Quote Originally Posted by Presley Cannady View Post
In other words, since the dawn of the large standing force.
I cited an era with which I was familiar. Our large wars -- all the big foreign efforts -- created an expansion of the forces and politically inclined civilians cam in service in large numbers. As they departed, post war, the apolitical tone reasserted. That's true from the Revolution forward.
Why? American governance survived five generals before Lincoln, a century and a half's worth of an extraordinarily politicized officer corps, and Teddy Roosevelt.
All Militia Generals except Taylor with Harrison as a mixed bag. I disagree on a politicized Officer Corps though acknowledge it was from time to time a bit though not ever "extraordinarily." No matter that, we can disagree. On TR, survived is a good word -- the guy did a lot of damage but he was NOT an Army person; he was a politician who decided it would be advantageous to serve. Lot of that going around, see Kerry, J.[/quote]To that end, I doubt the cult of the apolitical officer exists for the benefit of the country at large. A case might be made on the grounds of professionalism: that an incestuous degree of closeness between the officer corps and the civilian paymaster breeds a corruption of sorts. On the other hand, there are so many other vectors of corruption it's near impossible to peg down the damage due to simple patronage.[/QUOTE]We can also disagree on that. Though I'll admit my bias in regard to the topic -- I think both US political parties are venal, self serving and not of help to the Nation -- therefor IMO, anyone who willingly associated with either of them (or most other organized political aggregations) is suspect to me. YMMV.

The advantage I see to the nominally apolitical approach is that is that most Serving military personnel take their oath to the Constitution quite seriously. My observation is that very few Politicians who swear almost the same oath to the same Constitution take their oaths at all seriously.

That seriousness accorded the oath makes the possibility of a Coup highly unlikely in this country, a reason a good many politicians supported the idea of apolitical military folks -- until W. Wilson and Harry Truman decide to push people in the service to register and vote -- for them...

I'd also note that I do not object one bit to Serving persons having political belief and supporting a party or person so long as they in no way transmit their beliefs to subordinates. Nor do I see a problem with former or retired military people being political or being in office. Just don't do it in your War Suit...