When military issues are politicized on the left and the right, being a military family sometimes feels akin to being a child caught between divorced parents. In the last few months, after debates over NFL players kneeling during the national anthem and, more recently, anger over President Donald Trump’s handling of a phone call to military widow Myeshia Johnson, military families have certainly had their share of this. Each side thinks they know what military families want and how they feel, and this “knowledge” is used as a political tool.
Among some military families (although certainly not all; more on this in a minute), this is why Gen. John Kelly, President Trump’s chief of staff and a retired four-star general, seemed like the perfect choice to clear up any confusion at a news conference on Thursday. After all, if anyone understands military families from all angles, it should be a career officer like Kelly who has also lost a son.
Kelly’s emotional speech in front of the media received immediate applause from many military families, including myself, on social media. But Kelly’s speech also garnered immediate criticism from civilians, especially journalists — again, including myself. This is because the controversy over Trump’s fumbled phone call says as much about the divide between military members and civilians, as noted in Thomas Gibbons-Neff’s New York Times article, as it does about the difference between military service members and their families, and, certainly, the difference between the way the military works and the way journalists operate.
Perhaps the biggest criticism Kelly faced was from the media, who objected to his unwillingness to accept questions from anyone not associated with Gold Star families, even after he had just mentioned how little civilians understand. Shouldn’t they be the ones who are allowed to ask questions then?
As a journalism instructor at local universities, I shared those concerns, especially after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders warned reporters the next day that debating a “four-star Marine general … is something highly inappropriate.” Leaving aside the fact that at the news conference Kelly was serving as the administration’s chief of staff, not a uniformed general, democracy is based in part on a free and independent media being able to question anyone in the government — even those, to use a military phrase, further up the chain of command.
Conversely, there is an old joke in the military that service members are protecting democracy, not practicing it. Unlike our government, military order is built upon not asking questions of your superiors. So it’s easy to see how Gen. Kelly might have slipped into old habits (even though he was speaking as a civilian, not a military leader), but Sanders, as a communication specialist, shouldn’t have.
Kelly also faced criticism after he revealed that he himself instructed President Trump to use the phrase “he knew what he was getting into” when the president spoke to Johnson after the death of her husband. According to Kelly, it was a statement that had comforted him after the loss of his son. This is such a typical military style of thinking, by the way: “Well, that worked once. Let’s just use it again. And again.”
The problem, however, is that Kelly was an active-duty military father receiving the news from one of his peers in uniform. The same approach, obviously, does not work for a grieving widow who has young children.
However, despite all the back-and-forth in the media, this idea that “he knew what he was getting into” is what stayed with me the most this weekend. It’s something that military families hear often, not just after a death, and now it’s the central piece of a national debate. Do service members know what they are getting into? Does anyone ever know what they are getting into — for anything?
Over the last few days, this question, as it relates to military service, has been argued both ways: No one ever knows what they are getting into (at least, they certainly don’t expect to die), or, yes, service members know what they are getting into (they aren’t victims), and that’s what makes their service so special. Related: If service members don’t know the realities of what they are getting into, why is that?
I regret that this conversation was spurred by the death of a soldier, but I’m glad that the public in general is fully considering these nuances of service, as complicated as they might be. Likewise, I’m glad that we are thinking about what the media mean to democracy. These conversations are never easy or simple, but I like to believe they are always moving us forward to something better.
Maine writer and columnist Sarah Smiley’s column is syndicated and appears weekly in publications across the country. She may be reached at facebook.com/Sarah.is.Smiley.