Posted on 06/25/2002 5:30:47 PM PDT by gcruse
View: Presidential saluting should cease
By Lou Marano
Life & Mind
Desk
Published 6/25/2002 1:43 PM
WASHINGTON, June 25 (UPI) -- Does anyone in the United States have the heft to tell the president to stop saluting?
Ronald Reagan began this bit of stage business when his actor's instincts overcame his experience as an Army officer. Then Corazon Aquino picked it up in the Philippines. George H.W. Bush, ever sensitive to charges of disloyalty to Reagan, continued the practice. Of Bill Clinton saluting, the less said the better. The current president should put an end to this comic-opera behavior.
The commander in chief is a civilian, remember? Civilians don't salute, and even serving military members don't salute out of uniform. Dwight D. Eisenhower was a five-star general and World War II Supreme Allied Commander. He never returned a salute during his the eight years of his presidency and would be appalled to see his successors blurring the existential civil-military distinction.
"Yes he would," said Richard Kohn, professor of History and chairman of the Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, agreeing that Ike would indeed be appalled. "And certainly the framers of the Constitution would be appalled. ...
"There was discussion and disagreement among the framers as to whether the president would take the field in a military conflict as commander of the forces. Most opinion was that he would not, as monarchs did not. ... The truth of the matter is that the presidency is a civilian office. The fact that the president is commander in chief is to ensure civilian control of the military and that the military is always subordinate to civil authority.
"For the president to salute, it seems to me, is to imply that he is somehow a military officer -- and he is not."
Kohn said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has told the Department of Defense to stop calling the unified commanders -- such as the generals and admirals who head the Southern Command, European Command, Pacific Command, etc. -- commanders in chief. "There is only one commander in chief," Kohn said Rumsfeld has told the Pentagon. "Call these men 'combatant commanders,' for that is what they are."
Kohn is recognized as an expert on civil-military relations.
"Civilians can do what they want," the scholar said. "But I believe the president misleads both the country and the armed forces by saluting."
The historian said George W. Bush has "made something of a fetish" of the practice, returning the salute at every opportunity, as a way of contrasting himself with Clinton. In fact, Kohn said, the president recently came back out of a helicopter -- because he was distracted as he got into it -- to return a Marine's salute.
Kohn believes Reagan probably began saluting as a way to restore morale to the armed forces. "They had been cut so badly in the wake of Vietnam. Veterans were abused, at least rhetorically, when they came home.
"Polling data show that public esteem and confidence in the military bottomed in 1980," Kohn said. "And recruiting was a hell of a problem for this all-volunteer force. We all know that if it weren't for the much greater utilization of women, the all-volunteer force would have failed in the 1970s to even come close to its recruiting numbers."
Reagan's good intentions notwithstanding, saluting by presidents is "just not appropriate," Kohn said. "As a long-term practice, I think it's really unwise."
Kohn rejected the suggestion that the practice developed only when military service was no longer a rite of passage for American males. If 85 percent of physically fit men served, he was asked, wouldn't people have looked at their television screens and said, "What the heck is he doing? We swear allegiance to the Constitution. This guy's supposed to be a civilian." Under those circumstances, presidential saluting might have died quietly after a few months, it was suggested.
"Of the 280 million people in this country, probably 500 understand what you are talking about," Kohn said. "I don't think it has anything to do with service or lack of service. ... The implications are lost. I've been studying civilian control of the military for 40 years, and I'm telling you -- it's just not at all understood. And so I think this business of the end of the draft is not indicative of a diminished understanding, because the understanding was really never very good."
Eliot Cohen, director of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, said the distinction between civilian and military authority is not as "crisp" as formerly.
"One of the things that made the first commander in chief, George Washington, so remarkable was his extreme reverence for civilian authority, both when he was actually the general in charge during the Revolution and afterwards," Cohen said.
"Dwight Eisenhower was another former general who was acutely conscious of being a general and being the civilian in charge of the generals."
The presidency is fundamentally a civilian office, Cohen said, and we should be quite comfortable with the idea that civilians are in charge. "The way they show respect is not necessarily by adopting military customs."
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
One salute deserves to be answered by another.
In saluting the superior officer (including commander in chief) the officer/enlisted man shows respect for the person and the position they hold.
In returning the salute the superior officer acknowledges the worth of their subordinate.
It is an exchange of mutual respect.
LOL!!! Great line. I'm stealing it.
Agree, this piece is totally in the category labeled "SHEESH."
Does anyone in the United States have the heft to tell this bozo to stop his whining?
If he needs something to do, he can cut my grass and clean the garage.
Please reconsider this position.
The rudest thing an officer (including Commander In Chief) can do is to refuse to acknowledge a salute.
Such officers are held in contempt by their men.
Professor Kohnhead deals with weighty matters every day, don't ya know?
After listening to his hair grow for 8 hours at taxpayers expense, he then spends the rest of the day figuring out how he can get paid based on the number of words he can accumulate in his title.
Leni
It's true military members are no longer "required" to salute a recognized senior
officer, if they, the person rendering the salute, are in civies. The operative word
is "required." Military members in civies may still show their respect my rendering
a snappy salute. That salute really indicates respect for the person, not the rank
and position.
As an ex-Air Force Officer, and the Commander in Chief,
President Bush can return my salute anytime he'd like, and I'd be proud to have gotten it.
The only President I ever saluted was LBJ.
I doubt he returned it from his limo going 70 MPH up the Friendship Highway in Thailand.
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