GyGsMailbag: Barriers Between Civilian, Military Need Breaking....

(Via Milinet)

By Rudi Williams
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2000 -- When Bill Owens was vice chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff from March 1994 through February 1996,
it was commonly known in Pentagon circles that he felt strongly
about breaking down the barriers between the civilian society
and the military.

"I felt America's military was getting separated from its
civilian counterparts and that it was time for us to do all we
could to try to bring the two together," said the retired Navy
admiral. He is now co-chief executive officer and vice chairman
of Teledsic Corp. in Bellevue, Wash.

He felt the civilian society perceived the military as being a
very structured establishment with leaders who barked out
commands and "troops just do it."

"But that's not real leadership. In fact, leaders tend to be
wonderful, compassionate people, in general. They lead people,
not by force, but by influence and nurturing. That leadership
culture is something that the civilian society misunderstands
completely," said Owens, who still passionately clings to the
belief that the military and civilian sectors need to work
closer together.

The former vice chairman said he subscribes to the philosophy of
the late General of the Army Omar Bradley, who believed
leadership "means firmness, not harshness; understanding, not
weakness; justice, not license; humanness, not intolerance;
generosity, not selfishness; pride, not egotism."

Civilian society doesn't understand how hard the military works
and how difficult the life is for military families, Owens
noted. Using his mobile military career as an example, he said
he moved so many times that his son attended 12 different
schools from kindergarten through the 12th grade. "Nor does the
civilian world understand how little military personnel are paid
compared to similar jobs in the civilian sector."

For example, he said, "We'll bring a college graduate into my
company at a wage that's higher than what a one-star general
earns. Just think of what that general has gone through and the
life that he has had to lead in dedication to his country."

Owens attributed the military-civilian split in part to more
than 25 years of the all-volunteer force. The armed forces of
the 1970s have been transformed into a different kind of
military, one where not many people serve relative to the whole
population, he noted. Even veterans, proud and sure as they are
of their service, may not fully appreciate how the military has
changed if none of their service is recent.

For instance, he said, people who volunteer for military service
nowadays stay in longer than draftees who finished a two- or
three-year commitment and quit. Consequently, instead of being
unmarried 17-, 18- and 19-year-olds living in barracks, most of
today's service members are older and married with children, he
said.

Corollary to this situation and of deep concern, he believes, is
that many leaders of American institutions lack military
experience, including defense and other government leaders --
the people who have to decide the kind and number of tanks or
airplanes DoD needs to buy.

"So the military is getting separated from civilian society and
many of America's institutions don't have the experience of
military service anymore," Owens said. "Senior military and
civilian leaders need to work more together so they can learn
from each other.

"The National Guard and Reserve components are extremely
important in military and civilian societies," Owens emphasized.
"These are people who have civilian jobs and are doing their
weekends with the military. But they represent the interface
between the military and its civilian counterparts."

In addition to being taught how to function as soldiers,
sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, officers and
enlisted personnel are also taught about allegiance to country
and patriotism, Owens noted.

"When they go through training, many of them don't realize how
much pride in defending the nation they absorb," Owens said.

"Civilian society has lost the connection with the patriotism
that the military represents because so few people have served
in the military," he said. Consequently, civilians take the
armed forces for granted and see the defense of the nation as a
given, he said.

"They tend to see the military as a different kind of people,
even though military personnel come from a cross section of
American society," Owens noted.

"The military society provides a lot of training in leadership
and how you gather men and women around you and get then to
focus on a common goal," Owens said. "The military does a very
nice job of training leaders, but civilian society doesn't." In
many cases, civilian organizations don't even realize that
leadership is lacking, he remarked.

Military training and experience makes veterans better citizens
because they don't take democracy for granted; they realize that
you have to fight for our freedoms," he noted. "They know the
need for an allegiance to country and patriotism can't be taken
for granted."

One way that might help the military and civilian sectors
reconnect is to look at whether the military could become a
little bit more like the civilian structure in some ways, Owens
suggested.

"For example, I don't think the military innovates very well,"
he noted. "The military doesn't find a fellow like Jack Welch,
the chief executive officer of General Electric, who can change
it -- shift it around and make it a new organization to respond
to new times. The civilian world seems to do that much more
profoundly."

There are many things DoD can learn from civilian businesses
about making money that can be applied to managing DoD
resources, Owens said. He said using the best in business
practices could result in a system that uses the defense budget
more efficiently.

"You could possibly reduce the budget and have a larger, more
ready military than you have today," the admiral said. "That
probably could only happen with radical changes that come from
the bowels of the civilian innovation and creativity."

DoD also needs to consider some profound changes in the way
people are recruited, he said. "There's no reason the military
can't hire, for instance, someone like a Microsoft executive,
and after six months of training, make him be a colonel or one-
star admiral," Owens said. "That would bring some of the change
and innovation into the military.

"You'll find a lot of senior executives who would be glad to
have a new adventure at age 40 and come into the military to be
a new kind of leader," he said. "We just have to stretch our
minds to try to find ways to integrate the technology of the
civilian world with the military. In general, most of the new
technology is being developed in the civilian work place.

Unless DoD takes heed, Owens said, "We'll wind up with a
military that's separated from its civilian society. We'll wind
up with a military that's viewed as a mercenary force rather
than as part of American society, trained to protect America's
freedoms."

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