d services in their relation to the development of the American
system. Criticism from the outside is essential to service well-being,
for as Confucius said, oftentimes men in the game are blind to what
the lookers on see clearly.

The value of any officer's opinion of any military question can never
be any greater than the extent and accuracy of his information. His
ability to dispose public thought favorably toward the service will
depend upon the wisdom of his words rather than upon his military rank
and other credentials. A false idea will come upon a bad fate even
though it has the backing of the highest authority.

Only men of informed mind and unprejudiced expression can strengthen
the claim of the services on the affections of the American people.

This is, of itself, a major objective for the officer corps, since our
public has little studious interest in military affairs, tends ever to
discount the vitality of the military role in the progress and
prosperity of the nation and regards the security problem as one of
the less pleasant and abnormal burdens on an otherwise orderly
existence.

It is an explicable contradiction of the American birthright that to
some of our people the military establishment is at best a necessary
evil, and military service is an extraordinary hardship rather than an
inherent obligation. Yet these illusions are rooted deep in the
American tradition, though it is a fact to be noted not without hope
that we are growing wiser as we move along. In the years which
followed the American Revolution, the new union of States tried to
eliminate military forces altogether. There was vast confusion of
thought as to what freedom required for its own survival. Thomas
Jefferson, one of the great architects of democracy, and still
renowned for his "isolationist" sentiments, wrote the warning: "We
must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make
military instruction a regular part of collegiate education. We can
never be safe until this is done."

None the less, the hour came when the standing Army was reduced to 80
men. None the less, the quaint notion has survived that an enlightened
interest in military affairs is somehow undemocratic. And none the
less, recurring war has invariably found the United States
inadequately prepared for the defense of its own territory.

Because there has been a holdover of these mistaken sentiments right
down to the present, there persists in man