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Mutations in America's Perceptions of Its Professional Military Leaders

An Historical Overview and Update

63 Pinon Hill Place NE, Albuquerque, NM, 87122, cbobk{at}aol.com

America's civil-military relations continuum is influenced by evolving perceptions of its professional military leaders, with "image" often weighing more than analysis. Moreover, this historical overview submits, significant transmutations are seemingly again underway. This historical record, with emphasis on the influence of "opinion shapers," is traced herein to provide a context for ongoing studies. In America's first century, both sharply negative and positive perceptions became entrenched, but generally military leaders enjoyed high repute in influential circles. At century's turn, progressive revisionists, avowedly antimilitary, gained influence. The twentieth century saw severe criticism, only partially muted by the World Wars, from previously admiring sectors. Around 1990, there came signs of adjustments and synthesis. Rationales for habitually negative views weakened. "Antiwar" no longer perforce equated to "antimilitary." Scholarship was more balanced and was dubious of caricatures, praiseworthy or damning. Vietnam era disdain shifted more to concern for forces "in harm's way." Whether such adjustments will continue remains to be measured.

Key Words: perceptions • opinion shapers • mutations • synthesis

References

• Gallup and Harris annual surveys on America's confidence in professions and leaders are readily available via Internet. See, e.g., Lydia Saad, "Military Again Tops `Confidence in Institutions' List," (June 01, 2005) at www.gallup.com/poll/content/login.aspx?ci=16555; and "Overall Confidence in Leaders," Harris Poll #21 (March 17, 2005) at www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=550.
• The themes and background material presented in the historical sections are abundantly documented in C. Robert Kemble, The Image of the Army Officer in America: Background for Current Views (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973), Chapter Notes, 205-42. Even so, specific sources for direct references and other commentary herein have been cited below. There is no intent in this historical overview to focus on any single service or rank tier but rather to record evolving perceptions of military leaders qua military leaders, whatever arm. That said, historical circumstances have caused greater attention from "opinion shapers" and the public on the ground forces. Until WWII, except for late nineteenth—early twentieth-century naval activities, U.S. military forces in action and in the political/governmental arena were largely of the Army. WWII saw major land, sea, and air operations and due exposure of all services; but the Air Force did not become a separate arm until after the war, when generals like Marshall and Eisenhower played the major governmental roles. Subsequently, by circumstance, greater attention militarily and politically was again on the Army in Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and (along with the Marine Corps) in Iraq.
• George Washington, " To the President of Congress, September 24, 1776," in American Military Thought, ed. Walter Millis (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 9.
• William R. Taylor, Cavalier and Yankee (New York: George Braziller, 1961), 96-97; Russell Nye, George Bancroft, Brahmin Rebel (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944), 304-07; Kemble, Image of The Army Officer, 20-22, 67-77, and Chapter Notes, 219-21. For a few period examples, see John P. Kennedy, Horseshoe Robinson (New York: Hafner Publishing Co., 1962), 16-17; Francis Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1913), 109-21; and James Fenimore Cooper, The Spy (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1946), 53ff.
• William Dean Howells, "Editor's Study," Harpers New Monthly Magazine 82 (January 1891): 316-17.
• Walter Millis, Arms and Men (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1956), 61-63, 92-93; Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, MA.: Belknap Press, 1957), 198-200; Russell F. Weigley, History of the United States Army (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1967), 146-47; Kemble, Image of the Army Officer, 51-58 and Chapter Notes, 214-15. For period articulation, see Honorable Thomas Buck Read, An Address to the Cadets... ( New York: J. Seymore, 1827) and Honorable Samuel J. Bayard, Address Delivered... June 16, 1854 (Camden: Office of the Camden Democrat, 1854), 3.
