Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country (30 page)

13
. In 1941, Marshall actually threatened to resign as army chief of staff over what he viewed as inappropriate intrusion into matters that rightly belonged to the military. The specific issue was the organization of Officer Candidate Schools. Intent on increasing the output of these schools, Secretary of War Henry Stimson and other civilians were willing to sacrifice quality for quantity. Marshall was opposed and later recalled, “If they were going to do it—and I considered it a colossal mistake—they would do it without me.” “Interview with General George C. Marshall,” January 22, 1957,
www.marshallfoundation.org/library/
 … /Marshall_Interview_Tape10.pdf, accessed October 23, 2012.

14
. War Department Circular 347,
Military Establishment
, August 25, 1944.

15
.
Biennial Report of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army July 1, 1943 to June 30, 1945, to the Secretary of War
(New York, 1945), p. 117.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I began this book intending to write a conventional narrative history of U.S. civil-military relations since World War II, an important and understudied topic. I ended up somewhere else, steered onto a different course by my growing conviction that civil-military dysfunction offers merely one symptom of a larger problem: an approach to national security at odds with democratic values that actually undermines the country’s well-being. Riddled with contradictions and hypocrisy that no amount of patriotic sentimentality can disguise, our military system is broken. It produces results other than advertised. Worse, it is deeply wrong. What most Americans mistake for that system’s greatest strength is actually its abiding flaw: its reliance on a force of military professionals who exist at a considerable remove from the rest of society.

So I am grateful for the forbearance displayed by my friends Sara Bershtel, Tom Engelhardt, and John Wright as I changed course, and more grateful still for their encouragement, gentle coaching, and wise counsel. Rita Quintas and Victoria Haire demonstrated admirable professionalism and efficiency in transforming manuscript into book.

Friends and acquaintances who weighed in with ideas, insights, documents, and data (but who will by no means agree with all my conclusions) include Tami Biddle, Robert Bryce, Mike Few, Doug Fitzgerald, Gian Gentile, Chris Gray, John Hall, Lawrence Kaplan, Dick Kohn, Brian Linn, Mat Moten, Barrye Price, Bill Reffett, Tom Ricks, and Paul Yingling. Thanks to one and all.

In an unexpected and unmerited gift, my colleague Andrea Berlin called my attention to the quote from Edward Gibbon that serves as the epigraph to this book.

I finished this book during a leave of absence from Boston University. I’m grateful to Dean Gina Sapiro and to my department chairs, Bill Grimes and Bruce Schulman, for letting me have the time away and for their many other kindnesses.

I spent that semester as a visiting fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. The opportunity to spend some months at that great university, which values both the Catholic tradition and intellectual excellence, was a rare privilege. I thank Scott Appleby and Mike Desch for making my stay possible. I thank Anne Riordan and members of the Kroc staff for helping to make my visit enjoyable and productive. And in a special way, I also thank the Reverend Martin Nguyen, CSC. A gifted artist and teacher, Father Martin permitted my wife, Nancy, to sit in on his undergraduate painting class. She learned a lot and had great fun. That experience made our sojourn at Notre Dame special for her as well.

INDEX

The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

Aberdeen Scandal

Abrams, Creighton “Abe”

Abu Ghraib scandal

Academi (
formerly
Xe, Blackwater USA)

Afghanistan

government of

Soviet invasion of

targeted assassinations in

Afghanistan War (2001-)

contractors and

intellectuals and

McChrystal on

no definitive end of

African Americans

After Virtue
(MacIntyre)

all-volunteer army.
See also
U.S. army; warrior;
and specific individuals; policies; and wars

African Americans and

armed intervention enabled by

benefits of

burden of protracted war on

challenges of shift to

contractors and

cost of

democracy and

discipline and

gays and

GWOT outsourced to

lack of shared sacrifice and

McChrystal on

military ethics and

9/11 attacks and

Nixon establishes

policy elite and

public indifference to well-being of

unrealistic expectations for

warrior image and

women and

Al Qaeda

American Civil Liberties Union

American Revolutionary War

American West

An Khe

anticipatory defense

anticommunism

anti-Islam sentiment

antinuclear movement

antiwar movement

Iraq and

Vietnam and

Apple computer

Arabic language speakers

arms manufacturers

Armstrong, Lance

Aspen Ideas Festival of 2012

Aspin, Les

Assad, Bashar al-

Bachmann, Michele

Baghdad

fall of

Bailey, Beth

Balkans

Beard, Charles

Benton, Thomas Hart

Berlin War, fall of

Berman, Paul

Bezos, Jeff

Blackhawk Down

Black Military Resistance League

Black Power

Boers

Boot, Max

Bosnia

Boston Globe

Boston Red Sox

Bourne, Randolph

Boxer Rebellion

Boykin, William G. “Jerry”

Brady, Tom

brain injuries

Brezhnev, Leonid

Britain

British army

British empire

Brooks, David

Bryan, William Jennings

Buchanan, Patrick

Budweiser

Bündchen, Gisele

Bush, George H.W.

Bush, George W.

