Tag: combat badges

Grade Inflation in the U.S. Military

W.J. Astore

I was looking at some old military history notes today and came across this photo of Lieutenant General Hubert Reilly Harmon, known today as the father of the Air Force Academy and its first superintendent:

Lieutenant_General_Hubert_R._Harmon

I love the simplicity of this photo.  General Harmon is wearing four ribbons on his uniform and his pilot’s wings.  He commanded an air force in the Pacific during World War II and helped to win that war.

Of course, the architect of victory for the entire U.S. military in World War II was George C. Marshall.  His portrait as a five-star general is here:

marshall

A simple uniform with three rows of ribbons.

But that was then, and this is now.  Generals today have far busier uniforms that are festooned with ribbons, badges, and other militaria.  General Joseph Votel, currently the commanding general of Central Command, is typical:

General_Joseph_L._Votel_(USCENTCOM)

But I don’t think any general has outdone David Petraeus in the pursuit of ribbons and badges:

Petraeus with Broadwell
Petraeus: Lots of ribbon candy crowded on that uniform

What would men like Hubert Harmon and George Marshall say about today’s crop of American generals?  How did Marshall win World War II without a Ranger tab, without parachute wings, and without ten rows of ribbons?

America’s citizen-soldier military of the era of the “Greatest Generation” was concerned with one measure of success: victory over Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany in a war vital not only to U.S. security but to the survival of the free world (even if that world isn’t as “free” as they or we would like it to be).  Today’s military is distracted by the pursuit of the right “tabs” and “wings” and other paraphernalia even as they wage wars without end (and without any apparent prospect of victory).

I suppose today’s generals will talk about how complex the world is today, how asymmetrical our wars are, how our enemies occupy a “grey zone” that is difficult to master, and so forth and so on.  Even so, why the grade inflation?  Why the over-the-top uniforms?

Perhaps America will start winning wars again (even better: avoiding them altogether) when its military leaders stop acting like crazed Boy Scouts in the pursuit of merit badges and ribbon candy.

Postscript:  I’ve written about this issue before (here and here) and also here way back in 2007.  But nothing seems to change; if anything, the ribbons and badges continue to proliferate, so much so that the U.S. military now has more bling than the Kardashians.

Fighting for Coveted Combat Badges and Patches

the point

W.J. Astore

What will West Point graduates do without wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Don’t worry! There are a lot more threats listed on the classroom chalkboard.

The New York Times this morning has an interesting article on this year’s West Point graduates.  With the end of the war in Iraq (at least for us) and the winding down of the Afghan conflict (again, at least for us), West Point graduates face the prospect of not being immediately deployed to a shooting war.  The article paints this as grim times, at least for the graduates, many of whom are seeking opportunities in the Special Forces for a better chance at earning “coveted” combat badges and patches.

And this is precisely the problem with a professional military that is self-defined as “warriors.”  Its members desire war: a chance, so they think, to test themselves in the crucible of combat.  They want to be where the action is, even if that action is ill-advised or even illegal under international law.

Two centuries ago, the model for West Point was a citizen-soldier engineering school, a band of brothers who would help tame our continent more through engineering skill than fighting prowess.  Our army, of course, has never been reluctant to fight when the cause was just (or when they were told by various leaders the cause was just), but the emphasis was on civilian needs first, notably the development of our nation’s infrastructure.

Contrast that with today.  The article in the New York Times includes a photo of a chalkboard used in a West Point class to explain today’s security environment.  The threats listed on the board include terrorism, cyber, Egypt, Syria, China, Iran, and North Korea (NK).  The Army’s priorities appear to be defense of the homeland (the HL), something about preserving order, and something about promoting our economic interests and values overseas.  Notably absent (as far as I can tell from the photo) was any explicit mention of the citizen-soldier ideal of supporting and defending our Constitution.

A slice of military education at West Point (Source: New York Times)
A slice of military education at West Point (Source: New York Times)

I wouldn’t want to make too much of a few words scribbled on a chalkboard.  But it appears from that list of “threats” that our West Point graduates will have plenty of opportunities in their military careers to march to the sound of gunfire.  And probably more than a few opportunities to add some “coveted” combat badges and patches to their uniforms.

They’ll be no lack, in short, of red badges of courage.  More’s the pity for ourselves and for our nation.