• George Ticknor, "West Point in 1826," an unpublished extract given by Ticknor's daughter and held in the Academy archives; Hazen C. Carpenter, "Emerson at West Point," The Pointer, 27 (June 12, 1951): 5, 27.
• Leonard White, The Jacksonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1829-1861 ( New York: The Macmillan Co., 1954 ), 205-12; Huntington, The Soldier and the State, 203-11; Kemble, Image of the Army Officer, 33-50 and Chapter Notes, 209-12.
• Henry George, The Menace of Privilege ( New York: Grossett and Dunlop, 1907 ), 202, 221ff; Gompers is quoted in Leonard D. White, The Republican Era 1869-1901 (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1959), 136; Weigley, History of the United States Army, 282; Winthrope Alexander, " Ten Years of Riot Duty," Journal of the Military Service Institution... #19 (July 1896): 1-62; Kemble, Image of The Army Officer, 119-24 and Chapter Notes, 227-29.
• William Ellery Channing, Discourses on War ( Boston: Ginn and Co., 1903), 52-53; Douglass Jerrod in The Book of Peace (Boston: ed. George C. Beckwith, 1845), 587.
• Kemble, Image of the Army Officer, 48-50 and Chapter Notes, 212-13.
• As quoted in Russell Weigley, Towards an American Army ( New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 171.
• John B. MacMaster, A History of the People of the United States (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1887), 164, 190; Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Division and Reunion, 1829-1889 (New York: Longsman Green and Co., 1899), 151-52, 251; Charles W. Eliot, Four American Leaders ( Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1907), 35-53; Kemble, Image of the Army Officer, 138, 161, and Chapter Notes, 231-33.
• Harry Ward, "Free Speech for the Army," The New Republic, 51 (July 13, 1927): 196.
• Mauritz A. Hallgren, "War," Harold Stearns ed., America Now (New York: Charles Scribners's Sons, 1938).
• C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956.) See especially Chapters 8 and 9.
• Mary Beard, America Through Women's Eyes (New York: Macmillan Co., 1933), 475-76.
• John Dos Passos, Three Soldiers (Boston: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1921). See, e.g., 109, 259, 375, 446, and 466.
• George MacMillan, "A Decade of War Novels," New York Times Book Review, (December 9, 1951): 6. 20. With other numerous bibliographies of books and articles directed to the Vietnam War and film, "The War in Vietnam and the Movies: A Short Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Libraries," http://www.lib.berkeley.edu. For a long, respected book-length treatment, see From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film, ed. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990). For a few articles directed in part to perceptions of the armed forces and representing differing assessments, see Jacob Katzman, " From Outcast to Cliche: How Film Shaped, Warped and Developed the Image of the Vietnam Veteran, 1967-1990," Journal of American Culture 16, 1 (Spring, 1993):7ff; Special Issue: "War," New England Journal of Public Policy 19, 1 (Fall/Winter 2003-2004); Peter C. Rollins, " The Vietnam War: Perceptions through Literature, Film, and Television," American Quarterly 36, 3 (1984): 419-32.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• David Coffey, "African Americans in the Vietnam War," in Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History, ed. Spencer C. Tucker (Oxford, U.K., 1998); Basic reports include `The Truman Administration and the Desegregation of the Armed Forces: A Chronology,' compiled by Raymond H. Geselbracht from "Desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces, 1939-1953," (Columbia, MO: 1969); and Morris J. MacGregor Jr., "Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965," Center of Military History (Washington D.C.: 1985). Among an abundance of studies and critical reviews, see Charles C. Moskos and John Sibley Butle, All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way (New York: Basic Books, Sept. 1, 1997); and recently, David L. Leal, " American Public Opinion toward the Military: Differences by Race, Gender, and Class?" Armed Forces & Society (Oct. 2005): 123-38.
• Integration and equal opportunity within the armed forces are important sectors of extensive study in themselves, although not the central objective of this work. For a few perspectives, see Charles Moskos, "What Ails the All-Volunteer Force: An Institutional Perspective," Parameters (Summer 2001): 29-47; Regina F. Titunik, " The First Wave: Gender Integration and Military Culture," Armed Forces & Society 26, 2 (2000): 229-57; Juanita M. Firestone, "Changes in Patterns of Sexual Harassment in the U.S. Military: A Comparison of the 1988 and 1995 DoD Surveys," Armed Forces & Society 25, 4 ( 1999): 613-32; Kim Field and John Nagl, " Combat Roles for Women: A Modest Proposal," Parameters (Summer 2001): 74-88.
• Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Barley II, Seven Days in May ( New York: Bantam Books, 1963).
• In addition to the cited Gallup and Harris Polls, see, e.g., the summary of "The Military, Research Report," Ethics Newsline 6, 25 (Jun 23, 2003).
• For an analysis of network and embedded reporting, see Aday, Sean Steven Livingston, and Maeve Hebe, " Embedding the Truth: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Objectivity and Television Coverage of the Iraq War," The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 10, 1 (2005): 3-21. 24. The authors conclude that while the press in wartime is normally patriotic and servile once the shooting starts, "In the recent Iraq War, however,... the vast majority of stories on most American news networks....were in fact objective."
• "Persons of the Year: The American Soldier," Time (December 29, 2003). Much of the entire issue is devoted to depicting and assessing military persons of all ranks. The quotation is from p. 81.
• The full text of the CNN retraction, including the initial story plus numerous followups condemning the "latest in a series of media embarrassments," "selective media retractions," "deceitful expose," et al., can be found at "CNN Retracts Report that U.S. used nerve gas during Vietnam War - July 2, 1998," www.CNNTailwind.com. "CNN has retracted its report of June 7, 1998 that the United States used lethal nerve gas.... Peter Arnett,... perhaps the network's most prominent correspondent, had been reprimanded.... April Oliver and her colleague Jack Smith.... were fired. Pamela Hill, the executive producer, who made the basic decision to broadcast the report, resigned."
• See endnote 24 above and "Soldiers of the State: Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations" by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., Parameters (Winter 2003-04): 4-18. Also, David Rohall, Morten Ender, and Michael Matthews, " The Effects of Military Affiliation, Gender, and Political Ideology on Attitudes toward the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq," Armed Forces & Society 33, 1 (October 2006): 1-19.
• Among notable ground-breakers have been T. Harry Williams, Russell Wiegly, and Walter Millis in American military history; Samuel Huntington and Stephen Ambrose in civil-military relations and practice; and Morris Janowitz and Charles Moskos in military sociology. Focused on that mid-twentieth-century period of seminal scholarship is the section "Secondary Sources, Nonfiction" in "Selected Bibliography" in Kemble, Image of the Army Officer, 261-66.
• Michael Medved, "War Films, Hollywood and Popular Culture," Imprimis 34, 5 (May, 2005); Charles Moskos, "What Ails the All-Volunteer Force," Parameters, U.S. Army War College Quarterly (Summer 2001): 29-47. (Perhaps an earlier representation of Moskos' observation is Academy Award-winning Patton, a celebration of the eccentric WWII general, released in 1970 at the height of the Vietnam conflict.) It is beyond the scope of this historical overview to conduct a full review of the extensive film treatments of the American armed forces and the substantial, ever-growing body of scholarly study. Relating to this article is Howard Harper, "The Military and Society; Reaching and Reflecting Audiences in Fiction and Film," Armed Forces & Society 27, 2 (2001): 231-48. Also Cory Dauber, "Image as an Argument: The Impact of Mogadishu on U.S. Intervention," Armed Forces & Society 27, 2 (2001): 205-30; "Military Brats: Film Representations of Children from Military Families," Armed Forces & Society 32, 1 (2005): 24-43 provides a comprehensive review of military films published in Armed Forces & Society.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
• Arthur Ekirch, The Civilian and the Military ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1956). Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) spells out continuing concern over militarism but attributes it to differing emphasis and antecedents.
• Wilson as quoted by Huntington, Soldier and the State, 154.
• Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, website statement at http//www.iusafs.org.

This version was published on October 1, 2007

Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 34, No. 1, 29-45 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X06293862


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Kemble, C. R. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?