Posted on 12/30/2003 8:54:15 AM PST by VaMarVet
Military Times Poll
Today's Military: Right, Republican And Principled
By Gordon Trowbridge, Times Staff Writer
Who do you think has higher moral values? Members of the U.S. military -- 66%, U.S. civilians -- 2%, Both have about the same standard -- 31%
The 2003 Military Times Poll reveals a military more conservative, more Republican, and one that considers itself to be morally superior to the nation its serves.
The figures add fuel to a debate, ongoing since at least the end of the Vietnam War, over whether there is a gap in attitudes between America and its military and whether that is a cause for concern. Especially troubling, some observers say, are indications that military members do not believe the nations civilian leadership has their best interests at heart.
The poll found:
*About half described their political views as conservative or very conservative; four in 10 called themselves moderate; and only 7 percent called themselves liberal.
*More than half called themselves Republicans, and just 13 percent said they are Democrats. Recent polls of the general public show the nation evenly split, with Democrats, Republicans and independents making up about a third of the population each.
*Two-thirds said they think military members have higher moral standards than the nation they serve. More than 60 percent called the countrys moral standards only fair or poor.
In follow-up interviews, service members repeatedly said the choice to serve, by itself, demonstrates moral quality above most civilians. Once in the military, many said, members are wrapped in a culture that values honor and morality.
Even if you dont have it when you enlist, they breed it into you to be a better person, said Army Sgt. Kevin Blanchard, a cavalry scout with 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. When you go home you see how youre different than the people you grew up with.
Many also mentioned what they considered an increase in sex and vulgarity in popular media.
*Respondents were evenly split on the question of whether civilian leaders have their best interests at heart.
To some observers, the figures are yet more evidence of a troubling divide between the military and civilian society.
The country and the military profession are best served by an officer corps that is apolitical, said Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and professor of international relations at Boston University. That doesnt mean that officers dont vote, but for them to collectively identify themselves with one or the other party strikes me as simply unhealthy.
University of North Carolina professor Richard Kohn co-authored a 1999 study on the civilian-military gap issued by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies. That study, which surveyed thousands of students at staff colleges, also found a military sharply more Republican and conservative than the nation, and one at odds with civilian leaders on a host of issues.
The alienation from the 1990s continues, and was not simply based on hatred of Bill Clinton or distrust of the Democrats, as some argued about our results, Kohn said in an e-mail interview. Its endemic to the highly professionalized, all-volunteer military of the last generation.
[snip]
The country and the military profession are best served by an officer corps that is apolitical, said Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and professor of international relations at Boston University. That doesnt mean that officers dont vote, but for them to collectively identify themselves with one or the other party strikes me as simply unhealthy.
Perhaps the unhealthy thing is that one party goes out of its way to devalue honor and morality and collectively identifies itself as being opposed to the military.
University of North Carolina professor Richard Kohn co-authored a 1999 study on the civilian-military gap issued by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies. That study, which surveyed thousands of students at staff colleges, also found a military sharply more Republican and conservative than the nation, and one at odds with civilian leaders on a host of issues.
The alienation from the 1990s continues, and was not simply based on hatred of Bill Clinton or distrust of the Democrats, as some argued about our results, Kohn said in an e-mail interview. Its endemic to the highly professionalized, all-volunteer military of the last generation.
Could it have anything to do with the oath of enlistment? To uphold the US Constitution that most military people take pretty seriously...now which party at least pays lip service to upholding the ideas and freedoms in that document?
Holy redundancy, Batman!
Whoa! this just jumped out at me. This is a serious problem in a democracy.
God bless the men and women of our armed forces, and God bless President Bush.
Two observations on this.
First, you're not going to cultivate a balance of opinion with the military if one of the political parties is anti-American and anti-military. The lack of morality, honor and scruples from the Democrats has been enough to steer the trend to the right over the years. There are no common values, so the only military liberals are the ones that were liberal when they showed up and have remained liberal.
Now that the left has been hoping for defeat and high casualties in Iraq, for the sole purpose of advancing political goals they've been thus far unable to sell, the situation is different. The guys in Iraq know the media, and they audience they cater to, much more than before. They understand that there are people trying to twist their words against them, and they know that there are some Americans back home who neither support them, nor want them to win at all. I don't see why liberals would expect that the military would view them favorably, since a large number of liberals openly want them dead.
Second, liberals have failed to learn the lessons of their beloved socialist leaders. Stalin, for instance, said
"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?"
Liberals may have ideas, but their enemies have both ideas and guns. Some of these guns have names like 'Tomahawk' and 'MOAB'. The ideas they have are even more dangerous, ideas like 'personal and civic responsibility' and 'freedom'. People thus armed are dangerous indeed.
Why liberals would push to divide society, especially when that divide would put them on the side with no weapons sharper than the wit of Al Franken, and ideas as stale as the tomb of Karl Marx, completely defies logic.
Civilian leadership is a bedrock principle of the US armed forces. Most professional soldiers will NOT criticize the President, even if it is that SOB Clinton. I know: during three weeks with the 1AD, I as a civilian, took every opportunity to blast Clinton. Not one of the hundreds I spoke to took the bait. They have another way: Silence. Say something about GWB and they tell you they love the guy with big smiles. Say something about Clinton, and they say nothing - because they have nothing good to say and because they will not criticize the civilian leadership in front of a civilian.
I am not worried about these guys.
Translation - this guy was a REMF, Clinton rumpswab who didn't kiss quite enough Perfumed Prince ass to get his stars. So he retired and went on to another field where one can get ahead by doing nothing but bootlicking and spewing liberal propaganda, academia.
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