Is the Army a Welfare State?

Throughout the training of an Army officer, emphasis is placed on understanding the conflict between freedom and Communism. The young West Point cadet, ROTC student or OCS candidate is given short indoctrination lectures on the difference between the two systems—lectures which vary in intensity, coherence and clarity depending on the current attitude in Washington toward the Communist empire. At times of bridge-building and easing of East-West tensions, the lectures become noticeably shorter and more vague, but even at their worst, these classes manage to impart the idea that our enemy lives under a system that is based on collectivism. After learning this, the young officer spends several years in the most socialistic organization in America—the U.S. Army.

The result is that the officer (or, for that matter, the enlisted man) and his family become conditioned to economic irresponsibility and abject dependence, while the Army, an organization dedicated to the defense of the American system, becomes hopelessly and expensively entangled in the bureaucratic web of a welfare state. It is true that the Army has a mission to which some of the independence and individualism of its members must be sacrificed. But that discipline need only affect on-duty activity, not the soldier’s home life.

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Robert Altmeyer

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Department of Defense

Throughout the training of an Army officer, emphasis is placed on understanding the conflict between freedom and Communism. The young West Point cadet, ROTC student or OCS candidate is given short indoctrination lectures on the difference between the two systems—lectures which vary in intensity, coherence and clarity depending on the current attitude in Washington toward the Communist empire. At times of bridge-building and easing of East-West tensions, the lectures become noticeably shorter and more vague, but even at their worst, these classes manage to impart the idea that our enemy lives under a system that is based on collectivism. After learning this, the young officer spends several years in the most socialistic organization in America—the U.S. Army.

The result is that the officer (or, for that matter, the enlisted man) and his family become conditioned to economic irresponsibility and abject dependence, while the Army, an organization dedicated to the defense of the American system, becomes hopelessly and expensively entangled in the bureaucratic web of a welfare state. It is true that the Army has a mission to which some of the independence and individualism of its members must be sacrificed. But that discipline need only affect on-duty activity, not the soldier’s home life.