The Bugle's Fading Call

n the half century following World War II-the last military crusade fully embraced by the American public-service in uniform was all but essential for launching a political career. Indeed, veterans occupied the White House from 1945 to 1993 and made up majorities in at least one chamber of the Congress from 1951 to 1997.

But the aging of the World War II generation-fewer than half of whose combatants are alive today-coupled with the widespread avoidance of service by college students during the Vietnam War and the subsequent abolition of the draft, brought a watershed in ties between the nation's civilian and military sectors.

Today, the President, his Secretary of Defense and his national security adviser lack military experience. The same is true of two-thirds of the lawmakers who sit in Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

The shift has been dramatic. In the 95th Congress (1977-78), more than three-quarters of the members were veterans, and, as recently as three years ago, 56 percent of those serving in the Senate boasted prior military service. For those who lobby on defense issues, especially pay and benefits for active-duty and retired personnel, the job of educating lawmakers has become daunting.

But opinions vary-often along generational lines-as to whether the paucity of vets affects decisions on waging war.

Michael O'Hanlon, a 38-year-old Brookings Institution defense analyst, thinks the change is healthy. Experts with abundant military credentials "didn't get it right" during the debate over Vietnam, he says, adding that defense specialists on Capitol Hill acquire their expertise as legislators, not during tours of active-duty or reserve service. O'Hanlon, a former Peace Corps volunteer, also notes that there are still far more lawmakers with experience in the military than in areas such as health care.

Brent Scowcroft sees it differently. The 74-year-old retired Air Force general and former national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush, thinks nonveterans have unrealistic expectations about military capabilities. They are more eager than Pentagon leaders to commit troops to combat and believe that "immaculate missions" can achieve quick and painless results, he says. "There is a value to having served in uniform, that allows you to have some sense of what the military is and isn't good for," he argues. "Anybody who has ever served knows that nothing goes exactly the way it's supposed to in battle; that everything gets screwed up."

The current Congress reflects "change in our society" that has created a gulf between soldiers and civilians, Scowcroft laments. "The military is seen as a separate society living on bases and poorly understood or appreciated by the larger public."

The rattle of drums and blare of bugles that sent U.S. forces to war in Yugoslavia have, to say the least, elicited a mixed response from Congress. The House-during a series of votes on April 28-rejected a call for removal of American troops but deadlocked over a previously passed Senate resolution to support NATO air strikes flown mostly by Americans.

In the 213-213 vote denying House backing for the Kosovo air campaign, veterans marched mostly in partisan ranks. With House Majority Whip Thomas D. DeLay, R-Texas, a nonveteran, urging a negative vote as a slap against President Clinton's leadership, 63 of the 81 House Republicans with military service opposed the resolution, while 16 supported it and two did not vote. Among Democratic veterans, 42 voted yes, 11 no and one was absent.

But veterans who have served in combat-28 out of the House's total of 135-narrowly approved the air strikes. Six Republicans joined with nine Democrats to vote for the resolution, while 12 Republicans and a single Democrat opposed it.

The House's action drew indignant criticism from Senators who had fought in Vietnam. "They voted against the war and against withdrawing our forces; such a contradictory position does little credit to Congress," snapped the hawkish Arizona Republican John McCain. Virginia Democrat Charles S. Robb added that he was "stunned" by the House's failure to support the NATO sorties. "The fact is, we are in the middle of this," protested Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel.

Yet the Senate, in early May, tabled a resolution pushed by McCain, Robb and Hagel to authorize the use of ground troops, if necessary, in Kosovo. Congress, nonetheless, voted funds for the military operations in the Balkans.

The net result, notes Thomas Hutson, a former U.S. diplomat in Yugoslavia, is that Congress has positioned itself to "half-heartedly extend support and then carp from the sidelines."That may be good politics, but it is a clear repudiation of the rally-behind-the-troops patriotism expressed by McCain, who insists that Kosovo "became America's war the moment the first American flew into harm's way."

Dick Kirschten is a contributing editor for National Journal.