Drama at West Point and Colorado Springs … and Chicago

FIRST

From: Cadet Kurpiel, USAFA

Date: Thursday, 31 Oct 2002 13:16:20 –0700

Dear Sir or Ma'am,

The Air Force Academy is going to be having our annual Academy Assembly. This is a forum for mainly but not only Political Science majors, discussing very important issues dealing with politics. Right now we are in the planning stage for advertising and we would appreciate your help in the follow areas. Do you know of or have any methods or ways for interschool advertising and or communications? What would be the best way for us to advertise at your school whether it is sending you the fliers and you making copies or by perhaps putting an advertisement in your local publication? We would appreciate your input and the cost of what you recommend. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Very Respectfully

Cadet Kurpiel, USAFA

SECOND

From: Peter Kirstein

Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 1:46 PM

To: Cadet Kurpiel, USAFA

Subject: Re: Academy Assembly

You are a disgrace to this country and I am furious you would even think I would support you and your aggressive baby killing tactics of collateral damage. Help you recruit. Who, top guns to reign death and destruction upon nonwhite peoples throughout the world? Are you serious sir?  Resign your commission and serve your country with honour.  No war, no air force cowards who bomb countries without AAA, without possibility of retaliation. You are worse than the snipers. You are imperialists who are turning the whole damn world against us.  September 11 can be blamed in part for what you and your cohorts have done to the Palestinians, the VC, the Serbs, a retreating army at Basra.  You are unworthy of my support.

Peter N Kirstein

Professor of History-

Saint Xavier University

http://www.sxu.edu/academ/artsci/history/pkirstein/

Third

From:  Cadet Nathan Strickland, USMA

To: Professor Peter Kirstein

Date: November [?] 2002

Subject:  Civil-Military relations

Sir,

I am writing to you in regards to your recent email sent to a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy. The purpose of my message is not to attack you or your beliefs, but rather to articulate my beliefs as a future officer on the proper role of the military.  After reading your email I get the impression that it was a rather hasty and emotional reply; therefore I have the significant advantage of being able to polish my work before presenting it to you.  In light of that, I will try my best to take your statements at face value and not leap to conclusions.  I apologize in advance for any potential offense you may take to this correspondence.  I assure you that it comes not from a personal dislike of you or your views, but rather a deep conviction in my own beliefs.

I think there is a common misconception in the view of the military as a homogenous ideological block.  It would be just as egregious an error to label everyone on the political spectrum from Bill Clinton to Marx as being "the Left", as if moderate Democrats and Maoists alike spoke with one harmonious political voice.  The key difference lies within the vast gulf between the realities of political culture and professional military culture.  Whereas any common citizen may voice a pointed individual opinion on any matter under the sun, the professional military purposely keeps its head down and out of the political mainstream.

I would pause to note that there is a distinct difference between the professional military and quasi-military groups, though the two are often unfairly lumped together when people speak of the military.  A technical sergeant or chief petty officer has spent years working a routine, training with equipment, and fully appreciating the depth and breadth of the American military mindset.  I seriously doubt that the paramilitaries in Serbia, Algeria, Colombia, or dozens of other countries can be held accountable for their actions.  Although it has been quipped that "Military justice is to justice as military music as to music", the fact remains that we are kept in check by a robust internal policing network and ultimately Congressional oversight.

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn claimed in their book China Wakes that the bane of the Third World is the rule of man rather than the rule of law.  This is the keystone of American Civil-Military relations.  The Founding Fathers realized in centuries past that a politicized military is the greatest potential danger to civil liberty.  The ideals which you alluded to in your email to the Air Force cadet are not alien to me, nor are they held only by a small part of society.  It is indeed tragic that American foreign policy has harmed many developing states in the Third World.  It may very well be that there is a Third Way by which the United States could thrive and create an international coalition to support underdeveloped places around the globe.  I would submit to you, however, that for the US military to defy the law which binds it to our elected officials would be the death knell of the Republic.

I do not wish to trivialize your views, but even you must realize that there are other intellectuals out there, many quite respected, who disagree with your beliefs.  Indeed, even the disciples of Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, all great men who preached peace and unity, have found causes to factionalize and shed blood.  Perhaps if the military broke ties entirely with the government and followed the foreign policy of the academics, we could embrace a new age of peace and understanding without war.  But what about the people who did not share in that dream?

Could we allow them to become a marginalized fringe of society, or would we have to force them into accepting the vision of the best and brightest?  A military adrift is the scalpel used by despots to dissect the corpse of a state.  Mao's China may have had a great vision in 1949, but 30 million starved peasants later some may question the wisdom of letting the political scholars wield absolute control.

If you have not read Chris Hedges' latest book, then I urge you to do so.  I believe you will find much to agree with in it.  However, you must understand that the military, however an imperfect tool for maintaining freedom, is a necessity.  Even Japan, whose constitution calls for the state to put its defense in the goodwill of the nations world, maintains a 200,000 personnel force and spends billions annually on military hardware.  In Homeric terms, the military is the Scylla by which Odyssesus must pass on his journey towards home and freedom.  The Charybdis of the modern state is the anarchy of ultra-nationalism and demagoguery.

In your response to the Air Force cadet you mentioned the bombing of the Serbs.  It pains me and my comrades in arms that you would compare the same military that rebuilt Germany and Japan into modern states with the paramilitary bandits who hid behind false nationalist ambitions in their rape and desolation of two consecutive Muslim neighbors.  It may seem terribly un-sportsman-like to bomb the retreating Iraqi columns in their flight from Kuwait City.  I wish that we had bombed more thoroughly, so that those Republican Guard units that escaped would not be able to later, as Hedges' writes, mass murder Kurds and then pour concrete over their graves.  If it is impossible to convince you that we are the good guys, then at least realize that the tyrants out there are the worse guys.

You say that my comrade at the Air Force Academy is not worthy of your support.  I wish you to fully understand, sir, that you are worthy of my support and the support of all of my peers.  We will lay in muddy fields bleeding, come crashing down from the sky in flames, and endure watery graves in unknown places so that you may wake up in the morning free and never even consider that a foreign power or militant domestic rival may be burning down your house or sacking Chicago.  The hallmark of professionalism is being able to work well with the very people who hate you.  We are ready to defend you to the last breath Mr. Kirstein.

If the thought of people wielding weapons in your defense sickens you, then I apologize.  If you are appalled that the elected government is allowed to use an unbiased military as a last diplomatic option, then I am sorry.  But never forget that it was Washington, not Jefferson, who created the nation.  Never forget that it was Grant, not Vallandingham, who preserved the Union.  Never forget that it was Eisenhower and the millions of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines that toppled the threat of fascism.  Wherever there is a dream, there has to be someone willing to make a sacrifice in order to create a reality.

History may judge us harshly for doing too much, but I believe that is a thousand times better than it damning us for doing nothing.

And with that, sir, I respectfully disagree with you.

Cadet Nathan Strickland, West Point, NY

Fourth

The President of Xavier University responds to the controversy:

http://www.sxu.edu/ilinks/response.htm

Fifth

Professor Kirstein responds with “regret” and a rebuke of CDT Kurpiel:

http://www.sxu.edu/academ/artsci/history/pkirstein/nov7.html

Sixth

The Denouement:  President of Xavier University suspends Professor Kirstein:

http://www.sxu.edu/news/kirstein_statement.htm