooah. King of Battle!

Also take a gander at the comments section of the link I provided...he has some interesting things about the Bush's Air Guard time that I've always had but never got around to voicing. It's uncannily verbatim of what I've said in the past, aloud. Some choice stuff:

What does it matter if Bush went to combat or not? Most people in uniform, did not. Draftees were over-represented in the combat elements, to be sure. Still, most people in uniform did not see much, if any combat. He joined the Air Guard. He learned to fly a dangerous aircraft, the Convair F102 fighter, which, by the way, carried nuke missiles, the Douglas MB-1 Genie. I know something about nukes, having been in nuke-capable artillery units and in the 'special weapons' business. Slugs don't stay in the PRP, the Personnel Reliability Program.

The F102 is I believe the only aircraft Bush was signed off on to fly. It's an aircraft that was designed to get up fast, go high fast, and nuke incoming Soviet bomber formations. It's not a fighter as we think of fighters, much less a fighter-bomber. It's mission (and this is why the Guard had most of them) was the air defense of the United States. The AF experimented with either the F102 or it's follow-on, the F106, and found them useless in Vietnam-style warfare. You don't just hop from the cockpit of an F102 into an F4, and go bombing in the Central Highlands. There is at least a six-month transition phase between aircraft of those types - as the pilots not only have to learn how to fly the new aircraft, they have to learn how to use it, tactically. First in straight pilot stuff, and then in two ship formations, then in larger formations. It's not a simple process. At the same time - believe it or not - the war was winding down, the AF had all the F4, Skyhawk, Skyraider, and Thud-drivers it needed. The mission to defend the US was still considered important. The AF is looking ahead to an impending draw-down. Okay, so Bush didn't get to go to combat, even if he asked - the AF simply didn't need him badly enough to want to spend the effort to retrain him. The situation is analgous to an Army Air Defense Artilleryman. There was no credible air threat in South Vietnam. Does that mean the Duck Hunters are somehow tainted for not 'getting into combat'? No. Last I heard, no nuke submariners served in combat positions during Vietnam. They were too busy stooging around under the polar ice caps. Chicken? I don't think so.

Another point - not everyone who asks for a combat billet, gets one. I sat out Desert Storm because the Chief of Staff, Army, decided that the Observer-Controllers at the National Training Center were too valuable in their current capacity than adding them as 'padding' to the deploying force. All requests for assignment overseas were denied. I tried working a few angles. It didn't work. I am also getting tired (because I apparently just don't get it) at the DID NOT SERVE and DID NOT SEE COMBAT theme.

[...]Most people in uniform did not see combat. Less than 3% of the total population of the United States was in uniform, and maybe 30% of those saw sustained combat. In the target population of draft age, what, 15% actually got called to the colors?

This ain't up for you all to give three big cheers for Bush or anything. I'm just tired of folks who've never been in the miltary talk about the Air National Guard like it's somehow not the Air Force. I'm sure there are vets out there that may have stuff to say about it all, but I find, most often, the opposite kind of folks comment on this most viciously. You see some Marine in Oceanside walking down the street...do you spit at him because he's not in Iraq at this very moment? Or, let's go on over to Los Al...there's a "weekend warrior" past the gate...he's not a "real" soldier, right?

John of ARRGHHH! has brought up some interesting issues that have been bugging me about the bigger issue at hand. I posted a comment in another person's blog in which I defended the ideal of comissioned officers in the US military. A very many people are ignorant about what a comission is, and many confuse it with simple soldierin.' In my very very first post (you'll have to wade down thorough it) I went off on the whole military/civilian growing divide. One issue is that people confuse what an officer is. I think there's a bit of word inflation going around that is contributing to the confusion (i.e. police "officers", et al.). Thus true comissioned officership is not held in high regard by the ignorant. Among the ideas of inherent professionalism in the officer corps ("Professional" is seeing quite of bit of word inflation as well, by the way), John of ARRGHHH! notes:

In this republic and in any republic that does not want to be a banana republic, the officer corps of the military must be as deferent to the civil authority as law and custom provide. Which means, we don't get to pick our wars, and just go home when we want to. Or serve when we want to. We go when we're sent. Where we're sent. For the reason we are sent...(Ibid.)

He goes on into stuff that's irrelevant to our discussion. Folks don't especially understand this one point John has made about officer's duties and responsibilities. I said something like that before also. I swear that guy is channeling (down to the "banana republic" line...are there bugs in here?). But, I posted the following comment in another blog where folks were commenting on the whole Kerry swiftboat issue:

spaceCADETzoom said...
I got nothing to contribute about this debate. I don't care one way or another about these swiftboat vets "outing" Kerry. For the purpose of this comment, I am not for or against Kerry or Bush.

But I take note with rab's comment. rab said: "Even if I believed that Kerry committed war crimes when he was following orders as a United States soldier...the fact that he came back to congress and testified about it and marched against the war would and should override it."

Kerry wasn't a merely a soldier. (He was a sailor...but semantics ain't the problem). He was a comissioned officer. "Following orders" may fly if you're a private or seaman (emphasis on *MAY*), but it certainly doesn't stand for jack as an officer. 21 year old ensigns (or 2LT's) are responsible for thier men. Everyone from generals to 0-1's have responsibilities beyond themselves or thier peers. Non-military folk don't get the whole "responsibility" thing involved with officers. Comissioned officers can be prosecuted for things they did, things they didn't do, things they didn't prevent, and things they didn't even know about, but should have.

