Nation: Humanizing the U.S. Military

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appetite at mess. Says the superintendent of West Point, Major General William A. Knowlton: "It has always been our experience that disciplined units suffer fewer casualties than slovenly ones. 'Dirty Dozen' outfits exist only in the movies."

Freedom and Responsibility

Indeed, Military Historian and Columnist S.L.A. Marshall contends that the U.S. Army is taking the same relaxed route as did the French Army of Marshal Petain that he visited in 1937−and that proved so ineffective in World War II. "Once you deviate from the sanctity of an order, you're in trouble," he warns. "And we are right on the ragged edge of reducing discipline to the point of danger."

But Knowlton is the first to admit that there has always been something unique in the attitudes of Americans in arms. It was noticed, he says, by the Prussian Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a military adviser to Washington's army: "When he was at Valley Forge, Von Steuben observed that you cannot just tell an American soldier what to do, you always have to tell him why."

Whether Zumwalt and his like-minded colleagues in the other services can indeed create a military force that is happy behind the lines and fully effective in combat remains to be seen. Given the current low esteem of the military in much of the nation, they have very little choice but to move in the directions they have chosen. Like so many parts of the American historical experience, this movement, too, is an experiment−risky, unprecedented, but rich with promise. If the U.S. military can significantly reform itself, there is no reason why other less rigid and authoritarian American institutions in Government, education and business cannot succeed as well.

Military men are fond of observing that their institutions only mirror those of the society at large. That is another way of saying that nations tend to get the armies and navies that they want or deserve. Zumwalt's bet is that in the armed forces or out, freedom and responsibility are not incompatible−that men treated less like children in the service of their country will, if called upon, prove the equal of their predecessors as fighting men.

-They have four children: Elmo, 24, who resigned his naval commission when his father became C.N.O. and is now studying law at the University of North Carolina; James, 22, a Navy ensign; Ann, 16; and Mouza, 12.