Why Can’t the Next Secretary of the Army be a Veteran?

Why Can’t the Next Secretary of the Army be a Veteran?

Why Can’t the Next Secretary of the Army be a Veteran?

RP Members there have been a few posts about the new Secretary of the Army, but why can't he be a veteran?
If it weren’t for the large sample size, you would think that the results of the Military Times survey of troop morale couldn’t possibly have been accurate. Released last December, the numbers were brutal. In response to the statement, “The senior military leadership has my best interests at heart,” only 27% agreed, down from 53% in a previous survey conducted in 2009. As for, “Overall officers in the military are good or excellent,” only 49% agreed, down from 78% in the 2009 survey. Agreement with, “Overall my quality of life is good or excellent,” dropped from 91% agreement in 2009 to 56% in 2014, and President Obama’s personal approval rating was an eye-catching 15%.

By anyone’s standard, these numbers should have constituted an alarm for senior defense policymakers, suggesting that whatever they were doing, they should probably try the opposite. So it is disheartening, and even a little stunning, to see the news confirmed in recent days that the president is nominating Eric Fanning, a Washington insider and defense bureaucrat who has never spent a single day in uniform, to be the next secretary of the Army.

The military is of course led by civilians, and there is no statutory requirement that the service secretaries or other senior officials be veterans—and that’s fine. Indeed, Fanning replaces John McHugh in the office, another non-veteran and a career politician among whose signature accomplishments as a congressman was being named one of Capitol Hill’s “50 Most Beautiful People” in 2006. The survey provided some indication of the troops’ opinions of his work. Indeed, since Ash Carter’s appointment as secretary of Defense in February, members of the United States Army have had a civilian chain of command, from McHugh through the president, composed entirely of men who have never put on a uniform for their country. Hagel, Panetta, and Gates had all served.