roymilleraz

The National Guard is misleading the public due to omissions from its recruiting ads. Recently I heard an ad on National Public Radio suggesting that someone should join the Guard to help fight wild land fires. No mention was made of traditional “military” duties such as the need to carry weapons or to be deployed to places like Iraq or Afghanistan. In general, I believe that the Guard is too often being depicted as a helpful rescue operation or a job training program when, in reality, the military, of which the National Guard is a part, exists mostly to kill people and break things when they are called upon to serve. This is their primary role and it is dangerously incompatible with the advertised role to rescue people and fix things.

On April 11 Diane Rehm, a National Public Radio talk show host with a decidedly liberal bias, spent much of her show decrying the secrecy behind salaries. It seemed to me that her goal was more transparency so that it would easier for females to bring lawsuits on the pay issue. But when a caller to the show asked Diane the amount of her salary she immediately declined to reveal it. This is typical behavior of the Left, transparency for thee but not for me. It reminded me of Senator Finestein’s flap over NSA spying; again, OK for thee but not for me. Now I understand the phrase “hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”

In the March 17 Arizona Republic editorial “Public Schools Under Attack” by the Arizona School Administrators they opened their comments with a quote from Thomas Jefferson by emphasizing his suggestion that “a suitable education be provided for all….citizens.” It is a great quote that I fully support but Jefferson never said anything about the government providing this education. As a matter of fact, it is nowhere mentioned in our Constitution. If Jefferson or any of our founding fathers believed that education was an important role for government they would surely have said so.

If Jefferson were alive I believe that he would support dismantling the US Department of Education and getting the government, at least the Federal Government, completely out of education.

The statement in the Arizona Republic March 30 news article about pension spiking is almost unbelievable. The article states that “the Phoenix Police Pension Board voted 4-1 to continue the practice of letting public-safety officers spike their pensions at retirement.” The article goes on to admit that “it wasn’t much of a surprise” because “the board includes two police officers, including the union’s contract negotiator.”

I served on this board when I was chairmen of the Phoenix Civil Service Board 30 years ago and I can attest that nothing has changed. Back then I was concerned about the sweetheart deals being handed out all too often in the form of disability retirements. Now the abuse is pension spiking. It is time to revamp all of our boards and commissions and reduce the insider dealing that occurs at the expense of the taxpayer.

Robert Robb hit the nail on the head in his March 26 Arizona Republic column when he suggested that Mayor Stanton needs to focus on fixing his own administration, not the economy. It is very glamorous for Stanton to be making trips to Mexico to seek trade deals but Robb makes a very important observation when he notes that ALL voluntary exchanges increase wealth, not just ones involving trade with foreign entities. This is a point that even well educated people fail to appreciate. Therefore, we need to fix the problems in our own house.

The voluntary exchanges Robb advocates occur most frequently under conditions of low taxes, minimal government regulations, and sound fiscal policy. Mayor Stanton is failing on these fundamental issues by refusing to solve the Phoenix budget crisis and failing to solve the huge pension burden that will crush future generations of Phoenix taxpayers. Let’s look in the mirror and fix things at home first.

The fact that Dick Cheney would characterize Secretary Hagel’s very reasonable proposed cuts to the defense budget as “absolutely devastating” just reveals how out of touch he and his fellow neo-con Republicans are. The grossly bloated size of our current defense budget—larger than the combined budgets of both our friends and our enemies—is merely a temptation for precipitous and adventurous actions—like Iraq and Libya—that we should be avoiding.

As a lifelong active Republican I only hope that Cheney’s reckless and ill-considered remarks will not cause other Republican leaders to commit suicide by agreeing with him. We Republicans have enough problems with our perception as the party repressing individual rights at home and encouraging military adventurism abroad. We should be adding a dose of libertarian philosophy to our platform, not budget-straining wasteful defense spending.

April 22 will mark the tenth anniversary of the friendly fire killing of National Football League super star and US Army Corporal Pat Tillman. It also marks the beginning of egregious acts of dishonor by senior military officers in the wake of that killing by trying to cover it up so that Tillman’s use as a military recruiting tool could be preserved and also so that public support for the war would not be diminished. Have we learned anything from this tragedy? I doubt it. In fact, I believe it is quite likely that, if similar acts of fratricide are occurring today, senior officers up and down the chain of command are doing their best to cover them up, just like they tried to do with the incidents involving Corporal Pat Tillman, Private Jessica Lynch, Corporal Lance Fielder, the Abu Ghraib prison atrocities, the Black Hawk helicopter shoot down and many other incidents . The bottom line is that we have a serious problem of dishonor in our military ranks. The tenth anniversary of the Tillman incident is a good motivator to examine what we need to do.

