USA Today, October 8, 1998
Too Many Officers Trading Fatigues For Business Suits
By C.J. Chivers
The story of the military’s creep from formidable fighting force to an
institution struggling to maintain readiness can be seen in the journey
of Enoch Blazis, a former Marine Corps infantry major.
Blazis is exactly the type of officer the Pentagon should be keeping
around for the nation’s next fight. He graduated from the Naval Academy
at Annapolis, Md. He is a former platoon leader in a special-operations
battalion and a veteran of such quirky post-Cold War missions as the
evacuation of the Subic Bay Naval Base after a volcanic eruption. When
he was promoted earlier this year, the ceremony was led by Marine
commandant Charles C. Krulak, who urged him to stick around.
Instead, Blazis became a civilian, setting aside his dress blues and
forsaking retirement benefits for a life in the private sector.
“We couldn’t get enough ammunition to stay sharp, we were riding
helicopters so old they had been to Vietnam, and I got a good job
offer,” Blazis said. “It’s hard to sum up why you make the big leap, but
I knew intuitively that it was time to go.”
Blazis is one name on a swelling list of talented officers who have
departed today’s military. An exodus is under way, and no one has been
able to stop it.
The Air Force is short about 700 pilots; the Navy is worrying over the
departure of not just pilots, but also SEAL lieutenants and future
submarine skippers. In the ground outfits, more seasoned officers like
Blazis are trading battle fatigues for business suits.
The trend has long been noticed by junior officers, including a few who
penned letters to generals warning that their best peers are checking
out, leaving some key jobs filled with a B-team of less experienced or
mediocre performers.
Last week, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said as much to the Senate Armed
Services Committee. So did Defense Secretary William Cohen to the same
committee on Tuesday. Too many officers, it seems, are sending out
resumes. Further, those who remain are overworked: The rate of serious
aviation mishaps in the Navy has nearly doubled this year, and the
admirals say pilot fatigue is a factor.
What’s going on?
At a glance, one might say the recently robust economy simply has lured
officers into the private sector. True, to an extent. But the exodus is
more complicated than that.
On the global level, the nation faces no menacing conventional foe, and
the Pentagon has had an understandably hard time articulating a new
doctrine. The military is confused. Restless young officers sense the
confusion and look elsewhere for work.
Other factors are subtler. On the domestic front, for instance, the
success of the women’s rights movement has brought new pressures into
military families.
Once upon a time, most military wives were willing to act content as
their husbands were transferred around the globe. Today, two-career
households are the norm. Latter-day officers are balancing military
assignments with their spouses’ careers, and many resign after
contemplating transfers that would wreck their partners’ job prospects.
Viewed from afar, these problems are the downside of otherwise good
news. After all, who wants the Cold War back? And the fact that women
have achieved something close to equal status in the national workforce
is long past due.
But other problems in the military stem from Beltway folly, which has
sapped readiness and morale and has sent more officers for the exits.
Take pensions, for example. When Blazis signed on with the Marines in
the early 1980s, he was told that upon completing 20 years of active
duty, he would be eligible for a pension worth 50% of his pay. Then
Congress slashed pensions to 40%. That stung, especially since military
personnel have no 401(k) plans, are not eligible to purchase
tax-deductible IRAs and receive pay that lags behind the private sector.
And it does not escape notice that while Congress trimmed military
benefits, it kept its fork in the pork, pulling off such self-serving
masterstrokes as ordering the Air Force to buy 20 transport planes the
brass didn’t want. The planes were built in the Georgia congressional
district of Newt Gingrich and posted in Mississippi, home of Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott. They cost $1 billion.
Of course, the Joint Chiefs of Staff can hardly complain about the
legislators’ spending priorities. They’re the ones who left soldiers
like Blazis in creaking helicopters and many small units with tiny
ammunition allowances, all the while lobbying for programs such as the
Seawolf submarine, a mega-weapon in search of any enemy.
The brass have also allowed officers’ careers to become swift games of
musical chairs, rushing lieutenants and captains away from the guns and
into the desks. This means loyal officers who remain on active duty are
rewarded by spending less time mastering combat skills and more time
supervising recruiters, keeping the books at reserve centers or working
in staff jobs far from the action.
This hurts on two levels. Frequent rotations to office jobs make
officers feel as if the military is more interested in oiling its
bureaucracy than preparing for future battles. And depriving officers of
tactical training means the next generation of commanders, flight
leaders and ship captains will have less experience when those battles
do come.
Savvy officers know the score. As Blazis said, they know it intuitively.
What a shame. The military spent the 1980s seeding its ranks with
intelligent, committed leaders. Along the way, it licked its lingering
post-Vietnam problems and restored America’s trust. It stopped rampant
drug use, rejected most low-IQ recruits and calmed racial anger. It also
updated its weapons systems and put troops through training that made it
the best fighting force on the globe. Some of that progress is now at
risk.
“I remember the malaise of the Carter-era defense establishment, and
today’s climate is not much different,” the Marine general in charge of
personnel, Brig. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, wrote last year in an e-mail,
circulated among officers, urging an angry captain to keep a positive
attitude.
Given the social factors at work, the military will not be able to
retain as many officers as in the past. But if the Pentagon wants to
keep a larger portion of its best leaders for the next war, it must
increase pay, restore Cold War-era benefits and show its young officers
it cares by making small-unit training a priority.
Defense mandarins can find the money to cover these costs by closing
unnecessary bases and forgoing fantastic weapon systems. Or they can
keep to their current course and risk leaving the nation with armed
forces that are long on slogan, but short on talent.
C.J. Chivers, a former Marine infantry captain and a veteran of the Gulf
War, is a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.
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