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Armed forces enjoying enduring popularity
Bob von Sternberg, Star Tribune
Published May 26, 2003

A week ago, when Hennepin County staged a tribute to the armed forces at the downtown government center, Lori Schmidt was basking in gratitude.
Her husband is a Minnesota National Guard member headed for peacekeeping duties in Bosnia later this year, and she had toted self-produced signs to the event that proclaimed "To Our Troops Home and Abroad Thank You." Perfect strangers crowded around her, wanting to buy one.
"With everything that's happened in the world, it just seems like people appreciate the job the troops are doing," said Schmidt, of Otsego. "It's exciting to see."

This Memorial Day, in the wake of the Iraq war, Americans' pride in the nation's armed forces is broad and deep, opinion polls show. In recent years, the military has been held in higher esteem than nearly any other institution.
Polls show that that has consistently been the case since the 1970s, even though veterans have long held the perception that the public turned sharply against the military during the Vietnam War.

"In a word, I think they're treating us better," said Gary Anderson, a local deputy vice commander in the American Legion.
"It seems like everything the military has done in recent years has been popular. Nothing like when I came home from Vietnam, where I was spit on and treated like crap," Anderson said.

The most recent poll, conducted earlier this month for the Wall Street Journal and NBC News, found that 94 percent of Americans have positive feelings about the military. None of those polled expressed negative feelings about the armed forces. A poll for Fox News got a comparable response.
A Harris Poll conducted late last year found that 62 percent of Americans said they have a great deal of confidence in the military, which ranked highest among 14 institutions. The White House came in second, with 40 percent expressing a great deal of confidence.
Other polls conducted last year found similar expressions of confidence.

Near the top

The Gallup Organization has tracked Americans' confidence in 18 institutions since the mid-1970s, and the armed forces have consistently scored at or near the top -- ahead of the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidency.
The last time the question was asked, June 2002, 79 percent of those polled expressed a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in the military. Health maintenance organizations ranked last, with 13 percent expressing the same degree of confidence.
When the question was first asked, in May 1975, 58 percent gave high marks to the armed forces, even though that was in the aftermath of Vietnam.
The ranking has never dipped below 50 percent, which it hit in late 1981. It reached its highest level ever -- 85 percent -- in March 1991, shortly after the Gulf War.

As the Wall Street Journal's new poll suggests, the armed forces could be in for another bounce in public opinion, now that the Iraq war has ended in victory.
"Performance trumps a lot of things and I expect that the military will get a big boost in public appraisal even though many people were not sold on the war," said Andrew Kohut, director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
A Pew poll conducted early this year found that 87 percent of Americans believe the military is a good influence on the way things are going in the United States.

Maj. Gen. Eugene Andreotti, adjutant general of the Minnesota National Guard, has a theory about the enduring nature of the armed forces' popularity.
The Pentagon's decision after Vietnam to ensure that the Guard and reserves would become an integral part of the military's war-fighting capability meant "it's not like Vietnam, where the military wasn't involved in the community," Andreotti said. "The people serving these days are people like moms, dads, plumbers, elected officials -- all part of the community."
In the service since 1975, when he joined the Air National Guard, Andreotti said he felt support for the military was weaker in those days "because people didn't see as much legitimization of the war then. People understand now that we don't declare war -- the politicians do. We're just the implementers."

Three decades ago, people never approached him on the street when he was in uniform to thank him for his service. These days, that happens often.
As enduring as public support for the military has been, Andreotti said it's likely to diminish only "if we lack communication with the citizenry. In the past, we did and it seemed like we had something to hide. We've come a long way with communication."