Wheaton military historian calls for support for US military dependents

"As politicians on both sides of the aisle debate the $87 billion spending request for military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, they must not forget the families of deployed soldiers, sailors, and airmen, both active duty and reserve," Wheaton College historian Anni Baker writes in an op-ed published by the Chicago Tribune.

"It's not too much to ask--after all, the U.S. government spends around $150 billion each year on subsidies to a small number of agribusinesses. Nobody seems to mind that, or the billions spent on a hundred other special interests," Baker notes. "One fact is for sure: It's in the best interest of our national security to support U.S. military personnel abroad and the families they leave behind."

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Prior to becoming a faculty member, Anni Baker was a U.S. Army dependent, living overseas on various military bases. When she returned to the United States to pursue a new life in academia, she managed to combine her real-world insights on military life and her passion for scholarship. She says she was given access to much of the information on military wives because it was understood that she would be sensitive to the issues they had faced in their overseas assignments.

Professor Baker notes how today's e-mail technology allows soldiers instant contact with friends, family members and each other. This is the first war, she explains, in which veterans will return to an America that has consumed hourly updates of events on the battlefield and beyond˜from the media, online and in many cases from the soldiers themselves who have used cell phone and Internet technology to keep in touch.

She says the recent news that overseas deployments will be extended will be especially hard on reservists and their families, but will also pose problems for regular forces and their dependents, as well.

Professor Baker states that the military has always been at the forefront of technology, but this is the first war in which civilians have wide access to the internet. The result? "The immediacy of this war is a little dangerous," she says. "Soldiers can write home with their immediate reaction to events, which of course are not considered evaluations. And it‚s not just family members that are reading this, we are all hearing it on the news. And, once it‚s on the news, it becomes the truth in people‚s minds."

"People keep forgetting that America has occupied a lot of countries in the past, including Germany and Japan. Back then, the news was filtered slowly and you only heard about things once they became a big problem." In general, she says that Americans should not use these new immediate reactions as the only basis of judging the success of what‚s going on.

Baker notes that we have active duty personnel in many other countries besides Iraq, including Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. Donald Rumsfeld, however, has said he hopes to cut down on the large numbers of active personnel and deploy smaller numbers of specially trained forces for six months to a year at a time. This is asking a lot, she says: "It‚s one thing to ask this when we‚re at war, but another after a war."

She notes that the National Guard and reservists are taking on a lot of the burden, which can create significant hardships. „What if they are a small business owner and they are deployed for a year? They can lose everything.‰ She argues that while no one forces these men and women to sign up, the government must come up with a plan to ameliorate that situation.

When asked what the military does to help soldiers and families during extended leaves, she says, "Not much." There is an Army Emergency Fund, but that is in place for all military personnel. Wives form support groups on their own, but it is nothing formally supported by the military.

In addition, soldiers need to serve for 30 years now to get pension benefits. "Contrary to popular belief, career military personnel trade in the possibility of making a lot of money in the public sector for the stability of a military career and the pension," she explains. And the military is currently offering a far worse deal from what was offered during the Cold War, according to Baker.

"They are heading for disaster," she says. "Once the economy picks up, people won‚t want to stay in. If they don‚t sweeten the pot, people will leave." Rumsfeld‚s plan, she notes, is good for the military, but bad for personnel.

Baker says we do not have enough troops in Iraq to do the jobs that need to be done. "The Pentagon should be working with the State Dept., which it‚s notΣ They‚ve done this before and should have imposed a 24-hour curfew in the first few weeks after the warΣ The problem is that the decision makers listened to the people who told them what they wanted to hear."

In contrast to prior occupations, the soldiers are carefully sequestered from the Iraqi people. "They are not having an overwhelming Americanization impact."

%%Learning from history:%%

"When a society collapses, a lot of things will not be perfect for a long time." Baker notes that in 1948, three years after WWII, the Germans were still rationed only 800 calories per day. "There was a smallpox epidemic, prostitutionΣ the soldiers were behaving very badly! But, as bizarre and disgusting as the situation was, people back home did not realize what was going on. There were no constant messages and photos like we have today." Soldiers in Iraq are behaving better than their predecessors, as all the eyes of the world are on them, she notes.

Given that the situation in Iraq is still a semi-war situation, reconstruction cannot yet begin in a normal way, Baker explains. She thinks that the U.S. should think: divide and conquer. "We are in danger of having the Iraqis uniting against us. So, we need to make sure that at least 51% of the population is happy and sees us as helping to make their life better. How do we do this? By making concrete improvements in their lives: improve quantity and quality of food, restore electricity, etc. We need to get adequate personnel in there to set up structure so these things can happen."

She thinks it was a mistake to dismantle the Iraqi army. "We should turn the army into something constructive. Now we have all these men just walking around with nothing to do. We need to use them to help improve their country."

We should also be treating the Iraqis as partners, not as conquered people or "stupid students." Looking back to history, she notes that by 1950, just five years after WWII, we treated the Germans as allies in our fight against the USSR. "The enemy today is international terrorism, so we need to create the image of the Iraqis as our partners in the fight against terrorism. It is in their interest to buy into this. We need to bring them into an alliance. It is still early for this, but we should be working on it," she says.

We did occupy a small piece of Germany even after WWI. >From this experience, a man called Col. Hunt wrote the „Hunt Report‰ in the 1920s about lessons learned from that occupation. One of the biggest problems he found was with the military restricting travel by Germans within their own country. They resented it. „Therefore, Hunt determined that restricting people‚s movement should be done only if it is absolutely necessary,‰ she says.

The Hunt Report also showed that Americans were trying to make the Germans live up to their standards. For example, Baker notes, most German farmers had big manure piles by their front doors for use on the farm. Americans thought this was disgusting and made them move the piles. Of course, this made the Germans angry. „So, we should not try to impose our standards of living onto another culture,‰ she concludes.

Prohibition played a part in the military trying to restrict alcohol drinking by the Germans after WWI. It was a moral thing, she says, noting that we are much more aware and respectful of Islamic traditions today. She does note that the treatment of women in Islamic cultures is a difficult issue, but says the military realizes that we must pull back and not impose our own values.