Read up on Japanese war crimes. With specific examination of the fact those prosecuted were almost without exception officers. Even if it was enlisted soldiers doing the specific crime in question...the officers had responsibilty. Even the specific crimes my great-aunt was a sworn witness to in the trials...an officer was prosecuted, not necesarily the Japanese soldier who comited the act. (I had a huge post about old family stories on my blog the other week)If Kerry was part of some war crime, he should be sent to jail. Protesting war after the fact doesn't "override" anything. He doesn't have to be prosecuted for taking part of a crime itself, but if he knew about it, as an officer in the US Navy, he had a responsibilty to do somehting about it. *That's* prosecutable itself

I'm not saying he was involved in any war crimes (in fact, I doubt he saw one).

I guess it's hard to explain what comissioned officers are. I'm sorry if I'm not clear. Just, please, don't go off spouting about what negligible and/or criminal acts are permissible or what can be "overriden." It cheapens it all, and is ignorant in general

Thanks. No disrespect intended to you.

This all goes into responsibility. And tellingly, for example, a comissioned officer's responsibilities to his soldiers does not end when the whistle blows. Is this the way middle management works in the corporate world? Of course not.

"Rab," the person who I was addressing, responded. I replied to his response. I post it below.

Rab said, "I take back what I said about 'following orders'...because a war crime is a war crime...and there is no absolution for the low men or the high men on the totem. [But] just because Kerry was an officer...doesn't mean that he didn't follow orders during the war. How absurd. Do you really think each and every officer determines their own war plans?" [emphasis added]

spaceCADETzoom said...

I didn't say that. Re-read please, and lose the defensiveness chip on your shoulder. I wasn't tearing into Kerry. I was tearing into misconceptions of officership.

Shooting civilians is not "war plans". I think you think that officers are somehow incapable of making moral decisions...when in fact, that is thier job. If some 4-star general were to say "shoot that baby." The 21 year old Lieutenant platoon leader is responsible if one of his privates does so. (as is the general, et al.) There was nothing "absurd" in officer responsibility other than your ignorance of it.

Keep in mind I never said Kerry comited any war crimes. My contention was in your wrong conlusion "if he had".

Rab, to make use a better hypothetical example:

A 22 year old 2LT platoon leader is on trial because one of the soldiers in his platoon killed a baby. For the sake of illustration let's make the killer a 30 year old sergeant named Doe. The defense attorney for the officer (the LT) has limited choices in defense. One defense: the LT was incapable of knowing or preventing the act. This would require the LT to be completely new...having just rotated in, and is new to the platoon...for example, he just got to the platoon as the act was taking place. "Captain so-and-so, the company commander, said to kill the baby," is NOT a defense for this LT. Neither is an adequate defense that "SGT Doe killed the baby without my order." Indeed, even the "new to the platoon" argument may not work. Japanese General Yamashita was hung even though most of the atrocities that he was prosecuted for happened *before* he arrived.

If the LT *should* have been able to prevent the crime, he is guilty. Such is the responsibility of officership.

Furhtermore, cases like that have happened. To keep using the Japanese examples...young 20-seomethings, Japanese junior officers, were sent to jail for the beheading of American POW airmen. Even though they were "ordered" to. There are cases where junior officers in the same position, having been ordered to behead a POW, being sent to jail even if they hadn't the stomach for doing the beheading themselves. Some MAJ or COL wanted a beheaded POW, the LT doesn't want to do it...some NCO does it. The LT is still cashiered as a criminal all the same.

You should really go read Absolutely American by David Lipsky. I could say it's about West Point, but that would describe the book in smaller terms than what it is actually about. Keep your eye on LTC Keirsey in the narrative for this "responsibilty" ideal, in play. Even if you're not interested...read the book anyway, it's a great book regardless of what any preconceptions you may have about it. If you really look at it, it isn't about the military at all. It says some stuff about officership and leadership, but it also says plenty about life in general.

Anyway, all of this, again, wasn't about Kerry or Bush necesarily...but more about the military. I just think the whole topic is fascinating and most are just ignorant of it all...the growing and lamentable divide. This wasn't the first, and this probably won't be the last time I ramble on about it.

I don't think I have to go into too much why this is important to me. It has implications in a lot of the ignorant things I've heard about "what's wrong" with the military in regard to Abu Ghraib and My Lai. Though, this topic holds the most importance for me because, if you recall, I am an Army cadet.

I am an Army Cadet. Soon I will take an oath to become Army Officer committed to defending the values which make this nation great. Honor is my touchstone. I understand mission first and people always.

I am the past -- the spirit of those warriors who have made the final sacrifice.

I am the present -- the scholar and apprentice soldier enhancing my skills in the science of warfare and the art of leadership.

But above all, I am the future -- the future warrior leader of the United States Army. May God give me the compassion and judgment to lead and the gallantry in battle to win.

I will do my duty

Crap. Here comes Richard Gere in his dress whites and goldwings (dang fighter pilots, they get all the chicks). Now, cue the 80's soundtrack....

Love lift us up where we belong, Where the eagles cry On a mountain high Love lift us up where we belong, Far from the world we know, Up where the clear winds blow...

Darn you naval aviators! I got that crap song in my head now. (Yes, I know I'm a dork. Stop making fun of me, I can hear you)