Transparency could unite civilians, military

When I raised my right hand, I trusted my leaders to be transparent and honest.

Now, as a father of someone who’s serving, I expect it even more.

This Veterans Day was different for me. Besides pandemic-induced parade and ceremony cancellations, the holiday marked two milestones for my family.

This was the first Veterans Day in uniform for our daughter, Carlee, who enlisted in the Coast Guard in July and started a journey to the Coast Guard Academy via the Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, R.I.

It was also the first in 24 years — more than half my life — that I was not in the Air Force. I retired as a lieutenant colonel in May from Joint Base San Antonio and transitioned into a new path of writing and journalism. For most of my career I worked as a public affairs officer, helping tell the military’s story, and now I’m experiencing life on the other side of the notepad.

Veterans Day is a time to celebrate service, and today’s volunteers have raised their right hands in a chaotic period. The decision to serve is an act of selflessness and sacrifice that most don’t fully consider until well after they’ve taken the oath.

The world was different in

1996 when I left home for the Air Force Academy. With operations in the Balkans wrapping up and Iraq no-fly zones droning along, we were not a nation at war and the prospect of a “forever war” was hardly a concern.

9/11 changed that.

While teaching English at the Air Force Academy during the Iraq and Afghanistan surges, I told cadets how I respected their decision to serve in the midst of two wars.

We should have the same reverence for those who’ve joined today, during a pandemic against the backdrop of a divided nation that’s still at war.

When Carlee left, there were — and still are — many unknowns. I’ve been impressed with her unit’s leadership, which has navigated the pandemic while balancing people’s needs and safety with their mission.

As the institution fights the virus with a bubble model, the class has endured two 14-day periods of 23-hour-a-day dorm room restrictions. At times, they’ve had limited food or only Meals Ready to Eat, or MREs. Classes have wobbled from inperson to virtual and back. Holiday leave schedules remain in flux, and until recently they couldn’t leave the base.

Several parents have said this adversity is good and it’s not as hard as a deployment or combat. While that may be true, we can’t discount the hardships.

Unfortunately, the Department of Defense has hidden from public view some realities of the COVID-19 fight, most notably installation case rates. The Pentagon releases consolidated numbers, and as of Monday, nearly 92,000 DOD people — military, civilian, dependents and contractors — have tested positive.

It’s the latest in a subtle slide toward opaqueness that I noticed during my time in the military. Leaders increasingly rely on classification and operational security as reasons to veil information, and while much of that is legitimate, there’s also a tendency toward overclassification and baseless secrecy.

I recall the public affairs guidance for media embeds during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which said: “The standard for release of information should be to ask ‘why not release’ vice ‘why release.’ Decisions should be made ASAP, preferably in minutes, not hours.”

I fear we’ve retreated from that position.

With fewer than one-half of 1 percent of Americans currently serving, according to DOD, there’s an ever-growing civilianmilitary divide. They also noted that only 27 percent of today’s youth can name all five services.

Shielding citizens from military endeavors does not help bridge the gap. The Pentagon continues to turn down the volume of its communications on operations, and, if the public doesn’t maintain the conversation, it gets easier for the military to say less.

There are many examples. The Defense Department canceled weekly press conferences for 15 months. The Air Force stopped monthly reports on airstrikes. The Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said most data on “success or failure” in Afghanistan “is now classified or nonexistent.” There’s little accounting of how many Americans are serving in war zones. The military reported 3,000 in Iraq and 8,000 in Afghanistan, but the figures are misleading because untold numbers travel in and out on temporary duty.

If the services aren’t forthright on basic information, how can we trust them to grapple with more insidious problems of sexual assault, mental health, dignity and respect, diversity and inclusion or a global pandemic?

When I raised my right hand, I trusted my leaders to be transparent and honest. Now, as a father of someone who’s serving, I expect it even more.

While we did not have parades and ceremonies this year, we can always listen to what our vets and those still in uniform have to say.

We don’t need the military’s official perspective on their stories, we just need to listen.

File photo U.S. soldiers search a house near Mushara, Iraq, in 2007. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the guidance for disclosing information urged that decisions be made “preferably in minutes, not hours.” The military has retreated from that position.