(At left in the above Air Force image, the workhorse of the Pacific War, the B-29, is posed with the B-36 Convair Peacemaker just after the establishment of the United States Air Force in 1948).

I walked with some determination from the bunkhouse down to the Loading Dock at the farm to grab a Marlboro with the Writers Section before the week got underway in earnest. The crowd was a little thin, with the varying ravages of age. The Interns were there, perhaps a bit puffy around the eyes, but with clear skin refreshed by unbroken sleep. Some of the Salts were in a more ambiguous state since none of them actually sleep through the night any longer. Depending on where they are in the cyclic sleeping period between trips to the head, some had returned to somnolence and others just muttered and staggered out for caffeine.

“Did you see what they published from Arrias this morning?” asked DeMille, the only one in the circle who appeared balanced and alert. There was some assorted mumbling in response. Only one made much sense, and it was Loma. He swing his burly torso toward the nearest Intern and asked for a copy of the 1947 National Security Act.

That was unusual. There is occasional discourse over later developments in the Defense Department, mostly about the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of October 4, 1986. The Interns were of course still in early elementary school at that time, but everyone else in the circle had lived through the overhaul that changed military careers. No one has mentioned the events of 1947 in a while, an unfortunate occurrence since the people we knew who had lived through that experience had departed the circle years ago.

Producing the document was no problem, since it has been digitized and can be displayed on any hand-held device, though legibility leaves something to be desired. Rocket waved his Android in the air, triumphant that at least some of his digits still worked. “Where do you want to start?”

“Please keep it simple,” I said. “It is too early to be smart.”

DeMille smiled. “It is simple, really. We talked about the Constitutional basis for the establishment of the War and Navy Departments last week. A Navy was intended to do necessary things on the world ocean. It had an additional mission with the Marine Corps to go far away and punish people like the Pirates of the Barbary Coast. The War Department was supposed to be responsible for raising an Army to conduct War, which was considered a matter of national obligation.”

“We raised an Army anyway and kept it around to do things the people in Washington felt necessary,” said Loma. “It probably should have been done properly with an Amendment after the War of 1812, not just a public law more than a century later. But having concluded a major role in the biggest conflict in human affairs in 1945, they decided to update things and make it relevant to the situation as they saw it then.”

“Yeah. We actually ran two wars in the Pacific, one Navy and the other run by the War Department. The 1947 Act cleaned that up, and placed Army and Navy under a single unified command. The Secretary of Defense replaced two Secretaries in the Cabinet.”

“Stop it. We are having locally grown oatmeal for breakfast this morning. That is about as much jointness as we ought to be able to endure for a Monday. And don’t start on the Air Force. I have Mighty Eighth people in the family, the most courageous group of people who went overseas.”

DeMille was not going to let an educational opportunity pass. “The Revolt of the Admirals helped refine a flawed idea. The use of the A-Bomb settled the war, and the 1947 Act established nuclear deterrence by the new Air Force as the primary means to defend the Homeland.”

Loma was clearly irritated in ancient history this early in a new week. “Yeah, and we got the awful start to the Korean War.”

“It is easy to sum it up that way,” said DeMille, and he took on his more professorial stance, being mostly awake. “But it was more complex. The Cold War was becoming the focus for both Foreign Policy and Military capability. There was a huge fight as President Truman and his new Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson were determined to cut the defense budget. There was competition between the Navy’s plan for a new class of aircraft carriers and the Air Force decision to roll out a new heavy bomber, the B-36 Peacemaker. It was the biggest piston-engine powered aircraft ever built, and strategic nuclear response was supposed to establish a new means of deterrence that minimized the need for ground and sea-based forces.”

“And then the North Koreans came south and almost threw us off the Peninsula.”

“There was another fight going on at the time. The one at home was pretty intense, too. The Navy wanted a role in nuclear weapons which was opposed by the new Air Force, which was of course composed mostly of former Army Air Corps guys.”

“And deep cuts to the Navy budget. Which led directly to a fight over civilian control of the Armed Forces, which essentially was a Constitutional issue, not one in Congress.”

“And boots on the ground is what brought an armistice in Korea, which still doesn’t have a peace treaty almost seventy years later.”

“You have clearly been indoctrinated by your mandated Goldwater-Nichols joint warfare training. But the simple fact is that a change in technology doesn’t change how things work. Same deal today. We appear to be headed down a social road that has nothing to do with defense, or even fighting. It is a road paved with good intentions and leading you know where.”

Loma pitched a mostly-burned Marlboro at the rock pile in the middle of the circle where it smoldered unchecked. “I go with the old saying. The Department of War never lost one. The Department of Defense never won one.”

“What about Desert Storm? We kicked Saddam’s butt.”

“That wasn’t a war with capital letters or numbers.”

DeMille held out his mug for more coffee. “I will check the DoD regulation on that, and whether they are authorized to carve that on your tombstone.”

There was a moment of silence in the circle. Crickets whined. Birds chirped nearby, and something large flitted across the orange of the rising solar disc. Then there was laughter. That is one of the things not mandated or prohibited under pandemic requirements.

Truth be told, we think that is sort of funny, too.

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com