y military officers a
defensive attitude toward their own profession which has no practical
relation to the strength of the ground on which they are enabled to
stand. Toward any unfair and flippant criticism of the "military mind"
they react with resentment, instead of with buoyant proof that their
own minds are more plastic and more receptive to national ideals than
those of any other profession. Where they should approach all problems
of the national security with the zeal of the missionary, seeking and
giving light, they treat this subject as if it were a private game
preserve.

It suffices to say of this minority that they are a barnacle on the
hull of an otherwise staunch vessel. From such limited concepts of
personal responsibility, there can not fail to develop a foreshortened
view of the dignity of the task at hand. The note of apology is
injected at the wrong time; the tone of belligerency is used when it
serves no purpose. When someone arises within the halls of government
to say that the military establishment is "uneconomic" because it cuts
no bricks, bales no hay and produces nothing which can be vended in
the market places, it is not unusual to hear some military men concur
in this strange notion. That acquiescence is wholly unbecoming.

The physician is not slurred as belonging to a nonproductive
profession because he contributes only to the care and healing of the
body, and through these things to the general well-being of society.
Respect for formal education, organized religion and all of the
enterprises built up around the dissemination of ideas is not the less
because the resultant benefit to society is not always tangible and
saleable. Hence to say that that without which society could not
endure in its present form is "uneconomic" is to make the word itself
altogether meaningless.

In that inner power of courage and conviction which stems from the
spiritual integrity of the individual, lies the strength of democracy.
As to their ability to produce toward these ends, the military
services can stand on the record. When shortly after World War II, a
census was taken among the returned men, 60 percent said that they had
been _morally strengthened_ by their military service in the American
uniform. About 30 percent had no opinion or felt that military life
had not changed them one way or the other. An insignificant minority
considered themselves damaged. This is an amazing testimony in light
of the