Afghanistan and

federal deficits and

GWOT and

intellectuals on

Iran and

Iraq and

“Mission Accomplished” and

9/11 and

preventive war and

State of the Union Address of 2002

Butler, Lee

Butler, Smedley

Byrd, Robert

Califano, Joseph

California

Calley, William

campaign contributions

Cantor, Eric

Capra, Frank

Caribbean

Carter, Jimmy

Carter Doctrine

Castro, Fidel

celebrities

Census Bureau

Center for Servicemen’s Rights

Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military.
See
Palm Center

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Cheney, Dick

China

Christianity

citizenship

army as reflection of

rights and responsibilities of

citizen-soldiers.
See also
military conscription; US army;
and specific individuals; policies; and wars

contractors and

covenant between citizens and state and

end of, post-Vietnam

geography and

globalism and

limits on war and

Marshall on

McChrystal on

mobilization of, in emergency

need to revert to

reservists as

victories won by

warrior-professional vs.

Civil War

Clinton, Hillary

Clinton, William Jefferson “Bill”

Clinton Doctrine

Cohen, Richard

Cold War

end of

lessons of

colleges and universities

Colombia

combat

recurring tours

women and

Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan

communism

Competitive and Cooperative Aretai within the American Warfighting Ethos, The
(Westhusing)

conservatives

containment policy

dual

Contractors on the Battlefield
(Field Manual 100–21)

Copland, Aaron

corporate profits

corporate taxes

corruption

counterinsurgency (COIN)

counterterrorism

covert operations

Cozzens, James Gould

Crusader artillery program

Cuba

Curry, John Steuart

Daddis, Gregory A.

Davis, Benjamin O., Jr.

Davis, Benjamin O., Sr.

Declaration of Independence

Delta Force

democracy

Afghanistan and

Iraq and

shared rights and obligations and

Democratic Party

Dempsey, Martin

Desert Storm, Operation

deterrence

DiMaggio, Joe

“don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT)

drone strikes

Dulles, John Foster

Duncan, David Douglas

Durand Line

DynCorp

East Asia

Eaton, Paul

economic well-being

Egypt

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

El Salvador

employment

Engiligy (
formerly
L-3 MPRI)

England, Lynndie

enlistment, two-year term

equality

Equal Rights Amendment

Europe

European Union

Evans, Walker

Failed States Index

Fairbanks, Douglas, Jr.

Family Research Council (FRC)

Faust, Drew

federal deficits

feminists

FighT bAck

Fil, Joseph

flexible response

Fonda, Henry

Force XXI

Ford, Gerald

Ford, John

Foreign Affairs

Fort Bragg GI Union

Fort Sill, Oklahoma

fragging

France

Franks, Tommy

freedom

Friedman, Milton

Fulda Gap

full spectrum dominance

Fussell, Paul

Future Combat Systems (FCS)

Gable, Clark

Gates, Bill

Gates, Robert

Gates Doctrine

gays in military

Gaza

geeks

General Motors (GM)

geography

Germany

reunification of

US forces in

WW I and

WW II and

Gerson, Michael

Gettysburg, Battle of

Gettysburg Address

global power projection

burden of, on warrior class

Greater Middle East and

ideology and

Iraq and

Israelification of operational purpose

lack of coherent purpose and

warrior vs. citizen-soldier and

Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).
See also
Afghanistan War; Iraq War; September 11, 2001

DADT and

economic and social consequences of

funding of

ideology and

intellectuals and

sacrifices and

three no’s of

transformation project and

government, trust in

Grapes of Wrath, The
(film)

Great Depression

Greater Middle East (GME)

Great Recession

Green Berets

Greenberg, Hank

Grenada intervention

Griffith, Robert

Ground Zero Mosque

Groupement Mobile 100

Guatemala

Haiti

Hale, David

Ham, Carter

Hammerstein, Oscar

Harvard University

Law School

Hawaii

Hezbollah

Hitchens, Christopher

Hitler, Adolf

Honduras

humanitarian intervention

human rights

abuses

Hussein, Saddam

Huston, John

IBM

ideology

Ignatius, David

imperialism

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)

Indochina War, First

influence peddling

information technology

intellectuals

International Burn a Koran Day

intifadas

Iran

coup of 1953

dual containment and

Israel and

Iran Air flight 655

Iraq.
See also
Desert Storm, Operation

IDF attack of 1981

invasion of Kuwait and Desert Storm (1990–91)

Iraqi Freedom, Operation

Iraqi Kurds

Iraqi police officers

Iraq

Iraq War (2003–11)

casualties

Clinton and

contractors and

end of

forgotten soldiers of

funding of

goals of

Gulf War as opening phase of

initial invasion of

insurgency in

intellectuals and

as policy failure

surge and

veterans of

warrior image and

women soldiers and

Islamism

Israel

Six Day War of 1967

Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

Italy

Japan

WW II and

Japanese Americans, internment of

Jim Crow

Jobs, Steve

Johnson, Lyndon B.

Joint Chiefs of Staff

Joint War Plans Committee

Judeo-Christian culture

Just, Ward

Kagan, Elena

Karpinski, Janis

Kayyem, Juliette

Kazin, Alfred

KBR

Keegan, John

Kennedy, Claudia

Kennedy, John F.

assassination of

Kennedy, Joseph P.

Kennedy, Ted

Khmer Rouge

Killer Angels, The
(Shaara)

Kimmel, Husband

King, Ernest

Kipling, Rudyard

KKK

Koran