The Tillman incident is valuable as a study because it is so well documented and because the misbehavior of senior military officers was so horrendous. I have watched the movie “The Tillman Story” several times and I just finished reading Jon Krakauer’s book for the second time: “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman.” I am now in the process of reading Mary Tillman’s book (Pat’s mother) “Boots on the Ground by Dusk” and I continue to be struck by exemplary character of Pat Tillman, contrasted with the cover up of Pat Tillman’s death by fratricide, and the realization that this may be the most egregious act of dishonor in military history.

But an even more tragic aftermath of the Tillman incident is the likelihood that nothing has changed. The meager punishments meted out to a few of the many senior officials who repeatedly dishonored themselves means that it is likely that similar cover-ups are occurring today. In recent days newspaper headlines have broadcast “800 accused in Army fraud” about National Guard signing bonus payments. Another recent headline says “Navy probing alleged cheating on nuclear power reactor work.” It seems that these incidents of dishonor among military personnel are occurring more frequently. What is the solution?

One possible solution lies in the military academy honor codes. Graduates of these institutions should be expected to set a high standard of honorable behavior for both officers and NCOs. As a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy I can testify that there was a time when graduates of that institution could be counted on to act honorably. Unfortunately, that time is past. It is past because the high standards of the Cadet Honor Code, “We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does” are no longer being enforced. I suspect that this is also the case at the other military academies and is part of the reason for the increased incidents of dishonor mentioned previously in this article.

The fact that we are now graduating officers who are violators of the military academy honor codes has been documented for over 20 years by USAFA graduate and professional researcher Fred Malmstrom. His data clearly shows that standards of honor have been declining steadily and that the vast majority of today’s graduates admit to having committed honor violations while at the academy. Significantly, these are obviously violators who were not dismissed.

I offer a thought experiment: What if there had been just a few of the old style Academy graduates in the chain of command in the Tillman incident or any of the incidents I referred to above? I think it is much less likely that the cover ups would have occurred or would have continued for so long. More recently, and closer to home, there has been a scandal at my alma mater over the OSI (Air Force Office of Special Investigation) use of cadets as “snitches” in uncovering misbehavior. I submit that, if there had been even one of the old style Academy graduates in that OSI chain of command, that person would have stopped the use of cadets as snitches because he would have known that such activity is completely incompatible with the USAF Academy Cadet Honor Code.

Another recent example is the discovery that many USAF missile operators have been cheating on proficiency exams. Again, this would not likely occur if even a few of these officers were Academy graduates who had lived under the Cadet Honor Code when it was being enforced. Cheating on a test would simply be unthinkable. And I submit that the other officers who were not Academy grads would have been positively influenced by the grads. There might still have been a small number of cheaters but certainly not a “scandal” because the influence of the honorable Academy graduates would be palpable.

Finally, as I return to what I believe is the most egregious act of dishonor in military history, the Tillman cover-up, I want to suggest that we return to strict enforcement of honor codes at our military academies. We desperately need these shining examples of officers who lived four years without ever lying, stealing, cheating, or tolerating. They may not live a completely honorable life 100% of the time after they leave the Academy but they know it is POSSIBLE to do so because they did it for four years, and that knowledge alone makes it more likely that they will strive to live honorably and that they will influence others to do so.

We need to move in that direction….now. And let us not be deterred by the fact that society in general seems to be moving in the wrong direction. Let us not use that fact as an excuse. We were trained as leaders. We should lead, not follow. Our military and the whole country needs this leadership.

When times were tough in Arizona our legislators raised some money by selling government buildings and then leasing them back. Now that the times are better many legislators would like to buy them back. I think this is a bad idea because, once they are owned by the government, it is very difficult to determine how much they are actually costing the state. If we keep them as leased properties, then the true cost is revealed in the lease payments.

Most people now realize that government licensing of occupations is not usually enacted to protect the public but rather its real purpose is to protect the regulated professions from competition so they can keep their prices up. Why not test this theory by enacting a parallel system of private certification. Then the members of the public who believe that government licensing protects them, could only use the government licensed vendors. But, members of the public who just want information about the vendors, could then make their own judgments about who to use.

Arizona Representative Warren Petersen has introduced just such a bill. It deserves consideration.

Governor Brewer has placed this issue front and center but I wonder if her special commission has the answer? How many terrible tragedies of human trafficking will we have to witness in the news before we realize that men have been paying for sex for hundreds of years and this cannot be stopped by legislation. However, we can protect the most vulnerable victims by removing the huge monetary incentive that pimps and traffickers have to recruit the girls.

Did we learn nothing from alcohol prohibition? After several years we finally realized that people will find alcohol. All prohibition did was create criminals and terrible human tragedy. Unless we want to live in an authoritarian police state, we should decriminalize consensual activities of all types. Only then can we find the real victims, offer them treatment, and protect them.