A Military Problem Beyond the Military

    Every election year two undeniable truths reaffirm themselves:

    1- Our Armed Forces are too soft on enlisted personnel.

    2- Our Armed Forces are too hard on enlisted personnel.
   
    To the average student of current military affairs, they may seem contradictory.

    This could be, but, for the moment, that's beside the point.

    What is of interest is the fact that these conflicting truths are rediscovered and re-investigated only during election years.  And that the men instrumental in rediscovering and re-investigating them are invariably men running for public office.

     I cite you some recent dispatches which have been burning up the wires  from Washington, D.C. (Not all of them originated there, but all eventually reached there for investigation, or, at the very least, biting comment from our campaigning-to-be reelected representatives.) 

     There was also some criticism of the  practice of allowing 11-year-old sons of colonels to accompany their fathers on barracks inspection tours and pull rank on full-grown corporals and sergeants.

    And then there were bold insinuations that the Kadena Airmen's Club  on Okinawa resembled something Sally Stanford might have built — only with discount house prices.  The club also stood accused of offering enlisted personnel free vacations to Hawaii, 5-cent cocktails and 25-cent steaks — at which prices Sally never would have made it.

    As a retired corporal, I can spot some basis of truth in the reports about the martini manuals and 11-year-old sons of colonels.  But I suspected from the start that the story about the Okinawa Airmen's Club was the work of somebody's imagination.

    Things like that just don't happen to enlisted men.

    I also have the word of a major general to back up my theory.

    His name is Dale O. Smith and he's commander of the 313th Air Division.  In the latest issue of the division's newspaper, he writes from Okinawa:

    "Hard-working and dedicated young men (of his 313th Air Division) are now, by innuendo and half-truths, accused of high living with sly insinuations of immorality.  Approximately 300 married airmen live here with their families.  It is implied that a proposed private party room for them (at the club) was planned as some sort of a love nest . . .

    "Here," the general continues, "are the facts:

    "The Kadena Airmen's Club has never offered prize trips to Hawaii, although a  civilian club here makes such an offer.  Nor are there 5-cent drinks or 25-cent steaks.

    "Moreover, the Okinawa hostesses and dancing partners are as respectable and as closely chaperoned as any young ladies assembled for a stateside USO function.

    "There is no record of unsavory incident at the club involving these young ladies.

    "They are hired, with the approval of their parents, through the Base Employment Office, and, like every civilian employee of the military anywhere in the world, are required to have physical examinations as well as security checks . . ."

    That's the other side of the story, and I think the nation is entitled to hear it.

    But I, for one, am sorry to hear it.  I'm not running for election this year and I liked the fancier version of the Okinawa incident better.

    In fact, if it were true, and I were not overage, too portly, and the victim of a jealous wife, I swear, I'd reenlist.

    But only if I got my old rating back.